Under-occupancy Penalty (Wales)
Debate between Steve Webb and Lord Murphy of Torfaen(11 years, 4 months ago)
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Jessica Morden
Will the Minister accept that it is possible to be creative without being cruel? It would be possible to work far more closely with housing associations in relation to asking them to do more about under-occupancy, but the broad-brush approach that will be taken in April will hurt many people.
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.