Housing Benefit Entitlement

Debate between Steve Webb and Ian C. Lucas

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

This is the third debate I have attended on this issue in the past two days, which gives an indication of its seriousness. The Minister replied to one of those debates yesterday so he should be increasingly aware of the concern about it. I shall focus on the occupancy provisions as they affect disabled people, because we have heard much from other hon. Members about other issues.

I shall refer to two cases, having been approached by parents of adults with disabilities who will be profoundly and specifically affected by the changes. One, Mrs Rosemary Burslem, asked me to specify the particulars of her son’s case. She is in her 60s and has an adult child, David, who has severe disabilities. He has autism and needs overnight sleep-in staff, as well as one-to-one staff support during the day and two-to-one support when he goes out in the community.

In the view of David’s mother, who has looked after him for many years, it would be inappropriate for him to share a house with anyone with a learning disability because his behaviour is very challenging. He regularly takes food out of the fridge, as well as cutlery and crockery to bedrooms for no apparent reason. He flushes the toilet regularly, and switches electrical items on and off. His behaviour is regularly obsessional, which makes it virtually impossible for him to share accommodation with anyone. David has what Mrs Burslem describes as mega-tantrums. She says they are like the tantrums of the terrible twos, but 30 times worse because he is in his 30s. He is angry, frustrated and feels unwell, and is unable to work or live easily with other people. He then acts for no apparent reason, and all that makes it extremely difficult for him to live with anyone else.

The difficulty with the proposals is that they do not recognise or take account of such circumstances. I know that there are discretionary housing payments, but the reality is that that family is coping now with the uncertainty arising from the proposal.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)]

Without full details of the case it is difficult to discuss it, but the hon. Gentleman said that the lady is in her 60s. Will he clarify whether she is above or below state pension age?

[Ian Lucas]

She does not live with David, so I am not sure whether that is relevant.

The problem is that the proposal is causing uncertainty to the family now, and there is no certainty about whether discretionary housing payments will be for an extended period or affect them permanently. I will forward full details of the case to the Minister. I do not expect a specific answer now.

I have been contacted about another case of adult parents who share a house with an individual who suffers from spina bifida and hydrocephalus. An additional room in their house is used for the storage of oxygen and other disability aids, and a separate room is used as a living room by the individual concerned, who has specific and profound additional needs. Under these proposals, none of the particular circumstances for those individuals is taken into account, and they are some of the people who we all think—and I am sure the Minister thinks—should have our support, but they have no guarantee that they will continue to receive it. The fact is that this set of proposals is creating enormous worry for people who have huge burdens in caring for people whom they care profoundly about. They have contributed enormously to society by helping to look after those people for very many years, and we are letting them down badly.

I implore the Minister to look at the particular applications of the rules in those cases to ensure that those people can be looked after. When they came to me and said, “Look into these matters,” I could not believe for one moment that the system would not include discretion to cover individual cases such as those. The proposals are ill-conceived and are causing enormous distress up and down the country. The Government, and I am sure the Minister, did not intend to create such situations. He needs to look at the proposals again.

I heard the Minister’s response yesterday, and in it, he referred to the deficit, but the reality is that the Government, at the same time as they are letting those people down, have chosen to give a tax cut to the richest people in the country. That is the type of political choice that we all have to make, and the reality is that the Minister has supported that choice. He needs to get his act together to change his approach and support the people who need support, and not the people who have most.

Under-occupancy Penalty (Wales)

Debate between Steve Webb and Ian C. Lucas

Tuesday 22nd January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Steve Webb]

The right hon. Gentleman says that it is about saving money. I do not apologise for the fact that we have had to save money, because otherwise we would just pile up debts for our children, and that is not progressive, wherever someone is on the political spectrum.

On the hon. Lady’s specific point, yes of course, in theory, successive Governments have tried to work with housing associations and social landlords, and it has not worked, because we have the best part of 1 million empty bedrooms paid for by housing benefit at the same time as we have thousands of people in overcrowded accommodation. The challenge is therefore to use the need to save money to create fairness between private and social tenants and to create fairness between people who are living in overcrowded accommodation and those who have spare bedrooms.

