House of Commons

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

Tuesday 12 November 2013

The House met at half-past Eleven o’clock

Prayers

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Business before Questions

London Local Authorities and Transport for London (No. 2) Bill [Lords]

Third Reading opposed and deferred until Tuesday 19 November (Standing Order No. 20).

Hertfordshire County Council (Filming on Highways) Bill [Lords]

Second Reading opposed and deferred until Tuesday 19 November (Standing Order No. 20).

Oral Answers to Questions

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

1. For what reasons he has decided to sell the site of HMP Wellingborough.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jeremy Wright)]

The Government should manage the prison estate in the most efficient and effective manner. As my hon. Friend is well aware, Wellingborough prison closed in December last year. Since then, we have looked carefully at whether the site should form part of our long-term capacity plans, and we have concluded that it should not. It is therefore in the taxpayer’s interest to avoid unnecessary holding costs and to dispose of the site.

[Mr Bone]

I thank the Minister for his response, but he is completely and utterly wrong. Wellingborough prison is on a brownfield site, and there is massive room for expansion. People want an expanded prison there, and millions of pounds have been invested in the prison. Will the Minister meet me to look at this again to stop him making a disastrous mistake?

[Jeremy Wright]

The answer to the last question is yes and, indeed, I am scheduled to do so on Monday next week. I look forward to discussing this with my hon. Friend in more detail. I am afraid that I do not accept that this was the wrong decision—we will discuss it in more detail on Monday—but the original decision to close the prison, as he knows, was based on the fact that substantial financial investment would be needed to bring it up to the required standard. The decision not to retain the site was, as I say, made after careful consideration. Looking at the estate as a whole we concluded that the prison simply did not fit our strategic needs, but I am happy to discuss it with him in more detail on Monday.

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

On the subject of the Ministry of Justice selling sites, I have raised many times the issue of Fenton town hall, for which the Ministry of Justice and its predecessors have never paid a penny to rent or to purchase. Will the Minister now have a change of heart and give that building back to the community of Stoke-on-Trent?

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman has stretched the elastic beyond snapping point. The question was broadened by the content of the Minister’s answer, but not broadened beyond the prison estate—that is the subject matter with which we are dealing. The hon. Gentleman is very visible courtesy of his moustache so he can try his luck later.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

In commending my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) on his energetic campaign to save Wellingborough prison, may I gently suggest to the Minister that Government papers must have become muddled on this prison, because it is extremely cost-effective? It has one of the lowest costs per prisoner across the prison estate. The Minister says that lots of money is needed to improve the site but, having gone round it myself, I simply do not think that that is the case. May I urge him to take my hon. Friend’s advice and look again at this wrong decision?

[Jeremy Wright]

First, I agree entirely with my hon. Friend that our hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) has done a first-class job in advocating for his constituents, as he always does. That is his job, but my job is to look at the prison estate across the country. I am afraid that my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) is not correct about the costs of running a prison, which are made up of several components, and a significant one is the cost of maintenance and the cost of maintaining accommodation standards. On our estimates, it would cost £50 million to bring that up to standard, which is why we concluded that it was right to close the prison. There is a separate consideration about whether it is right to retain the site, but for reasons that I have explained we have decided that it not the right thing to do.

[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

Can the prisons Minister reassure the House that he and the Justice Secretary know the figure at which Operation Safeguard kicks in, and that their officials have not advised them to introduce it and that it will not be needed?

[Jeremy Wright]

I can reassure the right hon. Gentleman that we are nowhere near requiring the provisions of Operation Safeguard. I have to remind him that his Government needed to use Operation Safeguard which, for those who do not know, is about using police cells because we have run out of prison cells. Not only did the previous Government need to do that but they had to let people out early because they so mismanaged the prison population. It takes some cheek for him to ask whether we are properly prepared.

[Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)]

Like Wellingborough, Reading prison has closed. Can the Minister reassure me and my constituents that any disposal of the site will be undertaken in consultation with me and the local community?

[Jeremy Wright]

I can reassure my hon. Friend that it is important that when we look at the disposal of these sites, we work together with the local authority and other key stakeholders to make sure that that is done properly. As he will appreciate, what happens to the site now is predominantly a matter for the local planning authority, not for us, but we will co-operate in any way we can.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

2. What assessment he has made of the potential effect of his planned probation reforms on the rate of reoffending.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)]

Extending statutory supervision and rehabilitation to every offender released from custody, introducing an unprecedented nationwide through-the-gate prison service, and bringing in innovation of a diverse range of providers will help to reduce stubbornly high and rising reoffending rates.

