Housing Benefit (Abolition of Social Sector Size Criteria)

Karen Buck Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

People affected by the bedroom tax are facing impossible decisions that, frankly, no one should have to make: whether to pay the bills or put food on the table; or whether to pay the rent, at the risk of getting into debt, or risk losing their home. We have seen the evidence from the Trussell Trust and the Child Poverty Action Group, but we do not have to turn to that report to see the devastating impact of this vicious policy; we need only look at the evaluation commissioned by the Government themselves. It was conducted by the centre for housing and planning research at Cambridge university and slipped out this summer, when the Government no doubt hoped no one would notice. Its findings are clear and damning.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

London is not the area worst affected by the bedroom tax. In fact, regional variation is one of the striking things about it, because there is more overcrowding in the south and more under-occupation in the north. Despite that, we have 860 households currently affected by it. Does my hon. Friend share my astonishment that in recent years councils and housing associations, such as Westminster city council, have sold 240 one-bedroom properties, thus removing the very opportunities people need to downsize in order to avoid the bedroom tax?

[Rachel Reeves]

That is a really important point. Six months after the restrictions on housing benefit had been applied, only 4.5% of those affected had moved into smaller homes within the social sector, despite that being, as the report put it,

“a key aim of the policy”.

The vast majority of claimants said that they were unable to move because of their need to remain close to work, services or support networks, or simply because, like the Rutherfords, they needed the room that the Government had decided was surplus to their requirements.

The Government’s evaluation also found that a shocking 60% of those affected were in arrears. Social landlords were beginning eviction proceedings in some cases, even though they knew that their tenants could simply not afford the rent increases. Most devastating of all are the official findings on how tenants have struggled to pay the shortfall. The evaluation reported

“widespread concern that those who were paying were making cuts to other household essentials or incurring other debts in order to pay their rent”.

It reported that 57% of claimants had said that they had cut back on household essentials.

There are not many of them here, but let me say a few words about the Liberal Democrats, who took the publication of the independent evaluation as an opportunity to try to wash their hands of this notorious policy. The Deputy Prime Minister said he had changed his mind after seeing the evidence in the report that most people were unable to move in order to avoid the tax, but what did he expect? Did he expect that half a million households would find new, smaller, affordable homes and that everyone would live happily ever after?

The reality is that it was always obvious that that was not going to happen. The Government’s own impact assessment, published in June 2012, assumed that no one would move and warned that if they tried there would

“be a mismatch between available accommodation and the needs of tenants”

meaning that

“in many areas...there are insufficient properties to enable tenants to move to accommodation of an appropriate size”.

Indeed, the very report that the Deputy Prime Minister cited as the “trigger” for his attempted U-turn points out that the smaller number of moves that had taken place were actually

“higher than some had expected”

in the Department for Work and Pensions. The utter disingenuousness of the Deputy Prime Minister’s attempts to excuse his collaboration with the Tories on this issue once again confirms that we simply cannot trust a single word he says.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

With the greatest respect, the period during which the housing benefit bill rose so fast, as the hon. Gentleman has just said, was of course when his party was in government. He is quite right about the need to build more houses, but housing starts fell to a historical low under Labour. We have actually increased the building of new homes. Nearly 500,000 homes have been built since 2010, and a further 275,000 affordable homes will be built from 2015 to 2020. More affordable homes are planned over the next Parliament than in any equivalent period in the past 20 years. The point he makes is right, but this Government have absolutely dealt with it. Overall, the changes we have made to housing benefit will save £6 billion during this Parliament.

The removal of the spare room subsidy is a key part of the reforms. Despite some outlandish claims about its effect, it is working. In the interim evaluation, half of those affected and unemployed had looked for a job, and one in five of them intended to plan to earn more. It was alleged that the change would move people into poverty. In fact, the figures show that thousands of those affected have moved into work.

Despite the Opposition’s scaremongering about evictions and arrears, the evidence has been to the contrary. The latest statistics show—[Interruption.] If we are to have a sensible debate about such matters, it would help if people did not make outlandish claims. I listened very carefully to the intervention by the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck). It is worth remembering that, when we discussed the benefit cap, she said that huge damage would be done to the 400,000-plus working households in private rented accommodation. However, we know from work that we published this week that 41% of people affected by the benefit cap are more likely to go into work. People are doing more to find work, and the policy has actually been very successful. In London, where the highest number of people are subject to the benefit cap, very few people have actually moved, and those who have moved have not moved great distances.

[Ms Buck]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Harper]

Since I mentioned her, I will of course give way to the hon. Lady.

[Ms Buck]

Perhaps the Minister will explain to the House why, in the last year alone, there has been a rise of almost 30% in the number of households forced outside the area in which they originate? That is in contradiction to the advice given by Housing Ministers for years and years that homeless households should not be placed outside their local authority.

[Mr Harper]

It is simply not the case that people have been pushed out of London: 84% of the capped households in inner London that have moved continue to live in the central boroughs. The idea that hundreds of thousands of people would be forced out of London is simply not true.