Housing Benefit and Supported Housing

Debate between John Healey and Barbara Keeley

Wednesday 27th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

No, I will carry on for the moment.

Since then, we have had a series of half-baked statements from the Government. The first was, “This is unnecessary scaremongering.” Not true—we are giving voice to the warnings and evidence from those who have the facts and will have to manage the consequences. Those are organisations the British public trust and respect, including Age UK, Mencap and Women’s Aid. Secondly,

“nothing will change until 2018.”

Not true—the cut and the cap apply to new tenancies from April this year, so the problem is immediate. My local housing association, South Yorkshire Housing Association, has told me that

“it takes time to rehouse anyone, let alone the most vulnerable people. Consultation on scheme closures will need to begin within a matter of weeks”.

No one will sign contracts for supported housing when they do not know whether the basic costs can be covered. New investment has already been stopped in its tracks: one in five providers have frozen investment and new schemes, according to the Inside Housing survey. Golden Lane Housing, Mencap’s housing arm, had plans for £100 million of investment over the next five years in supported housing across England, but they have been scrapped.

Thirdly,

“Additional discretionary housing payment funding will be made available to local authorities, to protect the most vulnerable, including those in supported housing”.

Not true—the fund is run by councils to deal with emergency applications from people already coping with the bedroom tax, the benefits cap, and the cuts in the last Parliament to the local housing allowance. Awards often run for only a few months. The fund is currently £120 million a year, and it is a short-term and overstretched measure.

Policy costing in the autumn statement scores the cost of the Chancellor’s housing benefit cut at £515 million. The Government proposed to top up the discretionary housing payments fund by not £515 million but £70 million. Housing organisations rightly dismiss the idea that the fund is the solution, saying that that is “nonsense and unworkable”.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

The insufficiency of discretionary housing payments for the bedroom tax has been shown again and again. I am delighted that today at least one case involving a family of carers has been exempted. Does my right hon. Friend agree that facing this sort of situation preys on the minds of vulnerable people, as they know that they have to apply for a discretionary housing payment and may not get it?

[John Healey]

I think that my hon. Friend is discussing the case in the High Court, which found the Government to be in breach of equality legislation. We have always said that the bedroom tax is unfair, punishing people who often cannot afford to make up the difference, and that it should be scrapped. I hope that today’s High Court judgment will lead Ministers to think again about the bedroom tax and to act to stop the housing benefit cut damaging the prospects of many people.

The question for the Minister for Housing and Planning and for the Secretary of State—who was in the Chamber a moment ago, but then scarpered—is: did they discuss the cut with Treasury Ministers before the spending review? Was the Department even consulted? Either they did not spot it or they did not stop it. Either way, the Minister, the Secretary of State and the Department have been disregarded and overruled by the Chancellor.

The Housing and Planning Minister is in the Chamber to try to explain why housing schemes supporting more than 150,000 of the most vulnerable people, with nowhere else to turn, are set to close, while the real culprit keeps his head down in the Treasury. Forced to backtrack on tax credits when a tough stance on benefits backfired, the Chancellor turned to housing benefit cuts across the board to make his fiscal sums add up. With this, he has made the same errors of judgment. He has put politics above good policy and even basic humanity. He announces first, and asks questions later. He is failing many vulnerable people, and he is failing the taxpayer too.

This decision is a big test for the Conservative Government. The Prime Minister said just before the election:

“I don’t want to leave anyone behind. The test of a good society is you look after the elderly, the frail, the vulnerable, the poorest in our society.”

So will the Government act immediately and confirm that they will exempt in full from this crude, sweeping housing benefits cut those in supported and sheltered housing? Will they work with those who provide that housing to ensure that it is secure for the future? The only decision for Ministers to take on the motion before the House is to exempt that housing—a decision that would be based on evidence, compassion and care.

NHS Reorganisation

Debate between John Healey and Barbara Keeley

Wednesday 17th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

Yes, of course; we had been doing that for some years before the election and we had plans to do it after the election, but the fact is that we did not win the election, and the Secretary of State is in power now. He is making the decisions and he is the one who is entrusted with the future of our NHS. He is the one who needs to answer to the House for his plans.

The problem with broken promises is worse than I have already suggested. The coalition agreement promised:

“The local PCT will act as a champion for patients and commission those residual services that are best undertaken at a wider level, rather than directly by GPs.”

The Secretary of State’s plans will do precisely the opposite. He is abolishing the PCTs, not building on the best of what they do.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

There is a great deal of talk about reducing bureaucracy and administration, but PCT staff work on issues such as NHS treatment for people with learning disabilities. Ministers have talked about that role continuing, but will those staff not be really worried about their futures now? They will be looking around, and if they see another job, they are not going to wait two years; they are going to jump now, and the PCTs will lose that expertise. It will drain away and the PCTs will be unable to carry out all those important residual functions.

[John Healey]

This is precisely why those who understand the health service, including those who run it, say that it is going to be so hard, at a time when the NHS has never faced such a tough financial challenge, to see through the biggest reorganisation in its history at breakneck speed.

Whether on funding, reorganisation or the role of the PCTs, the Secretary of State is doing precisely the opposite of what was set out in the coalition agreement. He is running a rogue Department with a freelance policy franchise, in isolation from his Government colleagues. He claimed on the “Today” programme yesterday that he had been saying all this for four years before the election. So when did he tell people, and when did he tell the Prime Minister, that GPs will be given £80 billion of taxpayers’ money—twice the budget of the Ministry of Defence—to spend? When did he tell people that, in place of 150 primary care trusts, there could be up to three times as many GP consortiums doing the same job? When did he tell people that GP consortiums will make decisions in secret and file accounts to the Government only at the end of the year?

When did the Secretary of State tell people, and the Prime Minister, that nurses, hospital consultants, midwives, physiotherapists and other NHS professionals will all be cut out of care commissioning decisions completely? And when did he tell the Prime Minister that hospitals will be allowed to go bust before being broken up, if a buyer can be found for them? When did he tell people that NHS patients will wait longer, while hospitals profit from no limit on their use of NHS beds and NHS staff for private patients? When did he tell people that lowest price will beat best care, because GPs will be forced to use any willing provider? When did he tell people that essential NHS services will be protected only by a competition regulator, similar to those for gas, water and electricity? And when did he say that he was creating a national health service that opens the door for big private health care companies to move in?