[Paul Blomfield]

The Secretary of State will know that South Yorkshire probation trust is a high-performing organisation that has delivered five years of significant reductions in reoffending against predicted rates. Its performance is described as excellent by his Department. He also knows that his Department’s internal risk register warns that there is a more than 80% chance that his proposals to privatise the probation service will lead to an unacceptable drop in operational performance. Will he recognise the risk, face the facts, put public safety first and think again?

[Chris Grayling]

The real risk would be not to accept the fact that reoffending is rising in this country, and that each year thousands of people are victims of crime committed by people who leave prison unsupervised and unguided. That is what this Government intend to change.

[Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)]

Will the Minister look carefully at the evidence session that the Justice Committee held this morning and some of the practical difficulties that were raised there for achieving the objectives of his programme? Will he look with similar care at any recommendations that the Committee eventually makes, as the Department has clearly done in respect of our report on older prisoners, to which he responded today?

[Chris Grayling]

I can happily give my right hon. Friend that assurance. The reason that we have built into our plans a dry run-in period in the public sector of more than six months after the initial structural changes have taken place is precisely because we recognise the need to ensure that the transition is smooth and extended and that we iron out any wrinkles. I will look carefully at the evidence session and I look forward to giving evidence to his Committee and discussing these matters in greater depth.

[Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

I am a little hurt, Mr Speaker, that you have not seen fit to mention my moustache, although it has been there a while.

On a very serious point, the much-heralded Peterborough pilot has delivered a 6% cut in reoffending, whereas the integrated offender management project in Surrey and Sussex probation trust has achieved a 55% cut in reoffending. Does such evidence have no relevance to the right hon. Gentleman?

[Chris Grayling]

The right hon. Gentleman will have to extend his moustache somewhat sideways if we are to give him credit in Movember.

If the right hon. Gentleman looks at what has been achieved at Peterborough, he will see that the most recent figures published two weeks ago showed a 20% reduction in the number of crimes committed by that cohort, by comparison with a comparable cohort elsewhere, that the Peterborough pilot is making genuine progress, and that the integrated offender management schemes around the country are also making good progress. It is not an either/or. Our plans do not exclude—indeed, will actively encourage—the continuation of such schemes, but the reality is that reoffending is still rising.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that the current probation system is not perfect, which is the picture being painted by the Opposition? In that light, will he release the internal inquiry report by the probation service into the case of Stephen Ayre who, after leaving prison, abducted and raped a 10-year-old boy in my constituency as a result of some appalling failures both in the parole system and in the probation system?

[Chris Grayling]

In normal circumstances in a serious further offence the family will see the report that is carried out. I will happily meet my hon. Friend to discuss the issue. He rightly highlights the very real challenge we face with reoffending in this country, because when it does take place, families are the victims of what happens and sometimes go through terrible circumstances. Some 3,000 very serious crimes committed by offenders who get no supervision is something that we all need to stop.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

3. What steps he has taken to reduce reoffending and relieve pressure on the courts system.

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

15. What steps he has taken to reduce reoffending and relieve pressure on the courts system.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jeremy Wright)]

The best way to reduce pressure on the criminal justice system is to reduce reoffending and we seek to achieve this in prisons and in the community. For example, under our transforming rehabilitation reforms every offender released from custody, including those sentenced to less than 12 months, will receive statutory supervision and rehabilitation in the community. This is a step towards reducing high reoffending rates which is widely welcomed, including by the Labour party, though I note that Labour Members voted against it last night.

[Nigel Mills]

With employment being key to preventing reoffending, what steps is my hon. Friend taking to ensure that offenders in prison are engaged in purposeful work or learning new skills that they can use on the outside?

[Jeremy Wright]

My hon. Friend is entirely right to say that work plays a crucial part in the task of reducing reoffending. He will be reassured to know that we are having considerable success in raising the number of prisoners who are working and the number of hours that they are working too. We have already achieved a 25% increase in the hours worked in prison since we came to power.

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

A reduction in reoffending rates is a key ambition across the House, and it is crucial to engage all potential partners. What assessment has my hon. Friend made of how the third sector groups can engage with expertise in new probation contracts?

[Jeremy Wright]

Again, I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. The third sector—voluntary organisations—has a huge amount to offer us in this context, and already does to a large extent. Our proposals to transform rehabilitation will bring more of those organisations into the job of providing rehabilitation. We think that they have a first-class offering in many cases, and are likely to be a large part of what we go forward and do.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

21. Surely the Minister has read the Ofsted reports on the quality of what happens to prisoners in prison. It is appalling that so many prisons fail to do the job of working, educating and training people for release. That is the problem—complacency on the Government Front Bench.

