Housing Benefit
Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts(12 years, 4 months ago)
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Steve Webb
My right hon. Friend and his hon. Friends have been effective in lobbying for the needs of remote rural communities. That is why we specifically made available this year an additional £5 million, focused exclusively on remote rural communities, which face difficulty because of the distance people might have to travel to alternative accommodation. I hope that that Government decision this year has helped to address those concerns.
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
What solution does the Minister suggest for a Hebridean island where there are 105 houses, 50% of which are single occupancy, but only 20% of which have one bedroom? If people live on such islands, what is the solution?
Steve Webb
I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman was listening a moment ago when I referred to the specific additional funding we have allocated to remote rural areas to respond to that problem.
Dr Coffey
I will not give way. I have given way already and lots of people want to speak.
With this policy, we are trying to achieve multiple aims, by making better use of the housing stock and working to get more housing built. It is worth noting that Labour voted against the Growth and Infrastructure Act 2013, which is one of the things that we introduced to unblock housing developments.
The hon. Member for Aberdeen South and the Minister mentioned adaptations for disabled people. More than a quarter of my constituents are over 65, so hon. Members will not be surprised to learn that my constituency has a fair number of adapted houses and flats. It is appropriate that local councils should make an assessment and decide whether it is better for someone to stay in their home, rather than having to redo the adaptation somewhere else. I understand the point that the Minister made about this. If a wet room needed to be recreated, for example, there might well be merit in deciding that instead of someone having a three-bedroom house with a wet room, they should move to a one or two-bedroom apartment, as appropriate. We are saying to councils and housing associations that, instead of Whitehall setting those criteria, they should look after their housing stock together and ensure that people’s needs are met.
Listening to the stories that have come out today—I appreciate that they are personal stories about what people are experiencing—anyone would think that we in government had done nothing about this. However, we have allowed councils to retain the underspend in discretionary housing payments from previous years, and we have put in extra money for those payments. It is not as though we are sitting on our hands and doing nothing.
The last sentence of the Labour motion talks about using
“the funding set aside for discretionary housing payments to deal with under-occupation by funding local authorities so that they are better able to help people with the cost of moving to suitable accommodation.”
In an answer to a parliamentary question, the Minister has told me that a £20 million fund was set aside for new ideas for councils working together. At that time, only five councils had applied for that funding, and I would encourage our colleagues to speak to their councillors about that.
The hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) talked about pensioners. There might be some people who can work an extra three hours to capture that extra £14 a week. [Hon. Members: “What?”] The Government are fixing the problems of the past. This debate reinforces the fact that we in government want to fix the problems, and that Labour remains the party of welfare.
Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams), and I declare at the start that I have more experience of council housing than many colleagues. Similar to the hon. Gentleman, I too grew up on a council estate, in south Manchester, with my mother, father and four siblings. It was not big, but it was home. We lived there because we needed to and because the state was able to help us find a home that we could fit into and was affordable to my hard-working parents.
Social housing is there for those in need. Housing needs change as families expand and contract. The needs of a family with four children are different to those of a divorced empty-nester. The hon. Gentleman used the example of a council estate where a house is also a home and a place to live. In my personal circumstances, when my father died 30 years ago and my mother was on her own in a three-bedroom house, she moved out and now lives in a one-bedroom flat, thus releasing that property back to the housing stock.
Mr MacNeil
How often does the hon. Gentleman envisage that people should move homes during the course of their adult lives?
Graham Evans
I cannot really answer that because it varies so greatly. I have moved several times but I am now settled with a family and envisage not moving for a while. It varies due to individual circumstances.
Bob Blackman
I thank the hon. Lady for her rather long intervention, which I thought became more of a speech. We need to be clear that people do have a choice. People can choose to under-occupy, and if they so choose, they should not expect the taxpayer to pick up the cost through housing benefit. There must be a clear incentive for people to move on.
Bob Blackman
I am not giving way a third time.
The Opposition need to accept the principle of the change, which is that anyone who under-occupies should bear the cost. All afternoon, we have heard a series of heartbreaking stories of people being required to move from properties that they have lived in for a long time. I have every sympathy with people who have been fed the story that they have a home for life, that they can expect to live in it for ever and that the taxpayer will always pick up the cost. The reality is that that is the story that Labour has always sold people.
That illustrates the difference between the parties. Labour would rather have everyone working for a public authority, being dependent on public housing and not being aspirational. We believe in helping people to achieve their aspirations and get to a decent position. We believe in improving the situation in the private sector and enabling people to work and to aspire to being the best that they can be. That is the difference between us. We are the party of the hand-up; Labour is the party of the hand-out.
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
I am not sure how many lodgers the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming) keeps, but he certainly seems to be in favour of the principle. The lodgers in his house no doubt put him in a better financial position.
I do not plan to detain the House for long. When the bedroom tax is viewed in an island context, it can be seen for what it really is: an attack on the living standards of the poorest. On an island, the poorest can be almost anyone’s neighbours, friends or relatives. In the social rented sector in my constituency, fuel poverty is between 33% and 61%, depending on how it is measured and counted.
On the island perspective, I am grateful to John Maciver of the social housing landlords’ Hebridean Housing Partnership for supplying me with figures. In Na h-Eileanan an Iar, 188 people are affected by the bedroom tax and there are more than 2,000 properties. On one island, the Hebridean Housing Partnership took over the housing stock from the council a number of years ago, and of the 105 properties, 50% are occupied by single people, but only 20% of the stock is designed for single occupancy, so some people will always be penalised by the bedroom tax. There is no solution on the island to this policy from Westminster and this Government.
