Government finally set to act on housing accessibility standards

The government is finally taking further steps towards introducing laws that would set a higher standard of accessibility for nearly all new homes in England.

The government promised in July 2022 that it would consult on new rules that would force all new homes to be built to the M4(2)* standard of accessibility, except for cases where this was “impractical and unachievable”.

An earlier consultation on raising accessibility standards had ended in December 2020, but when ministers finally responded, in July 2022, they announced this further consultation on the detail of the changes.

Housing minister Felicity Buchan (pictured) finally confirmed on Monday that the second consultation would go ahead in the next few months, as she was questioned by the Commons levelling up, housing and communities committee in the final evidence session of its inquiry on housing for disabled people.

She said the government had decided there needed to be this second “technical” consultation to decide on the detail of the changes and “any exceptions to the rule”.

Philip White, director of the new Building Safety Regulator, which will be carrying out the consultation, said the 12-week technical consultation would be launched “between April and July” this year.

Buchan repeatedly told the committee that the government believed that decisions on how many accessible homes should be built should be taken by local authorities, including whether there should be a minimum of 10 per cent of new homes to be built to the M4(3) wheelchair-accessible standard.

She told the committee: “We don’t think it’s appropriate for central government to be setting those thresholds.

“It should be local housing need, local delivery plans for local people.”

Buchan said she didn’t have any figures “to hand” on how many accessible homes were being built.

Labour’s Ian Byrne said the evidence received during the committee’s inquiry was that there was “no confidence within the people that we interviewed” that leaving decisions to local authorities would produce significant numbers of wheelchair-accessible homes.

He asked if the government needed to “take a lead on this and make sure that that 10 per cent actually becomes a figure that can be achievable”.

Buchan suggested that when the government introduced M4(2) as a “base” level, it would provide “more time and resources for people to think about M4(3)” but that ministers wanted local authorities “to figure out what percentage of M4(3) they think is appropriate”.

Labour’s Nadia Whittome asked Buchan about evidence from disabled people that private sector landlords were refusing permission for tenants to make “even the most basic accessible adaptations, like installing a ramp or grab rails”.

Buchan said such permission should “not be unreasonably withheld” if it was an adaptation that “does not affect the structure of the fabric of the house”.

But Whittome said that a review commissioned by the government found only eight per cent of disabled facilities grants (DFGs) applications were from private tenants, even though about 19 per cent of disabled people lived in the private rented sector.

Buchan said this was one of the reasons the government was planning to abolish section 21 “no fault” evictions through its renters (reform) bill “so that people can ask for adaptations and those cannot be unreasonably refused”.

Whittome also told the minister that the number of social homes being built was falling under the government, with – last year – 22,000 social homes sold or demolished, and just 9,500 new ones built, with a net loss of more than 175,000 over the last 10 years.

And she said Disability Rights UK had told the committee that it did not matter how many accessible homes existed, if disabled people – who were more likely to be on low incomes –could not afford to live in them.

Whittome said the government did not have any targets for building new social housing.

She added: “Is that because you’re just not building very many?”

Buchan said the government had committed to build more social housing, but Whittome told her: “You have no target for building social homes and in the last year, which is consistent with the last 10 years, there has been a net loss of social homes.”

Conservative MP Mary Robinson had told Buchan earlier that hundreds of disabled people had engaged with the committee’s inquiry through a survey, a roundtable event and by providing written evidence, and there had been “unanimous agreement that we must build more accessible new-build homes”.

Conservative MP Tom Hunt questioned why the DFG system should be means-tested.

He said that many disabled people the committee had met felt they were “cut off from any kind of support” because they were earning too much to qualify for a DFG and were paying “a real big financial penalty” for having a physical impairment.

He said that “many people would see that there’s a sense of unfairness to that”.

He said: “I just think that many will feel… why should they have to pay for something which is completely not their fault… so I think some might ask… how is it any different from, say, access to health services?”

He added: “I couldn’t help but be moved by the conversations that I had, and I think other people on the committee feel the same way.”

Buchan said the government had spent £220 million on DFGs in 2015 which had now risen to £625 million a year, while 91 per cent of DFGs awarded were for less than £15,000.

She said: “It is a balance and clearly the reason that it is means-tested is that if someone really can pay then it’s appropriate that they should pay but it is getting that balance right and it’s making sure that we can use the money as effectively as possible because we want to be using the £625 million pounds as broadly and as effectively as we can.”

She added later: “We could certainly have a philosophical discussion on means-testing.

“All I want to say is that I’m in tremendous awe of disabled people and what they do and that’s why I do want housing that is accessible, we do want to help people with adapting properties.

“That’s the reason why we’ve got the grant, but I’m very much so looking forward to reading the committee’s report.”

Labour’s Mohammad Yasin asked why the government had not acted on a 2018 independent review of DFGs, which it commissioned and which recommended that the upper limit for DFGs, currently set at £30,000 in England, should rise with inflation.

He said the government had promised more than two years ago to consult on increasing the upper limit, as reported by Disability News Service last summer, but that it had so far failed to do so.

Buchan did not explain why the government had failed to meet that pledge, but she said local authorities had “flexibility” to increase the £30,000 limit in their own areas.

She also failed to explain why the government had failed to meet another promise made in 2021, to reform the DFG means test, which Yasin said was “very complex and difficult to navigate”.

Instead, she again pointed to the extra government funding, but she said the government had not ruled out making changes to the formula – nearly three years on – but that this “does require quite a lot of work” and “if you are changing a formula, there will be winners, there will be losers, there will be transitional arrangements, so we need to give it a lot of thought before we alter the formula, the test”.

*Homes built to the M4(2) standard have 16 accessible or adaptable features, similar to the Lifetime Homes standard developed in the early 1990s to make homes more easily adaptable for lifetime use, while M4(3) homes are those that are supposed to be fully wheelchair-accessible

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