[Jeremy Wright]

I can assure the hon. Gentleman that there is no complacency whatsoever. It is exceptionally important that prisoners learn literacy and numeracy skills, which many of them lack. It is also important that they develop vocational qualifications, because we know that gaining those qualifications leads on to higher chances of employment, and maintaining a job is the best way we know of keeping someone away from crime. That is hugely important.

The hon. Gentleman will also be reassured to know that we are looking carefully at how we can improve education within the youth estate. As a former Chairman of the Education Committee he will recognise the importance of our duty to educate those young people properly, and when the contracts come up for renewal next year, we will expect better.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

How does the Minister reconcile the competing demands of tier 1 providers in reducing reoffending and disseminating good information with the retention of data on intellectual property? How will he reconcile those two competing issues?

[Jeremy Wright]

There will be a number of contractual requirements on tier 1 providers, as indeed on other providers. But the key point that the hon. Gentleman must recognise is that we will reward tier 1 providers for succeeding in reducing reoffending, and the way in which they will do that is to look holistically at all the many factors that affect the likelihood of reoffending. Education is one, training is another, and there are many others.

[Mr Speaker]

I am deeply obliged to the Minister.

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

19. Will the Minister meet me and representatives of the Amber Foundation, which achieves a reoffending rate of 26% compared with the average of 70% for the age group that they deal with? It is essential that Ministers understand the variety of experiences of smaller charities that have a lot to contribute in this area.

[Jeremy Wright]

In principle, of course I am happy to meet my hon. Friend and the Amber Foundation. He will recognise that as we proceed with our reforms and with the competition process, there are restrictions on whom I can and cannot meet. Certainly I agree with him that such organisations have a huge amount to contribute to what we do, and even those that are not specifically criminal justice charities also have a part to play.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

I am frankly not reassured by the Minister’s earlier answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman). Surely he is aware that not a single prison was rated as outstanding by Ofsted, and 65% were rated as not good enough. Is that not a shocking indictment of his rehabilitation revolution?

[Jeremy Wright]

Something tells me that the hon. Gentleman was planning not to be reassured. None the less, let me try again. There is no complacency here. As I said to his hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), there is a huge amount more to do on the education and training of prisoners, but he must recognise that this is something that we inherited from the Labour party. The situation was not perfect in 2010, and both sides of the House have more to do to understand the importance of this and to provide more of it.

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

4. What steps he is taking to ensure that the needs of vulnerable witnesses are properly considered in court.

[The Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims (Damian Green)]

The Government are committed to putting victims first at every stage of the criminal justice system. We are implementing a wide range of reforms to make sure that victims and witnesses get the support they deserve and to ensure that their voice is heard. This includes work to improve awareness of, and access to, support services and special measures in court, and the piloting of recorded pre-trial cross-examination of vulnerable and intimidated witnesses.

[Helen Jones]

Despite what the Secretary of State says, vulnerable witnesses, who are also often victims, still find themselves meeting perpetrators of the crime in court, are still accused by barristers of being predatory and still see people accused of serious offences released on bail near their home. Why does he not agree with Victim Support, victims themselves and his own former Victims’ Commissioner that a victims Bill is needed to enshrine their rights in law?

[Chris Grayling]

I am slightly surprised that the hon. Lady adopts a partisan tone in this regard. As I have just said, we have introduced pre-trial examination as a possibility for giving evidence for vulnerable witnesses. That measure was introduced in a Bill in 1999, but the Government she supported did nothing about it for 11 years. This Government have introduced it and it will come into force next month. It is a practical measure to help vulnerable witnesses, which her Government legislated for and put out the press release but then did nothing about, as was typical.

[Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)]

The Secretary of State will know that some of the most vulnerable witnesses are those involved in cases of stalking and harassment. Will he welcome the establishment of the all-party group on stalking and harassment, chaired by the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd), and agree to meet him and me—I am the vice-chairman—to discuss the issues facing witnesses in such trials?

[Chris Grayling]

I very much agree with the points made by my right hon. Friend. I welcome the establishment of the new all-party group and would be happy to meet her and the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd).

[Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)]

5. What steps he has taken to reduce motor insurance fraud to help motorists with the costs of driving.

[Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)]

8. What steps he has taken to reduce motor insurance fraud to help motorists with the costs of driving.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Shailesh Vara)]

On 23 October the Government announced a package of reforms to ensure the availability of good-quality medical evidence in whiplash cases. Our reforms will create a robust system that deters speculative and fraudulent claims. They will lead to reduced costs for insurers and lower premiums for honest motorists.