Katy Clark
Does the hon. Gentleman support Scottish Labour’s proposed Bill in the Scottish Parliament that says that there should be no evictions and that the Scottish Government should provide full funding to Scottish councils for the costs of the bedroom tax?
Mr MacNeil
The hon. Lady should know that the underlying problem is that Scotland has a Government whom it does not elect. If the hon. Lady joined me, we would not be in this situation in the first place.
Mr MacNeil
No. I have given way once, but I might give way again later.
Importantly, the number of those on the islands who are suffering from the bedroom tax can vary throughout the year as a result of seasonal work. Some people need to move house every six months due to the seasonal nature of employment. To those who say that they should move to other islands, I say that the reality in the Hebrides has always been difficult. Indeed, I was 17 years old before I first crossed the sound of Barra to South Uist. In fact, I spent two years in school in Lewis before I went to South Uist. Communities are distinct and far away from each other. Therefore, a move would be socially isolating for people initially, and of course they would lose whatever employment they had on the original island that they lived on.
To answer that bureaucratic problem by building houses would definitely be inefficient, because the needs and variations of people’s lives change all the time. In fact, the bigger the house, the better in many ways, except for the bureaucratic problem that is being created here.
I will give an example of the difficulties involved in moving from place to place on the islands. I once flew to Stornoway and beside me on the plane was Michael MacKinnon, an elderly gentleman from the island of Vatersay who has since sadly passed on. He was travelling to a hospital appointment and I asked him by way of conversation—in Gaelic, of course—when he had last been to Stornoway. He said it was his first time and, had it not been for his hospital appointment, he would have been very much looking forward to it. I was surprised. Michael was a well-travelled merchant seaman. I said to him, “I suppose you’ve been all over the world, Michael.” “Yes,” he said, “I’ve been to Pitcairn island in the middle of the Pacific 13 times, but not to the other end of the Hebrides.” One thing I can say for Pitcairn island is that it does not have the bedroom tax, although perhaps the Government might want some of my islanders to move there.
That is an illustration of how the bedroom tax can affect local people in the Hebrides. It does not and cannot work. It penalises the poorest and those in our society who circulate money the fastest. Some people have wealth, while others have the cash flow and they have it by necessity.
Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that one solution to the problem would be to offer Scotland the same opportunity as Northern Ireland to exempt all existing tenants from the bedroom tax? I understand his unwillingness to accept the principle of the bedroom tax, but if parties in Northern Ireland can agree to that, surely those in Scotland could agree to provide such assistance to our constituents.
Mr MacNeil
The hon. Gentleman should know that welfare is devolved in Northern Ireland, but I am glad that he supports the principle of devolving welfare to Scotland. In fact, we can devolve everything to Scotland by voting yes on 18 September next year.
The chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, once said that the best form of quantitative easing for Japan about 10 or 20 years ago, when it was going through its economic travails, would be to pile cash in a helicopter and shovel it from above over any Japanese city, down on the citizens below. What is happening at the moment is the opposite of that because the Government are taking money from those who circulate it in the economy. The quickest way to stimulate demand in the economy is to put money into people’s hands; the Government are taking money out of their hands.
The money that people are losing would quickly end up in the hands of small businesses, yet in Scotland alone, £54.5 million has been taken out this year. Trickle-down economics never worked, but hoover-up economics certainly does work. Quantitative easing in this country has been a welfare subsidy of epic proportions to bankers and those who are already rich, yet this afternoon we are discussing how to take even more money from those who can ill afford it.
There are further complications with the bedroom tax. Discretionary housing payments have two important conditions. People cannot claim retrospectively and must apply for a housing transfer, but many people in my island constituency feel that is dishonest and do not want to do it for the simple reason that they do not want to move house. They also know that they might be moved to another island if the policy was to go through to its ultimate logical possibility. Of those 188 people in the Hebrides, only 80 or 90 have so far claimed discretionary housing payments. Hebridean Housing Partnership is in rent arrears, and more worryingly, 20 people have not engaged with, responded to or acknowledged the process at all. They are reckoned to have drink, drugs or mental health problems, and ultimately the tax could end up further destabilising their lives. At the very least—I make this plea to the Department for Work and Pensions —we should allow retrospective claims. Some people are currently trying their best to manage, but I feel that they may fail in their attempts and need support. That support should be retrospective.
Further complications are added by seasonal work, and the small amount that people earn from jobseeker’s allowance while having to pay for essentials such as food and big annual demands such as the TV licence. Losing £10 from 70-odd quid a week is quite a lot and a huge hindrance in life.
Some people watching this debate probably begrudge what other people have, but they should look to countries such as Norway and Denmark where the unemployed do far better, society is far healthier and unemployment is far lower. To those who are still begrudgers I say, “Look at the wealth disparity in the United Kingdom, the fourth most unequal country in the OECD, where sadly the super-rich are getting richer.” That is where the real societal flaws are.
I have known the father of the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Mr Di Alexander, for 10 or 15 years, and he has worked in social housing. He is, of course, very proud of his son, but he has stuck to his principles. I strongly admire what he has said about the bedroom tax, which was absolutely spot-on. If we listen to anybody on or connected to the Government Benches, it should be Mr Di Alexander.
