Housing: Under-occupancy Charge

Baroness Maddock Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

There are signs of people both downsizing and going into work on a policy that was designed to save the state £0.5 billion a year and is doing so. One of the side-effects that is not properly appreciated is the extraordinary change in the numbers in social housing who are out of work. They have now reached the lowest levels that we have ever recorded.

[Baroness Maddock (LD)]

My Lords, it is quite clear from the Government’s own evidence in the last Parliament that there are many instances where people in social housing are unable to downsize—the accommodation simply is not there. Could I ask the Minister to look very carefully at the Private Member’s Bill introduced by the then MP for St Ives, Andrew George, trying to deal with some of the worst aspects of this now rather discredited policy?

[Lord Freud]

There are a substantial number of homes available each year. There are about 1.4 million single-bedroom social housing homes and, on the HomeSwapper site, there are now 55,000 one-bedroom homes and 142,000 two-bedroom homes to swap into.