[Andrew Jones]

I thank the Minister for that reply. How will he ensure that the medical panels are independent and will help to stop bogus claims?

[Mr Vara]

I can assure my hon. Friend that our reforms will see experts commissioned jointly by both the claimant and the defendant and paid regardless of the outcome of the claim. The measures will help ensure independence, and the new examination and reporting scheme will result in fewer speculative and fraudulent claims.

[Margot James]

A constituent of mine was involved in an accident in which the car in front of her made an emergency stop. She swerved to avoid it and the two vehicles made contact without significant impact, yet her insurers agreed to pay out a £4,000 claim for whiplash, which could not possibly have resulted from the accident, without informing her, let alone consulting her. Will my hon. Friend look into the case to see whether there are wider lessons to be learnt?

[Mr Vara]

My hon. Friend will appreciate that I am unable to comment on individual cases and am not aware of any plans by the insurance industry to make information of that sort available. However, I can say that I very much hope that the reforms we are putting in place will ensure that fraudulent and speculative claims of the sort she refers to are weeded out in the first instance.

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

Has the Minister made any assessment of the different levels of fraudulent claims in the regions of the United Kingdom? Has he discussed the issue with the Northern Ireland Executive, particularly given that many of the insurance firms are based in the rest of the United Kingdom, rather than Northern Ireland, where it is a major issue?

[Mr Vara]

I am aware of certain figures showing that some areas have a higher propensity for claims than others. We are in the process of consulting a broad spectrum of stakeholders. If there are any we have missed, I am more than happy for the right hon. Gentleman to contact me so that we can include them.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Did the Minister read the e-mail sent to us both yesterday by the victim of a whiplash sting? His insurer, without consulting him or any medical evidence, paid out £2,700, £1,600 of which went to a claims management company, and then more than doubled his premium. Rather than blaming genuine victims for the cost of motor insurance, why has the Minister not tackled the claims management companies and insurers whose actions encourage fraud? Is it because of the millions they give the Tory party every year?

[Mr Vara]

The hon. Gentleman is clearly out of date. If he did his research properly, he would be aware that since January this year 800 CMCs have closed. This is an issue where we are trying to do good and where all stakeholders are working together for the greater good of the public. It is regrettable that he is resorting to type and cannot recognise that he should be working to do good rather than being his usual destructive self.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

6. What steps he has taken to increase the voice of victims in the criminal justice system.

[Karl MᶜCartney (Lincoln) (Con)]

13. What steps he has taken to increase the voice of victims in the criminal justice system.

[The Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims (Damian Green)]

This Government are committed to putting victims first and we will give them a voice at every stage of the criminal justice system. The new victims code published on 29 October will provide extra support for victims and witnesses by offering them greater protection throughout the criminal justice process, a louder voice, and better redress. Victims will now be able to say whether they would like to read out their victim personal statement in court to explain how the crime has affected them.

[Harriett Baldwin]

The Justice Secretary has been to Hanley Swan post office and met my constituents, Alan and Ros Davies, whose lives were devastated by a cruel attack from a prisoner on early release. Can he assure them, and other victims, that their voices and support needs will always be considered ahead of those of violent criminals?

[Damian Green]

I am aware of the terrible consequences of what was a very serious crime. It is precisely for such victims of crime that we are now providing a voice in court. If they so wish, they can read a personal statement to the offender, looking the offender in the eye, and many victims have said that that would have made a very big difference to them in the past.

[Karl MᶜCartney]

I was pleased to hear that the new victims code will automatically inform victims of their right to make a statement in court. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is important that services for victims of crime are not only commissioned locally but that we maintain our existing courts structure? As a justice of the peace, I specifically include magistrates courts, which help to safeguard a local perspective.

[Damian Green]

I agree that it is important for victims to be able to inform the court directly, through the personal statement, about how a crime has affected them. I also agree about the great importance of magistrates for local justice; indeed, that is precisely why I am leading work to broaden and strengthen their role in delivering justice.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

Given that the Minister has broken up the funding for victim support and devolved it down to police and crime commissioners, and refused to make it mandatory in the Crime and Courts Act 2013, what guarantees can he give that some new scheme in future will provide uniform victim support services across the United Kingdom?

[Damian Green]

Some services will continue to be provided nationally, as I am sure the right hon. Gentleman is aware. The bulk of the funding is indeed being devolved to police and crime commissioners, who are all enthusiastic, across party boundaries, to maintain and improve victim services. Those who are closer to the specific problems of a local area are likely to be more sensitive to the needs of that area than the old top-down, centralist system that the right hon. Gentleman still clearly hankers after.

[Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)]

Why are victims of crime not entitled to a full-time Victims’ Commissioner?

[Damian Green]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his post and regret that his first question attacks the Victims’ Commissioner, who is doing an extremely good job. She is helping us with the victims code, and she has made a significant difference. She has reviewed the operation of the probation service’s victim contact scheme. She will, I think, show that the terrible experience she has had herself will contribute to her role as Victims’ Commissioner. I hope that across the Floor of this House we can get behind the Victims’ Commissioner.

[Mr Gary Streeter (South West Devon) (Con)]

7. What progress is being made on reducing illegal drug use in prisons.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jeremy Wright)]

We are making good progress. As a result of effective prison security measures and working closely with health services to reshape drug treatment in prisons, the proportion of prisoners testing positive for drug misuse is the lowest it has been since 1996.

[Mr Streeter]

Many of my constituents remain baffled about why we cannot make prisons drug-free zones; successive Governments have not been able to do so. None the less, I welcome the recent through-the-gate reforms that my hon. Friend has introduced. Will he explain how they will help offenders to come off and stay off drugs?

[Jeremy Wright]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. On his first point, he will recognise that one of the emerging challenges is the misuse of drugs that are not in and of themselves illegal. In that regard, I commend to him the private Member’s Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Margot James), which I think answers that problem very effectively and I hope the House will pass it.

On the through-the-gate reforms, again my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon (Mr Streeter) is right that it is important that we undertake to all those providing drug treatment in prisons that what they begin will be properly completed; otherwise, they will not begin what may be long-term drug treatment programmes. That is why through-the-gate matters, and why our rehabilitation reforms will support people not only in custody but in their transition into the community and for some considerable time thereafter.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

May I commend to the Minister as his recess reading an excellent book, “Doing Time: Prisons in the 21st Century”, by the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman)? In chapter 2 he talks about 50% of those in prisons having a drug problem. As the Minister knows, the Home Affairs Committee has recommended mandatory testing on arrival and exit. Are we any nearer to that?

[Jeremy Wright]

As the right hon. Gentleman knows, I do not agree with him that the right way to deal with drug testing is to have a mandatory point at entry and exit. He also knows that the main reason I disagree with him is that everyone knows where the points are and can see them coming. What I think is much more effective is mandatory random testing, which is what we do now, but, as I explained in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon (Mr Streeter), we must all recognise that the problem that is emerging is less about illegal drugs, dangerous though they are, and more about legal drugs that are being misused in our prisons. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will support the private Member’s Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

We might learn more about the book later, but we must move on now. I am saving the hon. Gentleman up; he should not worry.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

9. What steps he is taking to facilitate mutual ownership of probation trusts; and if he will make a statement.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)]

The transforming rehabilitation competition process has been designed to allow a range of entities to bid to deliver rehabilitation services. This could include alternative delivery vehicles and mutuals designed by individuals within existing probation trusts.

The Cabinet Office’s mutuals support programme has made some of its £10 million funding available to support mutuals interested in participating in the competition. This has included access to coaching and capability-building from experienced commercial mentors and leaders in the field.

[Paul Maynard]

I thank the Secretary of State for that reply. Will he reassure me that, while we have examples of good practice in local probation trusts and individuals who want to transfer to a mutual status, those moves will not be opposed by the Ministry of Justice but, rather, facilitated?

[Chris Grayling]

I can absolutely give my hon. Friend that assurance. Indeed, we held in this House a week ago, while we were all waiting for the Europe votes, a forum with potential bidders. It was gratifying to see among those in attendance a large contingent from the potential mutual bidders. I am very keen to see them make good progress in this process.

[Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

Will the Justice Secretary look again at the geographical boundaries affecting Cheshire, because there seems to be inconsistency with regard to how he, the Home Office and the police are thinking, and that is causing confusion among potential bidders?

[Chris Grayling]

I can certainly do that. If the hon. Gentleman would like to write to me with his specific concerns, I will take a look at them.

[Simon Danczuk (Rochdale) (Lab)]

10. What assessment he has made of the prevalence of mishandling by the Law Society of complaints against solicitors.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Shailesh Vara)]

The Law Society is one of 10 approved regulators for which the Legal Services Board has oversight responsibility. It is independent of the Government. The Solicitors Regulation Authority is responsible for investigating alleged breaches of its conduct principles.

[Simon Danczuk]

I raise this question because my constituent Paul Cowdrey now risks losing his home because the Law Society advised him that if he raised his complaint he would not be liable for costs. He has now been ordered to pay more than £100,000 to the solicitor whom he complained about. The Solicitors Regulation Authority condemned the solicitor’s actions as morally reprehensible, but claimed it was unable to take action. Does the Minister agree that a regulator that is unable to prevent solicitors from abusing their position is not fit for purpose, and will he investigate this case on behalf of my constituent?

