Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate he has made of the proportion of people affected by the under-occupancy penalty who have subsequently moved into a smaller home.

This information is not available.

It is not possible to calculate the proportion of those affected by the removal of the spare room subsidy policy to date due to the dynamic nature of the caseload (i.e. every month there are on-flows as well as off-flows). However a recent DWP ad hoc publication did show that between May and December 2013 around 19,000 of the caseload downsized within the social rented sector over this period. This is likely to be an understatement and it does not include those who have downsized to the private rented sector.

This represents around 10% of all those who during this period were no longer subject to a reduction in their housing benefit award due to the policy.