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 number of people above pensionable age and living in general needs accommodation who will be deemed to be under-occupying their home and will have their housing benefit reduced in accordance with their household size as opposed to their property size as a result of the cap on housing benefit for social housing tenants to the Local Housing Allowance Rate; and what the average loss incurred by this group of people will be.

This measure will be introduced in April 2018, where new tenancies have been taken out or existing tenancies renewed from 1 April 2016 (or 1 April 2017 for supported housing). Full impact and equality impact assessments will be undertaken in due course.