Housing Benefit: Social Rented Housing
(asked on 19th June 2023) - View Source
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the impact of the removal of the spare bedroom subsidy on levels of spending on (a) housing benefit and (b) discretionary housing payments in Wales in each year since April 2013.
The Department has not made an assessment of the full impact of the Removal of the Spare Room Subsidy on levels of spending on Housing Benefit (HB). We estimate that the Removal of the Spare Room Subsidy (RSRS) policy, between May 2013 and February 2023, has seen deductions from Housing Benefit (HB) expenditure in Wales of £190 million. This is broken down for each financial year below:
Financial Year | Total RSRS deductions for HB in Wales |
2013/14* | £21m |
2014/15 | £22m |
2015/16 | £22m |
2016/17 | £22m |
2017/18 | £22m |
2018/19 | £21m |
2019/20 | £18m |
2020/21 | £16m |
2021/22 | £14m |
2022/23* | £12m |
*These years do not include the full 12 months. 2013/14 excludes April 2013 as there is no data for this month. 2022/23 excludes March 2023 as this data is not yet available.
This estimate is based on those households with the RSRS deduction applied. For a full impact assessment, the behavioural impact of the policy would need to be considered, for example where households with a spare bedroom have moved to a right-sized property.
As asked for the total RSRS deductions are for Housing Benefit only, and do not include deductions for those in receipt of the Universal Credit Housing Element (UCHE). Over the time period shown there has been migration of cases from HB to UCHE, and the majority of new claims for housing support for those of working age will be for UCHE since its introduction.
The impact of the RSRS on Discretionary Housing Payment spending has not been fully assessed. DHP funding has historically been distributed using four funding streams based on DWPs best measures of housing need, these are Local expenditure on Housing Benefit (HB)/Universal Credit Housing Element (UCHE), Local Housing Allowance (LHA) shortfalls, RSRS deductions and Benefit Cap deductions. Although the funding is distributed using this broad methodology, local authorities spend according to their own criteria. As part of annual returns LAs include a breakdown of their expenditure by measure including RSRS, though DHP stats include this breakdown only at national level.
The overall RSRS expenditure reported to DWP by Welsh Local Authorities between April 2013 and March 2022 has been over £30 million. This is broken down for each financial year below:
Financial Year | RSRS Expenditure in DHP by Local Authorities in Wales | Percentage of LA’s information is available for |
2013-14 | £3,116,498 | 73% |
2014-15 | £4,427,275 | 86% |
2015-16 | £3,045,024 | 77% |
2016-17 | £3,360,025 | 82% |
2017-18 | £3,062,745 | 77% |
2018-19 | £3,204,905 | 86% |
2019-20 | £2,821,180 | 82% |
2020-21 | £3,702,173 | 91% |
2021-22 | £4,247,069 | 100% |
* Monitoring returns were not provided by all local authorities; for those that did, not all could provide the detailed breakdown
This table shows the expenditure of Welsh LAs on DHPS in respect to RSRS, not what DWP provide to Welsh LAs as a contribution of funding DHPs. DHP statistics are available online:
Discretionary Housing Payments statistics - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)