Jobseekers (Back to Work Schemes) Bill
Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts(13 years ago)
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Mr Byrne
In a moment.
First, ensuring that the appeal window of 13 months is preserved is crucial for people who are hit by sanctions. Secondly, as has been referred to by my hon. Friends, it is vital that there is an independent review of the sanctions regime. My right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) will set out the questions that we believe need to be answered.
I have heard the Minister’s assurances this afternoon that there is no series of targets and that there are no league tables. We will hear further evidence on that point over the course of the debates in this House. I hope that the assurances that we have heard this afternoon withstand those tests.
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
Is it not the case that it is not only the low-paid, but the non-paid that Labour are not backing? By sitting on their hands, Labour Members are helping the Government to ensure that the people who are already being affected by the bedroom tax get no further support. It is worse than two bald men fighting over a comb.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
I would like to put on the record once again my belief that anyone who can work should work. For that to happen, we first need to have good quality jobs. As I suggested in my intervention, the percentage of such jobs that are available is getting worse, not better.
Mr MacNeil
The hon. Lady says that those who can work should work. Does she agree that they should be paid for that work, and that they deserve the support of MPs to be paid for their work?
Debbie Abrahams
I was about to make the point that schemes such as work experience, when they are co-determined, can be valuable tools in enabling people who are yet to find a permanent, full-time job to find one.
The Bill is a new low for the Government. It is the result of an abuse of power and incompetence, mixed with an ideological drive to run down our welfare state. I, for one, do not support it.
The recent court ruling that the Bill seeks to overturn quashed the 2011 jobseeker’s regulations, which failed to describe the specifics of the employment schemes and the requirements to participate in those schemes, including the time that must be spent on them. The Secretary of State had empowered himself to make regulations, but the form that he had chosen was judged to be unlawful. The regulations did little more than name the scheme.
The second part of the judgment related to the sanctions that were applied to claimants. DWP letters failed to explain what they were required to do. The ruling stated:
“the answer to my mind is plainly that there could be no question of sanctions being validly imposed if no proper notice of the sanction consequences was given.”
Again, I support the principle of a sanctions regime. If somebody consistently fails to turn up for work experience or a Work programme scheme, sanctions should be applied. However, I believe that sanctions are being applied indiscriminately. For example, one of my constituents was a beneficiary of employment and support allowance after they had retired on grounds of ill health as a result of a heart problem. He was required to attend a work capability assessment with Atos. During the assessment, he was told that he was having a heart attack and the nurse said that she had to stop the assessment. He got a letter a couple of weeks later saying that he had withdrawn from the assessment and, as such, was being sanctioned. That beggars belief. I have other examples, as I am sure do colleagues.
I welcome the opportunity for a review of the sanctions regime, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne) has proposed, and the provisions on the appeals process. As he suggested, there is an indiscriminate approach to sanctioning. I was contacted by a Jobcentre Plus employee who was concerned that he was being forced to sanction people inappropriately. I hope that more whistleblowers will come forward during the review to describe the issues with the schemes.
The Government say that the Bill is needed so that they do not have to pay back the sanctioned benefits. That is absolute nonsense, as was suggested earlier. There is test case law from 2012 that disputes that argument.
Not only are the Government trying to push through retrospective legislation that undermines the judiciary and the rule of law, with all the appalling implications that that has; I believe that the Bill is part of the divide-and-rule narrative that underpins the Government’s ideology. They are again pointing the finger at the undeserving poor. They are emaciating our hard-fought-for welfare system on the convenient back of austerity. I believe in our country and our people. I believe that in good times and bad the welfare system is there to protect them. There will always be a few who abuse that system and we need to have measures in place to prevent that. However, the Bill goes beyond the pale and I, for one, will fight this emaciation of our welfare system.
Housing Benefit (Under-occupancy Penalty)
Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts(13 years, 1 month ago)
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Dr Whiteford
The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. Just a few minutes ago the Prime Minister said that he would look carefully at individual cases. I feel a little bit sorry for whoever keeps his correspondence in check, because the Department of Work and Pensions equality impact assessment shows that two thirds—66%—of the households affected by the bedroom tax are home to someone with a disability under the terms of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995.
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
A higher proportion of those who might write to Dave will be people from rural areas who will simply have nowhere else to go. This iniquitous, unfair, disastrous tax will do for the Conservative party what the poll tax did for it.
Dr Whiteford
My hon. Friend makes a very important point on the differential impact between rural and urban areas. I hope I will be able to address that later.
Perhaps it should not surprise us that sick and disabled people are over-represented among those who rely on housing benefit, given that many of them will have been assessed as unfit for work, while others who are in work are more likely to be working part-time or in low-paid and insecure jobs. The numbers are a damning indictment on the Government’s attempts to balance the books on the back of disadvantaged people. In Scotland the picture is even more stark—79% of disadvantaged people in Scotland affected by the bedroom tax are either disabled or living in a house with someone who is disabled.
Dr Whiteford
Colleagues from Wales are saying that there the Labour Government have passed on 100% of the cuts. Surely it is better that the Scottish Government have tried to mitigate the impact of those cuts on households, rather than passing them on wholesale. We must remember that most of our social housing was built in an era when people had much larger families and different housing needs. Existing housing simply does not match today’s demographics.
