§ Mr. AncramTo ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Prime Minister's answer of 13 July,Official Report, columns 430–31, on the European year of the elderly, if she will outline her plans to focus on the housing needs of the elderly.
§ Mr. YeoMy Department, in co-operation with the Department of Social Security, has overall co-ordinating responsibility for the European Year of Older People in the United Kingdom and we are now well advanced with our plans. The task group concerned with problems of housing, isolation and loneliness, information needs, transport and community care issues—social and environmental integration—has put forward a number of proposals to mark the year in the United Kingdom including: national conferences on social and environmental integration to be held in April and December 1993 together with local events and exhibitions throughout the year focusing on issues of housing, transport, community care and communications; a European tenant exchanges scheme to give older people a wider knowledge of what is, or might be, available to them in sheltered housing; a study by Anchor housing trust entitled "Available Options", a review of the developments in public policy in the areas of housing, care, income and savings for older people.
The Department of the Environment will also be issuing a revised edition of their publication "Your Home in Retirement—Housing Advice for Older People".