Housing Benefit

Roberta Blackman-Woods Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

Let me begin by commenting on how the coalition parties seek to frame this debate, which was exemplified in the speech by the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Mr Burley). They are trying to suggest that housing benefit claimants are workless, wasteful and feckless. They are using the most extreme examples of housing benefit claims to try to suggest to the public at large that that is the norm. They are trying to dress up cuts to benefits for some of the most disadvantaged people in this country as fair. If the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd) were still in the Chamber, I would say to her that the only sensationalising of this issue that is going on is in the right-wing press. The press is trying to lead the whole country to believe that everybody on housing benefit is getting £26,000 a year. That is absolutely scandalous and outrageous. I cannot believe that the Secretary of State, who has a social policy background, is presiding over such changes. Shelter suggests that the change to the JSA will mean that many claimant households will be shifted from around or below the 60% median income, which is the poverty line, into severe poverty. That will force an additional 84,000 households to live on less than £100 a week. Those are the sums that will apply to most people on housing benefit, which includes 54,000 children. We need to have a more balanced debate on the issue and to have some of the real facts talked about in this Chamber.

The hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) made an interesting contribution. I accept that when we were in government, we did not build enough social houses. In my constituency, the Liberal Democrat council never implemented a housing policy that ensured that all developments contained 30% social housing. Such a measure was not implemented year on year, which is why we have such a shortfall in social housing. Tory and Liberal Democrat councils all over the country stopped, through the planning process, delivering houses. I am talking about not just social houses, but houses right across the whole spectrum. That is why we have a real problem with supply, and those councils should take responsibility for the situation.

Let me go on to explode some of the myths that have been put around about housing benefit claimants. Let us take the first myth that all claimants are workshy. Only one in eight of all housing benefit claimants is unemployed. Taking just those in receipt of local housing allowances across the country, 26% are in employment and only 19% claim jobseeker’s allowance. The rest include pensioners, carers, disabled people and others unable to work. In the north-east, 18% of people in receipt of local housing allowance are in employment, and that includes a number of people in my constituency.

A lot of people in receipt of housing benefit have very complex needs. I have an example from my local housing authority. A 21-year-old woman secured a tenancy through working with a family intervention worker, who helped her to move on from an overcrowded and difficult family situation. She has multiple social issues, so subsequently, in addition to her weekly rent, she had a tenancy sustainment officer working with her. Also due to her circumstances, she had no furniture and had to access a furnished tenancy. With the changes to long-term jobseeker’s allowance after 12 months, she will lose 10% of her housing benefit entitlement. With the additional services, that means £10.75 a week. Her JSA is only £51.85, which means that her income will drop by 20%, leaving her with just £21 to buy food and clothes, to pay for transport, and to get to job interviews and so on. That is the sort of change we are talking about, and that is the type of person who will affected.

I want to address issues applying specifically to my constituency. The risk analysis by the Department for Work and Pensions states that 99% of LHA claimants will, on average, lose £12 a week. With regional variations in the economy, some areas will bear disproportionate impacts, and Durham has been identified as one of those areas. It will take a bigger hit than many other authorities, which is made much worse by the fact that constituencies such as mine have artificially inflated private sector rents because of students. With the reduction in the amount a person can claim from the median to the 30th percentile, most people will be priced out of private renting in Durham. There are always a lot of students willing to come in and take their place, so this will not lead to a reduction in rent levels. Poorer families will be pushed out of areas such as my city centre and will have to move to outer areas, where they will find it much more difficult to access work opportunities. I ask the Minister therefore to think again about the proposals, and certainly to stop trying to suggest that this is part of the fairness agenda. It can be described only as an unfairness agenda.