Steve Webb
And others, yes. As this is a nationalist debate, that seemed to be a relevant remark.
In response to concerns expressed in the House of Lords, we are going to undertake a rolling two-year research programme into the impact of these and other changes, and the impact on rural households will be one of the factors that we will look at specifically. Wales and Scotland are included in the scope of the research. We are happy to look at the allocation of discretionary housing payments, and at whether we have done enough justice to the needs of rural areas, compared with other areas. We will keep that matter under review.
Mr MacNeil
Did I hear the Minister correctly? Did he say that he was going to research the impact of this measure regardless of what it is going to do to people in the meantime? What he is suggesting is absolutely obscene, and the suggestion by the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) that we should have some sort of transitional arrangements would mean that we would still end up with this at the end of the blooming day anyway. It is ridiculous. Get rid of it.
Steve Webb
Jolly good. That was helpful. We cannot research the impact of a policy that has not happened. We are implementing a change that is designed to save £500 million a year, and we have heard nothing about where others would find that money from. We have said that, as the policy is implemented, we will research and look into its implementation, because there are things that we can change as we go along, one of which is the allocation of discretionary housing payments.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
I am grateful to be called to speak in this Plaid Cymru, Scottish National party and Green party debate on the UK Government’s proposals to introduce an under-occupation penalty for recipients of housing benefit in the social rented sector. The policy has already gained infamy—it is dubbed “the bedroom tax”. The Labour party has decided to make it a political dividing line with the UK coalition. Leaving aside the fact that Labour Members abstained on Second Reading of the Welfare Reform Act 2012 and have failed to raise the issue in the House in a motion leading to a vote, I was delighted that the shadow Secretary of State for Wales, the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith), confirmed on Twitter this afternoon that Labour Members will join us in the Lobby later.
Before the 2010 general election, I made a keynote speech at the Plaid Cymru spring conference at the home of Welsh cricket, Sophia Gardens in Cardiff—[Interruption.] It was brilliant. In that speech, I said that talking up the severity of the public debt was a deliberate tactic by the Tories that served two political objectives: first, it highlighted the economic mismanagement of the previous Administration; and secondly, it created the backdrop to justify the declaration of war on the public sector, which we have witnessed since the election. The so-called bedroom tax is a prime example of what I foresaw. It is a headline-grabbing, ill-thought-out policy that panders to the prejudices of those opposed to any social protection.
We have heard compelling arguments in the debate on why the motion should be carried, most notably from my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford), who opened the debate—I will not restate her points. Above all, the bedroom tax is part of the UK Government’s strategy to reduce the housing benefit bill, as the Minister admitted in his opening remarks. The capping of benefits is the major element of the strategy, which is complemented by the under-occupancy policy and the recent Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill, which pegs annual increases at 1%.
Mr MacNeil
We sometimes hear Ministers speak of deficit reduction, but is it not likely that the net effects of the policy will be the opposite, because it will reduce demand in the economy by taking money away from the pockets of people who are most likely to spend it, and who certainly need it? The result will be yet more economic mismanagement, which will probably contribute to a further downgrading of the UK.
Jonathan Edwards
My hon. Friend makes a valid point—I will give him some meat to justify it in my next remarks.
The Office for Budget Responsibility radically revised its projections for housing benefit expenditure in the autumn statement. At the time of last year’s Budget in March, the OBR projected that the housing benefit bill would fall by £300 million in 2012-13; and then by £400 million for each financial year between 2013-14 and 2016-17. The OBR now projects an increase of £700 million in 2013-14, and increases of £600 million, £500 million and £400 million in subsequent years.
There is a multitude of reasons for that, but by far, one key factor is the spiralling cost of rent. Housing benefit is an in-work benefit. As rent costs spiral, more and more working people faced with real-terms falls in wages meet the eligibility criteria for housing support. The Financial Times has reported that, in 2012, rent costs increased by an average of 37% compared with 2007, despite the economy being in the midst of the great recession since 2008—gross domestic product is still nearly 4% below the previous peak.
The Financial Times further reported that rent costs are expected to increase by an incredible 35% in the next six years. More and more employed people will become eligible for housing benefit. Indeed, last summer, the housing benefit claimant count surpassed the five million mark for the first time, which means that around 20% of households are claiming the benefit to help them meet their housing costs. Between January 2010 and December 2011, the total number of housing benefit claimants increased by 301,000. In the same period, the number of non-passported claims—those in employment—increased by 279,000. Therefore, households in employment account for 92.8% of the overall increase in housing benefit claimants. Unless we are able to ensure that the pace of rent increases broadly reflects incomes, then Governments of whatever colour will have no chance of controlling their housing benefit costs.
Measures such as the under-occupancy penalty are tinkering around the edges. There are solutions for dealing with the housing benefit bill without resorting to the sort of initiatives preferred by the current UK Government that are having such a detrimental social impact. In 2004, the Government of the Republic of Ireland introduced the Residential Tenancies Act. A private residential tenancy board was set up to deliver reforms. Its aim was to regulate the private rented sector by extending the length of tenancy towards a more European model, clearly defining rights and obligations for both landlords and tenants, providing access to inexpensive dispute resolution, safeguarding bond payments and, crucially, capping rents.
