Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when the local housing allowance was last updated; and what estimate he has made of the difference between average rents at the time of the last update compared with the most recent available data.

Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates were last updated in April 2024. The Office for National Statistics ‘Price Index of Private Rents’ (PIPR) provides monthly estimates for average rents in the whole private rental sector. PIPR data is available on the ONS website: https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/datasets/priceindexofprivaterentsukmonthlypricestatistics