Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Lloyd Excerpts

Monday 21st May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

Yes, I can absolutely confirm that under universal credit claimants can get into work faster and stay in work longer than under the legacy system.

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

5. What assessment she has made of the effect of the roll-out of universal credit on the number of evictions in the private rented sector.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Kit Malthouse)]

Housing benefit has been paid direct to tenants since 2008. Universal credit replicates that so we would not expect to see a change in landlord behaviour.

[Stephen Lloyd]

I am very disappointed with that answer because, having had meetings with a number of residents associations and landlords, I already know that the private sector is fairly loth to let houses to people on housing benefit. The same applies to universal credit, the reason being that the payment goes direct to the tenant. I urge the Government to at least have a default, if both sides agree, for the payments to be made to the landlord.

[Kit Malthouse]

It is deeply disappointing when Members of this House trade their principles for perceived political advantage, as the hon. Gentleman seems to have done on universal credit, having of course previously been a strong supporter of the coalition Government’s reforms. He knows full well that direct payments to landlords are available. I have myself met the two most prominent residential landlord organisations very recently and, if he looked at the data, he would see that the proportion of working-age recipients of housing benefit and universal credit in the private rented sector seeking support has not really changed over the past 10 years.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Newton]

I would of course be more than happy to meet the hon. Lady to go through the specifics of that case.

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman wishes to raise a point of order that flows from his question, and therefore exceptionally I will take it now.

[Stephen Lloyd]

Earlier, in response to my question, the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) indicated that I said one thing during the coalition and another thing post-coalition on the issue of rent payments to private landlords. The Under-Secretary was not a Member of Parliament at that time, so he will not know that I am on the record, both as a member of the Work and Pensions Committee and with the then Secretary of State, as having consistently opposed throughout the coalition the idea of paying direct payments to tenants and not to private sector landlords.

[Mr Speaker]

I am extraordinarily grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his perspicacity in raising the point of order, and for his courtesy in giving me advance notice of the gravamen of it. If everybody in the Chamber was not previously conscious of the particular stance taken on this matter by the hon. Gentleman over a sustained period, they all are now. I do not cavil at the hon. Gentleman, but in fairness to the Minister—this is why I think no response is required—my sense of the subject was that the Minister’s critique was collective, rather than applying exclusively or in particular to the hon. Gentleman. I hope that that reassures him. He can reassure the good people of Eastbourne that he has volunteered his views with force and alacrity, and they are on the record.