[Mr Vara]

I am well aware that this is an ongoing case about which the hon. Gentleman corresponded with my predecessor. However, the legal regulators and the legal ombudsman are independent of the Government and neither the Justice Secretary nor any of his Ministers have the power to intervene and it would be inappropriate for us to do so in any individual case. The hon. Gentleman’s constituent, Mr Cowdrey, needs to take independent legal advice.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the primary role of the Law Society is to represent solicitors, and that the proper channel for consumer complaints is the Legal Ombudsman?

[Mr Vara]

Various channels are available for those dealing with the conduct of solicitors, as well as the service provided by them. Yes, there is provision and appropriate methods that need to be pursued.

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)]

11. What his policy is on the future of the probation service.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)]

We are creating a new national probation service that will work alongside 21 new community rehabilitation companies to manage offenders in the community. The national probation service will be tasked with advising the courts and protecting the public from the most dangerous offenders. It will be responsible for risk assessing all offenders who are supervised in the community.

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

Local service providers have expressed concerns to me about how a fragmented service will manage changes in offenders’ risk levels. Given that risk levels change in about a quarter of all cases, it will be common for offenders to transfer between providers. How will the Secretary of State ensure that the continuity of offender management does not suffer as a result?

[Chris Grayling]

The most important part of the way the new system will work will be the co-location of individuals in the national probation service who are responsible for risk management and the new community rehabilitation companies, to ensure that where risk does change there is a swift transition from one to the other.

[Mr Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

In the Secretary of State’s target operating model for probation there is welcome mention of restorative justice. Can he say anything more to ensure that awareness of restorative justice across the system is so embedded that it becomes an option to be considered on all occasions, particularly to deliver much-improved victim support as well as the rehabilitative effect it has already demonstrated?

[Chris Grayling]

We very much recognise the importance of restorative justice. We are providing funding to police and crime commissioners to enable them to source restorative justice services locally, and give them the option of working closely with providers who will look after offenders in the future. We are keen to see that partnership work well at a local level, and for that resource to be used to good effect in mitigating the impact of crime on victims in the way restorative justice can do so well.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

Last night, when the Justice Secretary was not here, the prisons Minister assured the House that

“if Serco and G4S do not come out satisfactorily from the audit processes…they will not receive any contracts”—[Official Report, 11 November 2013; Vol. 570, c. 744.]

for probation. The Minister is well regarded across the House, and I am sure he will want to be clear about that. Does he mean the conclusion of the Cabinet Office investigation or the investigation by the Serious Fraud Office? It will be of great concern to Members of the House if the Serious Fraud Office investigation is not concluded before contracts are awarded.

[Chris Grayling]

We must treat that issue carefully because a potentially criminal investigation is taking place at the moment. I will make an appropriate statement to the House in due course about the way forward, but in the meantime, because of the nature of the investigation, I do not think it right for us to enter into discussion about it.

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

12. What steps he is taking to increase the number of offender behaviour programmes in English prisons.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jeremy Wright)]

Our priority is to provide accredited offending behaviour programmes, which evidence suggests are most likely to reduce reoffending and protect the public. The National Offender Management Service has begun the process of negotiating programme provision for 2014-15, and intends to maintain at least the current level of investment.

[Steve Rotheram]

Will the Minister ensure that data are collected on the length of waiting lists for programmes such as the offender behaviour programme, better to target resources and facilitate prisoner release when they pose no further danger to the public?

[Jeremy Wright]

The hon. Gentleman is right that we want people to have such programmes as quickly as we can get them. He will recognise that the statistics we might collect—statistics on this issue are collected locally—will mask the fact that some offenders need such programmes urgently while some can perhaps wait a little longer. I understand the point he is making, and we will always try to supply as much information as we can. In answer to the hon. Gentleman’s written question on this matter, I pointed out that such information is not collected centrally, which makes it hard for me to give him a figure.

[Mike Freer (Finchley and Golders Green) (Con)]

14. What his policy is on funding victims services in London.

[The Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims (Damian Green)]

More money than ever before is being made available for services to support victims of crime, with a potential total budget of up to £100 million—double the Ministry of Justice’s current spending of around £50 million. That means that more will be spent on victims of crime in London, with the Mayor of London making decisions on how the majority of the money will be spent.