By placing a cap on rents and driving down artificially high rental costs, the Government would have direct control over their housing benefit bill. The UK Government could then reduce their liabilities without penalising some of the most vulnerable people in society. It would also mean that working people would have a better chance of affording rent costs in affluent areas. Rent caps have been a fixture in New York since the 1940s, and New York is the home of global capitalism. Rather than targeting social housing tenants, the UK Government, and devolved Governments if they have the competence, should intervene in the social and private rented sector and cap rents.
As we have heard from other hon. Members, another solution is to address supply and demand issues by building more affordable housing. The recovery in the UK after the great depression was in part the result of a massive house building initiative. This is an ideal time for private investment, because of the guaranteed revenue streams from rental payments. It would create construction jobs and drive demand in the economy. As far as this debate is concerned, it would reduce rent costs in the private rented sector and thus the housing benefit bill.
With specific reference to the under-occupancy penalty, social tenants worried about the technicalities of the new rules have already approached my constituency offices. One of my constituents lives in a two-bedroom bungalow and receives full housing benefit. He has turned one of the bedrooms into a sterile room for his dialysis treatment. He spends three hours a day, seven days a week in this room. He has spent a lot of money turning the bedroom into a sterile room and adapting his home for his dialysis treatment. This saves the health board money, as well as releasing the hospital bed for others. Why should he now be penalised for technically under occupying his home?
Another constituent contacted me to say they had been moved from a two-bedroom property to a three-bedroom property that had been adapted for their needs. They now face the charge, despite the housing officer saying that the third bedroom is too small to be used as a bedroom. They will not, as was advocated by several Government Members, be able to rent that bedroom to a lodger. The answers to the housing benefit bill do not lie in a cap in benefits, a real-terms reduction in annual uprating or the bedroom tax. I urge Ministers to think again and to look at some of the solutions I have offered today.
Mr Iain McKenzie (Inverclyde) (Lab)
I welcome this debate. Unjust, unfair and unnecessary are the words to describe this tax. Households in my constituency will suffer dramatically as a direct result of the introduction of this tax. Indeed, families throughout Scotland and the United Kingdom will suffer the consequences of this tax. In Scotland, we are told that a total of 94,000 tenants living in the social rented sector are considered to be under-occupying their homes. We are told that a total of 75,000-plus tenants are under-occupying by only one bedroom.
With still unacceptable levels of unemployment and soaring energy and fuel prices, this measure brings nothing but further bad news for the struggling households across Scotland and the UK. Specialist bodies, including Citizens Advice and Shelter, have already warned that 40,000 households in Scotland alone are likely to run up arrears, with research suggesting that up to 10,000 households could face homelessness. That is on top of tackling the homeless problem we already have in Scotland. The prospect of homelessness is a reflection of the direction in which the Government are taking the country.
The bedroom tax is neither a cost-cutting exercise by the Government nor about introducing fair reform to the welfare state; it is nothing more than a tax on the poor and the most vulnerable in communities across the country. Of the 94,000-plus Scots who will be affected by the tax, it is estimated that about 23,000 have a disabled household member, with up to 16,000 households already having some form of aid or necessary adaption in place.
Constituents have approached me as they have become aware of how this unfair tax will affect their quality of life. I will give one example, although I could give many others. One lady came to me who previously had shared a home with her daughter. Her daughter has moved on, however, having found employment in another part of the country. The lady has a two-bedroom apartment, but now has one spare room. She has lived in the apartment for more than 20 years. She feels safe there and has good neighbours, but is now scared she will have to move and feels unsettled and frightened at the prospect of being moved across the constituency.
My constituent asked me, “Where can I go?” Down-sizing is not an option for her, because in my constituency there is not much one-bedroom accommodation. It is so limited, in fact, that she would be in her 80s before she would be offered one-bedroom accommodation, if she was lucky. Indeed, there is a lack of family accommodation in my constituency, too, so we really need to address the lack of housing and the building of new housing in and around Inverclyde. She wonders, if she were to move to the private sector, whether she would end up in a house of multiple occupancy, where we see that the private sector’s reference to efficiency involves merely pushing people into rooms with shared facilities.
By introducing this tax, the Government will do nothing more than cement their unfair and unjust attack on those who need our help the most. I support today’s motion, which calls on them to abandon this unfair, unjust and unnecessary tax, and I add my voice to the list of many here and beyond this place calling on the Government urgently to change course before these reforms hit our constituents hard. I also call on the Scottish Government to act to alleviate the burden of the tax on the people of Scotland. Across Scotland, local authorities already suffering as a direct result of severe cuts to their budgets will find it impossible to minimise the impact of the bedroom tax on many of our constituents and communities.
Mr MacNeil
Is not one of the most important things that local councils could do perhaps to reclassify bedrooms that could be used for other purposes and are no longer bedrooms?
Mr McKenzie
That is an option, but as I have said, the difficulty in my constituency is that we have limited accommodation, and the reclassification of bedrooms is not an option there.
I have been working with many agencies in my constituency that have been offering advice to those who think they will be affected by the tax. We have been holding events and information evenings, and people are frightened that they will fall foul of this tax and lose their homes. The Scottish Government could provide more guidance and help to local authorities about how to cope with the impact we know is coming. The bedroom tax is not a Westminster attack on Scotland alone. As we have heard, it is an attack on many constituencies across the UK, and I join others in calling on the Government to abandon this unjust, unfair and very unnecessary tax.
