Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department has made an assessment of the impact of changes to Local Housing Allowance on the amount spent in (a) Gwynedd and (b) Wales on Discretionary Housing Payments.

No such assessment has been made.

In April 2020 investment in LHA rates was boosted by nearly £1 billion, providing 1.5 million claimants who rent privately with an average £600 more housing support in 2020/21 than they would otherwise have received. Rates have been maintained at their increased 2020 levels in 2021/22 and 2022/23 so that claimants continue to benefit from the significant increase.

Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs) continue to be an important element of an extensive cross-Government housing support package with almost £1.5 billion of DHP funding provided to local authorities since 2011.

The UK Government has invested heavily in supporting low-income households with their housing costs with £29 billion spent on housing support alone last year, and our housing support offer remains higher than it was before the pandemic.

We are also investing more than £2 billion of funding to tackle and prevent homelessness and rough sleeping over the next three years.