Housing Benefit

John Bercow Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I inform the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.

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[Rachel Reeves]

First, as the hon. Lady knows, the Government’s policy is retrospective whereas in the private sector it is not. Also, the discretionary housing payments are not nearly enough to cover this. In my constituency in Leeds—[Interruption.] The hon. Lady has asked the question; perhaps she will listen to —[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There is far too much noise—a complete cacophony of noise—on both sides of the Chamber, such that the Chair cannot even hear what is being said. I recognise the strength of feeling on both sides, but I appeal to Members, as I have said many times before, to have some regard for the way in which our proceedings are viewed by people outside this place, who would hope for some seemly conduct.

[Rachel Reeves]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

In Leeds, where I am a Member of Parliament, two thirds of the budget has been used with less than half the year gone, despite the fact that the council has topped up the discretionary housing payment pot to help as many people as possible, so that money is not nearly sufficient to help all those who are hit, particularly disabled people.

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[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. In a moment I shall call the Minister to move amendment (a) in the name of the Government. Before I do so, I remind the House that, in recognition of the enormous number of Members seeking to catch the eye of the Chair in this debate, I have imposed a five-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches. Let us first hear the Minister move amendment (a).

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[Ian Swales]

I thank the Minister for that response. His announcement of that extra funding is the first I have heard of it. I will ask my local authority why it has not applied.

We need to recognise that some people simply cannot afford right-size accommodation and that it does not exist in their area. The Government should seriously consider a policy of treating those people as willing but unable to move and give them concessions in the system.

In my area, there have been some helpful consequences. I have been thanked by a number of families who have managed, owing to the policy, to get a bigger house in the area where they want to live. One social housing provider I met was surprised by the number of large families moving into their houses from overcrowded private rented accommodation. I do not know why that provider was surprised; surely, we ought to have expected that. Only the week before last, I was in an excellent hostel run by Coatham House, a charity in my constituency for homeless young people. It has said that it has seen a dramatic fall in the number of homeless young people. It put that down to the policy. Hon. Members might think there are bad reasons for that—I can think of those, too—but there might also be good reasons.

Many points have been made in the debate. The hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) mentioned the financial stability of some of the stock transfer social housing providers. Some of them are highly leveraged and threatened by arrears, which will increase when direct payments begin. They could find themselves financially unstable.

I welcome the Government’s efforts to free up the system. One of the first cases that I dealt with as an MP was that of a single man living in a three-bedroom house. He wanted to downsize, but the system was so rigid that he was told that he would be moved to the bottom of the waiting list, with no guarantee of how and when he would get his next social house. Guess what? He did not move. I welcome that the system has, to an extent, been freed up and that exchanges are happening more often.

I welcome the continued commitment to review the policy, as it does need continual review. Despite the views that I have expressed in my speech, it is hard to welcome the hypocrisy evident from the Labour party on this issue. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am sorry to disappoint the House, but speeches have tended to be at the limit, with lots of interventions taken. I have to reduce the time limit with immediate effect to four minutes, otherwise colleagues will not get in. People do not have to take the full time, but they can.

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[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. In recognition of the fact that the hon. Member for Braintree (Mr Newmark) was not here for the bulk of the debate, he has generously volunteered to address the House extremely briefly, and I know he will expect to be held to that standard.

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[Ian Lavery]

That is what this is about: moving people from their houses. It is outrageous, but at the end of the day, I would like to think that the Government will—

[Mr Speaker]

Order.

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[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Esther McVey)]

I welcome the opportunity to speak in this lively and, at times, loud debate. We have heard many speeches in the past five and a half hours and many issues have been raised. Labour Members have passed much speculation as certainty. They all called for the spare room subsidy to remain. There has been much passion—[Interruption]—and much shouting out like that. However, unfortunately, Labour Members have given us no answers—they have given not one single answer to the problems left by the previous Labour Government. Not one Labour Member confronted the nub of the problem or tackled the issues at hand, or addressed the many interdependent issues that have made the removal of the spare room subsidy necessary.

Let us therefore remind hon. Members of the complex mix and the delicate balance that we must get right, which we are doing. Some 400,000 people are in overcrowded accommodation, and nearly 2 million people—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There is too much noise in the Chamber. Members must not shout at the Minister. The Minister’s response to the debate must be heard.

[Esther McVey]

Just like I am being shouted down now, the voices of nearly 2 million people on waiting lists have been shouted down and, unfortunately, the 400,000 people in overcrowded accommodation are not being listened to.

We have two different legal systems within one—it does different things for people in the private rented sector and for people in the social rented sector. Opposition Members want to remove the reversal of the spare room subsidy, but I want to throw a question out there. If they retain the spare room subsidy, I believe a legal challenge is on the way from people in the private sector, who want the same policy to apply to them. If Labour reverses our policy, that is not tough on fiscal responsibility. Instead, Labour will spend yet more, which is typical Labour: spend more and increase benefits, and ignore the problem altogether.

Hon. Members have asked whether the policy was about saving money, getting the housing stock right or getting the right people into social houses. Actually, we must do all those things. That is why, as we are solving those problems, £4.5 billion will be put into new building, so we will have 170,000 new houses by 2015. A further £3.3 billion will mean we have another 65,000 houses by 2018.

The hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson) said that Members on each side of the House are different and she is quite right: those on the Opposition Benches deliver problems and those on the coalition Government Benches have to solve them. The hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) asked what the difference is between the Government side and the Opposition side of the House. The Opposition drove us into recession, never thinking about what they were spending and never living within their means. We are digging them out of that recession.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

What would the hon. Lady say to my constituents, Mr and Mrs Wilkes? Mrs Wilkes has a back problem and is disabled. Her husband cannot share a bed with her, much as he would like to, and has to stay in the second room. They are having to pay the bedroom tax. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Interventions must be brief. I think we got the gist and we are grateful to the hon. Lady.

[Esther McVey]

We have listened to all of those issues and trebled the discretionary housing payment. That is why people have a responsibility to help those people.

The Opposition’s figures—surprisingly—do not always stack up. We talked about how we are going to find new homes for different people and how we are going to support them to move into accommodation—all the things we should be doing. Yes, 660,000 people are affected by these changes, but only earlier today I spoke to one of the biggest online home swap companies. It has 320,000 accommodations for people to move to. By the way, it has only 6.7% market share, so we are easily able, should we be working in this way, to find houses for people to swap. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There is simply too much noise in the Chamber. It is not possible to hear what the Minister is saying. [Interruption.] Order. The Minister must and will be heard.

[Esther McVey]

I would like to raise the example of Susannah from south Yorkshire. She had had four children and did not necessarily want to move. In the end, she looked around for six months and moved. She said, “Actually, I wished I’d had that support earlier, because now I am in an area I prefer. I have downsized. I have a smaller house, which means that my cost of living is less. I am paying less on cleaning and less on heating, and I can live within my means.” I have a list of people like that. I ask Opposition Members to work with their local authorities and their constituents to help them downsize so they can live within their means. I know that living within one’s means is not something Opposition Members understand, but that is what we all have to do as a country.