Geraint Davies
That is certainly the case. It is disappointing and illuminating that the Government Benches are almost empty this afternoon. Government Members simply do not care about a group of people who they believe will not vote. They see them as people who have failed in life and who will not vote—only 65% to 70% of people vote—so they think that they can treat them like cattle, and that is what they are doing.
Mr MacNeil
Is it not also indicative of the tone of the debate that the people who are encouraged to take in lodgers are usually those on lower incomes? There is no great push by the Government to ask the middle classes, the upper middle classes or indeed the upper classes to take lodgers into their mansions, palaces or castles. This move is aimed at the bottom end of society, and it is shameful.
Geraint Davies
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention.
The Government falsely claim that the problem is under-occupancy in the social sector. They say that that is awful, and a terrible waste. I have asked the House of Commons Library for the figures on under-occupancy rates. According to the bedroom standard, the level of under-occupancy in the social rented sector is 10.2%. In the private rented sector, it is 15.7%, and in the owner-occupied sector, it is 49%. So it is all very well for those who own their houses, who have five times the amount of under-occupancy, but people who are poor and who are in the social rented sector because the market has let them down are not allowed to have an empty room. Why should not those people be allowed an empty room? We have heard about people with disabilities and people with chronic problems, but what about normal people who just want their friends or their children to come and visit them? And who would want a one-bedroom house?
Let us look at the evolution of social housing. I was the chair of housing for the biggest local authority in London—Croydon—and chair of housing for the association representing all the boroughs across London. How does social housing work? We build two-bedroom and three-bedroom houses for families in need, who live in them with their children. Their children grow up and perhaps go to university or get married, and we end up with the couple in an under-occupied house. What happens then? They die, and we recycle those houses. It is no surprise that under-occupancy in the social sector is so low, because the sector naturally refreshes itself. Those people do not live for ever.
In Croydon, we also set up incentives involving thousands of pounds. We said to people, “Look, you’re an old lady living in a three-bedroom house. We’ll give you a few thousand pounds if you’ll go and live in a two-bedroom house. You’ll still have room for the grandchildren to come and stay, but times are tough.” And they did—[Interruption.] It is all very well the Minister saying from a sedentary position that it did not work. He has not tried that scheme. Why, instead of piloting his stupid ideas, does he not put the two models side by side and see which one works?
Instead of looking only at the savings and benefits involved, why does the Minister not also look at the costs? He should look at the costs in terms of community breakdown and family breakdown. What will his proposals do for people’s ability to get a job, for example? The Government want people to get some training, get a job and get some stability. Well, that is absolutely ridiculous. The social, economic and practical impacts of the measures are completely unthought out. The reason is that the Government do not care, and they do not care because they think that those people do not vote. Why is it that people over 60 are excluded from the list? It is because they vote. What does that say? It says, “Don’t have any children until you’re 40, because if you have them and they grow up and have to leave home, you will hit 60 at that time and you’ll be all right.” That is great, isn’t it? It is completely cynical and it stinks.
What does this mean for the practical implications of managing the housing revenue account? It is claimed that all this money will be saved, but some of it allegedly saved for the Government is lost by local authorities. As I said earlier, I have run a housing revenue account, so I know what will happen. A number of people will stop paying all their rent by the margin that is being cut. If I am in the local authority with a portfolio of two or three-bedroom houses, but with hardly any one-bedroom ones, I will say to the people that are not paying all their rent, “We will evict you, but we do not have any one-bedroom houses”. They will go to the private rented sector where the rents are higher and are escalated by the pressure on the market, and that will cost me more as a manager. What is more, as more people join the private rented sector, others in that sector will pay higher rents, so it will be difficult for people to build up a deposit and buy a house. That is great as well, isn’t it? It is absolutely hopeless.
Mr MacNeil
The hon. Gentleman is kind in giving way. A friend of mine in Fort William tweeted a few minutes ago to say that his parents took five years to downsize their house in Fort William. That is an example of how difficult this is practically. At that time, there was no imperative to do so—it was a matter of choice—but we are in the same boat, and we are talking about five years.
Geraint Davies
Yes, and why should someone who has lived in the same street, whose children have grown up with their neighbours and who knows everybody—having been to the local schools, visited the local pubs and worked in the locality—be dislocated and thrown into another community, another town or even another nation? The answer is that these people do not count because they are poor and they live in social housing—and the Tories and the Liberals are going to sort these people out. It is disgusting.
What else is going to happen? If managers or directors of housing have less rent money available, there will be a cut in repairs, leading to more damp and more health problems associated with bad housing. What else can local authorities do? People in Swansea are thinking about knocking down walls. If they have a two-bedroom flat, they can knock a wall down and create a larger living room in order to get round the problem. What does that remind us of? Yes, of course, it reminds us of the window tax. Do we remember when some stupid Tory introduced a tax on windows—and then people blocked off their windows: what a surprise! We are going to see that sort of thing again. It is absolutely ridiculous and farcical. If it were not so sad, we would all be laughing.
Private rents will go up for the mates of the Tories in buy-to-let who will see their incomes grow. It will stop other people buying houses, and we will see empty public sector houses side by side with overcrowded private sector houses. Where there are empty houses, it is costing us much more in lost rent than the shortfall that is being cut in this tax.
Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill
Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Iain McKenzie (Inverclyde) (Lab)
The Chancellor intends to take a further £6.7 billion from benefits and tax credits over the next four years by capping the increase in them at 1%. That is a real-terms cut and an additional squeeze on families, because of the Chancellor’s failure to create growth in our economy, and the delivery instead of a double-dip recession. The Government told us that they would bring down borrowing, but they are now borrowing an £212 billion more than planned. The Chancellor claims that he is cracking down on a benefits culture, but hard-working lower and middle-income working families are those hit hardest by the Bill. Many working families need tax credits and benefits to top up their incomes, as without them work really would not pay. Just 23% of the savings come from jobseeker’s allowance, employment and support allowance, and income support—the principal out-of-work benefits. The rest comes from tax credits such as maternity pay, sick pay and housing benefit, all of which are claimed by working people.
Some 60% of people affected by the changes to tax credits and benefits are in work, and one-earner working families could lose as much as £534 per year at a time when more than 6 million people in working households are already in poverty. Levels of long-term unemployment are worryingly high, because the Government have failed to kick-start the economy and their Work programme has failed. Even excluding the 60% of working people affected by the changes, this is hardly the time to start picking on the unemployed. The Government are always prepared to talk about skivers when unemployment is high and they are worried about costs, but never want to do so when job vacancies are relatively numerous and unemployment is low. Surely, if the Government wanted to inconvenience so-called skivers, this is not the time to target them, when large numbers of people are without work and reliant on benefits.
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the reform will make it more difficult to kick-start the economy? It will remove millions if not billions of pounds from communities up and down the UK, making it harder for people to spend and therefore kick-start the economy.
Mr McKenzie
I could not agree more with the hon. Gentleman. The Bill will take many millions out of local economies and have a double kick on the downturn.
Incredibly, the Government take from struggling households and give to millionaires. As I have said, at the same time as the Government are giving tax cuts to millionaires—as we have heard, some cuts are in the region of more than £2,000 per week—the Bill effectively means a permanent reduction in benefits, which could have a devastating effect when a proper safety net is desperately needed by millions of the most vulnerable people in Britain.
It is highly likely that this regressive change will lead to an increase in poverty, especially for those who are already facing a perfect storm of cuts to public services and rising prices. Clearly, the Bill is an attack on hard-working families, who are paying the price for the Government’s economic failure. It is without doubt an attack on striving families. In my Inverclyde constituency, 6,300 families receive working tax credit. They are being asked to pay the price for the Government’s failure, while millionaires—believe it or not—get a tax cut.
In Inverclyde, the number of unemployment claimants means that 15 people chase every vacancy. The Government would suggest they use the Work programme. Where can I start with that? My constituents never hear from the Government where they can start work. The Work programme has delivered less than 1% in my area, which is a disgraceful and pitiful success rate.
The best way to reduce the cost of welfare is to get people back into work. The truth is that the Government’s failure on the economy is pushing the dole bill through the roof. That is why Labour propose real jobs for those who have been out of work for two years or more. Scotland stands to gain most from the introduction of the compulsory jobs guarantee. Long-term unemployment has been rising faster in Scotland than in any other part of the UK.
I shall conclude, because other hon. Members wish to speak in the debate. The welfare bill is going up under this Government—it is a staggering £13.6 billion higher than forecast—because they are failing to get Britain back to work. The Government need to practise fairness, but the Bill fails on fairness and on the economic tests, which is why I will support the amendment.
Mr Jackson
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In retrospect, I think that it was a tragedy to import thousands of low-wage, low-skilled people from eastern Europe while we parked our own indigenous young people who needed skills and training and who needed educators and businesses to put their the faith and trust in them. I have nothing against the people who wanted to come to this country to make a better life for themselves and their families, but at what cost did they do so? Even the Scottish Trades Union Congress says the same thing.
Some of the arguments being used are disingenuous because they do not fully understand the context. We have uprated benefits by 5.2%, we have brought in apprenticeships, and we are trying to deal with these issues through the Work programme. I am on the Public Accounts Committee and I know that the programme is not perfect. We are at the beginning of a process and there are some difficulties with appeals, with people’s understanding of the system, and with advocacy. I understand that. However, my blue-collar constituents do not understand how it can be right, when their average salary is about £24,000, for a party that aspires to government to say that it will not countenance a benefit cap of £26,000. My constituency has some of the poorest super-output areas and wards in the eastern region, and my constituents are decent, salt-of-the-earth people who want to work. They are not shirkers.
Mr Jackson
I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman, even though he is a terribly charming fellow.
Those people in my constituency want to work, but they want the Government to give them a positive message about the future. It is cruel to park people and to forget them.
Mr Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)
First, I am sorry to see that the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather) is no longer in her place, as she made a very good speech. She mentioned one word that applies to much of the debate when she spoke about the use of “language”, while another important word, spoken about by the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones), who is now leaving, is “ideology”. Language and ideology have surrounded this debate for many years.
In the last 12 months, we have noticed the language used by the coalition to get us to where we are today. Twelve months ago last January, the Deputy Prime Minister was talking about “alarm clock Britain”, and then we had talk about people “behind the curtains”. On 8 October last year on the “Today” programme, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said it was
“unfair that people listening to this programme going out to work see the neighbour next door with the blinds down because they are on benefits”.
My blinds used to be down because I was on night shift, and for many people the blinds and curtains are closed in the morning because they are working hard throughout the night, seven of 24 hours every day to keep industry running. Many people will resent what has been said.
