Localism Bill

My Lords, localism and the Localism Bill present many opportunities for people of all backgrounds and all ages to be involved in local decision-making and developing their neighbourhoods. I declare an interest as heading up a think tank, ILC-UK, which looks at the impact of demographic change on all our lives. Some of the research ILC-UK carried out showed that opportunities in the Bill may benefit only those who already enjoy an advantageous position in society and may not adequately protect and demonstrate the needs of those who are marginalised, particularly older people. Given that much of the development of new homes and communities is going to depend on neighbourhood development plans, which will be voted in by the local population, there is a danger that these plans may not adequately reflect the needs and wishes of marginalised groups in the local population. Amendment 148 therefore seeks to strengthen the requirement for local authorities to produce adequate assessments of the housing needs of their local population. If they are to do this, it is essential that they have robust social and demographic data—they are certainly not going to make informed decisions about future housing provision without those data. Section 13 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 lists what councils should look for when producing housing need assessments. It states that an authority must keep under review matters that are likely, "““to affect the development of their area or the planning of its development””," including, "““the size, composition and distribution of the population of the area””." However, this piece of legislation has had very limited impact—indeed, in some cases it has sadly been completely ignored. One example of the failure to assess adequately the demand for new homes at a local level relates to the housing needs of older people. I will quote two examples that were outlined in a recent report by the National Housing Federation. The Audit Commission’s review in 2010 of a sample of 112 local authorities’ financial plans showed that only 10 per cent made any estimate of the financial impact of provision for increasing numbers of older people despite a rapidly ageing population, as I think everyone will acknowledge. In October 2010, the National Housing Federation surveyed local councils on older people’s housing strategies—153 councils responded to the survey but 32 per cent of them had neither a strategy nor plans to develop one. This is partly because in many cases local councils do not include in their plans the need for retirement housing, even though the ageing population is rapidly expanding. Certainly the largest provider of retirement accommodation in the country, McCarthy and Stone, believes that is the case. Fulfilling the need for retirement housing would be a very good way of getting underused housing vacated for the use of the younger generations who are having great difficulty in getting on the housing ladder, but in order to do that we have to provide specialist housing for older people. Localism will rely on the correct evidence base being in place, so it is essential that councils are required to produce those data. Without strong guidance provided by central government, the examples quoted here show that local authorities will continue to struggle to produce robust housing needs data. Amendment 148 seeks to address that problem. I beg to move.