[Ian Lucas]

Will the Minister give way?

[Steve Webb]

No, I want to respond to the hon. Lady. She said that these are the lifetime homes of some people, and I entirely accept that. That is why we have exempted pensioners as a group. A set of pensioners have spare rooms, living in the home that they have occupied all their lives, and we are not touching them for the reasons she gave.

Those who are below pension age can clearly respond in a range of ways. It will be different for every person. For example, we are often told that some people in social housing or on housing benefit are in work, and the average £12 shortfall in Wales is the equivalent of two hours at the minimum wage, so for some people, as the hon. Lady said, it will be a matter of working a few extra hours. I accept that that is not an option for everyone, but it is for some. Others might have the opportunity to do a part-time job, if they are not currently. She said that some would not be able to take in a lodger or tenant, but some can. I had a constituent ring me up to say, “I am in a three-bedroom house, I live on my own and I have just had one of these letters. What shall I do?” We started talking and she said, “To be honest, my brother and sister-in-law would quite like to move in. Can we do that?” Yes, they can, and that would be using the house to much better effect. That will not be right for everyone, but there will be a range of responses. The system is geared so that if people have a boarder or sub-tenant—most social landlords should allow a sub-tenant, in an organised way—they get to keep at least the first £20 a week of the income. Those are all options, which will not work for everyone, but there is a range of them.

The hon. Lady mentioned Bron Afon and Duncan Forbes. I have looked at some of the case studies. One of them is just wrong. In the case she mentioned of the ex-serviceman with a teenager who might go off to university, provided she is not away for more than 13 weeks at a time, she can have the bedroom. That means that social landlords have to be good at communicating with their tenants. I have seen good examples, although I have also seen some bad ones. The other examples may well be true but I saw that case and it jumped out at me, and I thought, “That is not right”, although there is a description of how distressed the man was. Someone has a duty to know the rules—we have to communicate them effectively, but so do the social landlords. I have seen letters sent out by social landlords that are excellent, that explain the rules and what discretionary housing payments are, but I have seen others that do not even mention discretionary housing payments. We have to ensure that social landlords up their game.

I must respond to several points on discretionary housing payments, which are crucial. The right hon. Member for Torfaen (Paul Murphy) cited a figure of £50,000, £54,000 or something. The figure for that local authority for the year we are talking about, when the policy comes in, is not £50,000 but £193,000. That is when the policy comes in. Clearly, the point of discretionary housing payments is not to make up everyone’s shortfall, or we would not make any money out of the policy—we would not be saving any money—but it is for the hardest cases.

There is an issue to do with whether we try to prescribe in primary or secondary legislation the exact categories of people whom we want to help, of which one is people with major disabled adaptations. We could have done that, but the second that is done and we try to define a substantial adaptation, we get someone whom we did not think of just the wrong side of the line and someone whom we did not need to include on the right side of the line. For example, if someone has had stairlifts, extra rooms, widened doors and all the rest, it is pretty obvious, or if someone has had a handgrip, it is pretty obvious, but what about all those in the middle? Rather than us in Whitehall trying to define for every local authority, for every sort of adaptation, that this is in or this is out, we have trusted local authorities.

We have given the money specifically for people who have had disabled adaptations or, to give another example, for foster carers; for some of the other housing benefit changes as well, we have given the councils a pot of money and said, “You know your local people. You can meet people case by case.” Thus, a lone or separated parent who has the kids regularly and needs that room, and nothing else can be done, could go to the local authority for DHP. We were not going to try to prescribe for DHP, however; we were not going to legislate for such things as whether so many nights qualify or whether there are certain arrangements for the kids. The idea is that the local authority treats people as individual human beings and meets their individual needs. The pot is not unlimited—

[Ian Lucas]

Will the Minister give way?

[Steve Webb]

I really want to respond to the hon. Member for Newport East, because I have other things to say about the points she made.

We tried not to prescribe in a rigid, central, one-size-fits-all way, but to make substantial extra money available so that people could respond individually.