Range of Housing (Supplementary) [2]

Well, now that we have more direct influence over what the Housing Corporation do and what they fund, this is an area which we do want to spend a lot more time on, and we want to push standards up, and we have begun that discussion with them. I think the basic standards now, both for lifetime home standards but also the Corporation's housing quality indicators, are there. The issue has been that, as you rightly say, they have not always been being enforced and insisted on. Now, we have agreed with the Housing Corporation that in this new programme, all new affordable homes will have to meet the basic housing quality indicator score across all the elements; that includes size as well as the other elements there. That is a step forward. I suspect that we still have got to push them even further and we have been having pretty robust discussions with them around the lifetime homes issue, because we do believe it is right that all affordable homes should be meeting that standard.

David Lunts: Of course, it is also a London Plan requirement that all new homes should reach a lifetime home standard, so it is a concern if, in the affordable sector, grant funded units are not doing so. We are working very hard to make sure that they all do very quickly indeed.