My Lords, I shall say a few words in support of the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, which I signed with some enthusiasm, and by the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross.
Looking back over the past 40 years during which I have been involved in housing issues, it seems that the drive and impetus to provide adequate housing for disabled people across a range of level of disabilities, together with the drive to provide better housing for older people, has faltered. As part of the current wish of people across the political spectrum to have more houses built, simply building them has a higher priority than what kind and quality of houses are built. That is something which I read right through this Bill. I hope that I am wrong, but that is how I read it.
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A long time ago, in the late 1970s, when I was chairman of the local housing committee, one thing that we did year after year was build a small number of properties for disabled people. Those properties are still there and people are still benefiting from them. However, such properties are no longer being built. As more and more people live longer and longer, more people become disabled. It will happen to most of us at some stage in our lives. However, it seems that we cannot look ahead and plan for it. As far as housing for older people is concerned, as a society we still have not found ways of providing good endings to the lives of many people. We know how to do it in many cases, as in the examples mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross. We know what to do and what kind of provision should be made, but it is simply not a priority. We should all be very ashamed of that. Many of us may suffer at the end of our lives as a result, if the experience of our final years is not as good as it could be, although we do not know whether that will be the case. Housing is crucial to this. Both these amendments are worthy, particularly that of the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, as it would place a duty on local authorities to look at this matter and consider it in all their planning policies for new housing. That is critical.