[Mike Freer]

The figures I have from the Mayor of London show that victims in my constituency and across London will receive a 40% cut in victim support. Will the Minister agree to a capital city uplift so that my constituents are not disadvantaged?

[Damian Green]

It is simply not the case that there will be cuts in funding to London. As I have said, nationally, we are increasing funding considerably. Our current estimate is that, under the current indicative budget, London will receive more funding than is estimated to be spent under current Ministry of Justice funding arrangements. We are determined to continue to provide quality services to victims of crime both in London and in the rest of the country.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

It is accepted that there will be more money overall but, from all the figures, it looks as if Greater London, which has more than one in four of all victims of crime and more than one in five of all crime referrals to victim support, will receive a much smaller percentage. Is the Minister willing to accept an all-party group of London MPs to put the case for victims to be funded properly?

[Damian Green]

I am always very happy to meet my right hon. Friend and London colleagues from both sides of the House. Indeed, I met the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime to discuss the subject yesterday, so I am well aware of the situation. I repeat that there will be more money for London than there is under the current arrangements.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

Nevertheless, my right hon. Friend will be aware that victims of crime in North Yorkshire will receive £166 per head, but that victims of crime in London will receive only £24 per head. The fact is that £3 million extra is required to change that anomaly. Will he agree to an uplift for the capital, rather than victimising the victims?

[Damian Green]

I reject the thought that victims are being victimised. I can only repeat that, in London, as in the rest of the country, victims of crime will have more spent on the services available to them under our new system than under the current one. I would have hoped that London Members welcomed that increase.

[Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)]

17. What assessment he has made of the most recent quarterly statistics on knife possession sentencing under the new offence of aggravated knife possession, published in September 2013.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)]

Knives on our streets are a social scourge, and that is why we introduced new mandatory minimum sentences for threatening with a knife. Few offenders have been sentenced so far, but the majority have received custodial sentences. We are keeping this whole area under close scrutiny and I have raised how the offence is being sentenced with the senior judiciary and the Sentencing Council.

[Nick de Bois]

I am grateful for the Secretary of State’s reply, but does he agree that Parliament has spoken, that the offence should carry mandatory sentences, and that sentencers should bear in mind the will of Parliament? Will he use the opportunity to press the case for introducing mandatory sentencing for possession as well?

[Chris Grayling]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his work in this area. I also pay tribute to the work done by members of his community in Enfield, whom I have met and spoken to. I fully understand the nature of the impact of knife crime on their community and on communities around the country. I assure him strongly that we will keep the issue under review. The clear will of Parliament is that such offences should be dealt with with great severity. I hope that those presiding over our courts recognise the will of Parliament. I also assure him that I continue to look at this area extremely carefully.

[Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)]

18. What steps he is taking to curb the scope and volume of human rights claims.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)]

As my hon. Friend knows, we continue to implement the work completed in the Brighton declaration, but he is aware that, as a party, the Conservatives are considering further measures that we would introduce as a majority Government to reduce the scope of the Court in Strasbourg to impose unwelcome judgments upon us.

[Mr Raab]

After Qatada and prisoner voting, the latest ruling from Strasbourg demands that all lifers have the chance to be released. Does he agree that that latest shifting of the human rights goalposts offends the rule of law, erodes democratic accountability and only strengthens the case for that overhaul of our relationship with the Strasbourg Court?

[Chris Grayling]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend. The decision on whole-life tariffs was entirely regrettable and should not have been taken, and certainly not at the level of an international court. I assure him and all colleagues that the decision simply redoubles my determination to deliver a strategy, which I will do next year, for our party to go into the next general election with a clear plan for change.

[Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

On 4 November in the Chamber, the Home Secretary said that we should consider replacing the Human Rights Act 1998 with a British Bill of Rights. Given that the relevant commission reported to the Secretary of State last December, when can we expect draft legislation to abolish the Act in this Parliament?

[Chris Grayling]

I can give my hon. Friend an assurance that we will publish proposals for change in the new year, and they will include a replacement to Labour’s Human Rights Act 1998. I can also assure him that we, as a party, will publish a draft Bill later next year. Whether the coalition and this Parliament will choose to accept such a Bill, or whether it needs to wait for a majority Conservative Government, is something I suspect we will discover then.

[Mr Speaker]

I call Dr Pugh. Arise.

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

20. What progress he has made on his reforms to the treatment of whiplash claims; and if he will make a statement.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Shailesh Vara)]

On 23 October, the Government announced a package of reforms to ensure the availability of good-quality medical evidence in whiplash cases. Our reforms will create a robust and independent system of accredited experts to help the genuinely injured, and deter dishonest claimants from making claims.

