Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will review the Local Housing Allowance and the effect it has on tenants living in the private rented sector.

The Government currently has no plans to review the Local Housing Allowance. The freeze to Local Housing Allowance rates was introduced from April 2016 and will apply until March 2020.

As the Government recognises that the impact of this measure varies across the country, especially in areas of high rental growth a proportion of the savings from the Local Housing Allowance freeze are recycled to create Targeted Affordability Funding. This funding is used to increase LHA rates by 3 per cent in areas where local rents have diverged the most.

Following the Budget Announcement on 22 November 2017, additional Targeted Affordability Funding will be made available. We will be increasing the funding for 2018/19 by £40 million and £85 million in 2019/20 and this will be based upon 50 per cent of the savings from the Local Housing Allowance freeze (instead of 30 per cent) which will enable more rates to be increased by 3 per cent.

Further since 2011, the Government has provided around £900 million in Discretionary Housing Payments to local authorities to protect the most vulnerable claimants and support households affected by different welfare reforms including the freeze to Local Housing Allowance rates.