This is not the first time that such language has been used. Andrew Rawnsley, a political columnist for whom I have a lot of time, got it right in an article in The Observer this Sunday, when he said that in view of the true intent of the author of the Bill—I assume he meant the Chancellor of the Exchequer—it should be called
“the Welfare (Make Labour Look Like the Party for Skiving Fat Slobs) bill”.
It is a pity that the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Mr Burley) is not in his place as that description fits well with his anonymous quotes about people being at home because that is what they want to do and because they do not want to go out to work. That is not my experience in life, and I have been a Member of this House a long time. I started work as one of six children in a coalmining community. I lived in that community for most of my life, and I can say that the people I know and have represented for years are not like the caricatures that have been portrayed in this debate for far too long.
Andrew Rawnsley went on in his article to say the real truth:
“The majority of those who are going to lose—about 60%—are people in work, among them 3.7 million people on child tax credit and 2.5 million on working tax credit…those hit will include primary school teachers, nurses and army officers”.
As he went on to say, they are
“not exactly the ‘shirkers’ and ‘scroungers’ of some Tory rhetoric about benefits.”
The Government are trying to play politics with the welfare state, but their claims are clearly unravelling. It is no wonder that the Government have run out of speakers—and come the next general election, some Government Members will deeply regret the speeches that they have made today.
The Citizens Advice Bureau works with these people week in, week out, giving them advice, and it works with us as well, certainly in my part of the world. According to the brief that it sent to us:
“A couple with two children earning £26,000 a year and paying a fairly modest rent of £130 a week… will experience a net loss of £1.85 a week from next April, £6.52 the following April and £11.20 in April 2015. A possible rise in the personal tax allowance to £10,000 in perhaps April 2014 would only give them £0.75 a week to offset the loss of £6.52.”
Mr Barron
No, I will not. Other Members wish to speak.
As was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg), this is the first time that we have sat here and not had one debate about one annual uprating of benefits. That is because this uprating is so unpopular. It has been driven by a nasty party, and by a nasty piece of legislation which I will oppose.
Pensions Bill [Lords]
Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts(14 years, 5 months ago)
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Jenny Willott
We need to focus on what is realistic and affordable. The Bill will affect people’s lives, and we need to ensure that the state pension is affordable and sustainable long into the future. I want to receive the state pension that I have paid into when I come to retire, and I am sure all hon. Members and people out there in the country would want the same thing.
I welcome the fact that Labour Front Benchers are now more positive toward to today’s proposals, and that they are prepared to accept that the Government have moved to the significant benefit of a large number of women, even if a realistic approach is somewhat lacking in their proposed amendments.
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
Does not the hand-wringing between 12 months and 18 months, and billions here and there, show the utter vanity of the UK spending billions on Trident nuclear weapons, when we are finding difficulty in paying money to old age pensioners?
Jenny Willott
The hon. Gentleman tempts me into an area into which I will not follow him. That is an issue for another day, although my position is probably not too dissimilar from his.
Given the financial circumstances and the constraints that the Government face, the deal proposed today is a good one. The Government’s amendments substantially mitigate the worst problems, and we should bear it in mind that £1 billion is a huge amount of money.
I hope the Minister can now concentrate on introducing a flat-rate pension for those whose retirement age is increased. That would make a massive difference to the amount that people get from their basic state pension when they retire, and it will benefit women in particular. Will he confirm that he still plans to introduce a flat-rate pension for 2016, so that women who are affected by the state pension age increase that we are discussing will be the first, or among the first, beneficiaries? In that way, although they retire later, they will do so on a significantly enhanced state pension, which would mitigate some of the financial implications of the Bill.
I commend the Minister and his colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions for their efforts, and for their achievement of parting £1 billion from the Treasury to make the changes better, so that the effects are mitigated for those who are hardest hit. I hope that he continues to work to improve retirement income for both men and women.
Amendment of the Law
Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts(15 years ago)
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Danny Alexander
I am sorry, but I must press on and make some progress.
As well as a competitive tax system, we need a fair one, as the hon. Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride) observed in his speech, which is why we have responded to the concerns of hard-pressed motorists by cancelling Labour’s fuel duty escalator for the remainder of this Parliament.
That is on top of announcing a fuel duty rebate for the most remote parts of the UK; it is on top of introducing a fair fuel stabiliser to share the burden of high international oil prices; it is on top of cutting fuel duty by 1p per litre, which is already feeding through to the prices at the pump; and it is on top of reversing Labour’s planned 5p a litre in April. So, fuel will be 6p a litre cheaper than it would have been under the previous Government.
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
When might the European Commission give the green light to the rural fuel derogation for the islands of Scotland, particularly as today in Benbecula diesel is £1.52 a litre?
Danny Alexander
The hon. Gentleman and I agree about the importance of that point. We have submitted the formal application to the European Commission, and I hope that, European processes willing—as he knows, they are not always entirely predictable—we will have that permission over the next few months.
The help that we are providing to motorists has to be paid for, and it is right that we ask the oil companies to pay a greater share of the extra profits that they are making from the high international oil price. Even with those changes, the profits on a barrel of oil are forecast, as I said, to be higher over the next five years than they were over the past five, so I say to the oil companies, “We do understand your concerns, and there is plenty for us to discuss with you, especially to support”—