[John Pugh]

I congratulate the Government on all they have done, which has been encouraging, but when will the number of whiplash cases in the UK reach anything like the EU average?

[Mr Vara]

The purpose of the measures is to try to ensure a reduction in the number of whiplash claims. At the moment, we have the highest whiplash claims in Europe. Given the quality of driving in some other countries—I will not name them—we have to accept that the number of whiplash claims is seriously flawed. That is what we are trying to address, and that is why we are introducing these measures.

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

23. What steps he has taken to reduce reoffending and relieve pressure on the courts system.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jeremy Wright)]

As I mentioned earlier, we believe that the best way to reduce pressure on the criminal courts is to reduce reoffending, and we seek to do that both inside prisons and out in the community.

[James Morris]

What role does he see for new generation GPS tagging in tackling reoffending?

[Jeremy Wright]

My hon. Friend is right that new generation GPS tags have huge potential. They will help us to enforce more effectively various provisions of community orders and conditions of licence. We have only to imagine the potential of GPS tags to enforce both curfews and exclusion zones to see what they might be able to do. We seek to take full advantage of that new technology.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)]

In 2015 we will mark the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta. To mark that defining moment in the development of modern legal systems, the lord mayor of London and I are shaping a major programme of events and seminars to celebrate our justice system, and to promote the UK as a centre of legal services. The sector contributes £20 billion a year to the UK economy, and the global law summit will bring together leading practitioners from around the world to show what our legal system can offer, share expertise and open up opportunities for collaboration in new business. My Department has brought together the City of London, the Law Society and the Bar Council to plan the event under the stewardship of the former lord mayor Sir David Wootton and my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (Mr Bellingham). I hope and believe the summit will be a great moment to celebrate our proud legal traditions in the Magna Carta and to look to the future to promote our legal services, secure growth and win the global race.

[Henry Smith]

I welcome the celebration of the great Magna Carta. In 2008, my constituent Carrie-Ann Wheatley was brutally attacked by three men who should not have been in this country. Her family are concerned that article 8 of the European convention on human rights might be used to stop their deportation on their release from prison. I seek reassurance that the Government will properly reform article 8.

[Chris Grayling]

I can give my hon. Friend the absolute assurance that both the Home Secretary and I are looking at ways of tightening the rules. There are provisions relating to article 8 in the Immigration Bill, and I am hopeful that our proposed reforms to human rights laws will strengthen the position of victims of crime in the terrible situation that his constituents have found themselves in. We will make sure that the offenders do not get away with it.

[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

As a number of Conservative and Liberal Democrat Members have commented, the Justice Secretary is cutting and changing the funding for innocent victims of crime. For example, spending in Surrey and Hertfordshire will be £21.14 per victim, while the average in England and Wales will be £15 per victim. Why, under his plans, will spending per victim in London, at just £10.11 per victim, be 41% less than the national average?

[Chris Grayling]

It is nice to see the right hon. Gentleman launching his London mayoral campaign. I follow his Twitter feed, and for every tweet about justice, there are six about London. I will tell him simply and straightforwardly that under this Government the funding available for victims of crime in London has increased significantly, as it has across the whole country.

[Sadiq Khan]

It is funny that the Justice Secretary says that, because I used the Mayor of London’s figures for that question. According to the Mayor, the reason for the cut in London is that the Justice Secretary has decided to use a formula based solely on population, while failing to take into account crime levels and the number of victims in police force areas. That means that London loses more than £3 million a year, according to the Mayor of London. As the Justice Secretary said, our justice system relies on the confidence of victims and witnesses, so he should be aware that the Metropolitan police have the lowest victim satisfaction rate of any police force in the country. What impact does he think his decision will have on that?

[Chris Grayling]

I wish the right hon. Gentleman well with his campaign, but I know that the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) is the frontrunner at the moment, so he has a bit of catching up to do.

Only in the world of Labour party mathematics and economics could an increased budget be described as a cut.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

T3. The modern scourge of human trafficking is still with us. What action is my right hon. Friend taking to bring perpetrators to justice and to compensate the victims?[Official Report, 20 November 2013, Vol. 570, c. 6MC.]

[The Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims (Damian Green)]

My hon. Friend will know that the Home Secretary will shortly be publishing a modern slavery Bill that will deal with many of the issues that he rightly raises. Since July 2011, every trafficking victim has received Government funding, via the Salvation Army. The figures last year were about £3 million, with about 928 victims having received this vital support over the past year.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

T2. The Secretary of State will know that 12 years ago five children and three adults were murdered by a gang of wicked men. Recently, the Parole Board, against the advice of probation and forensic psychologists, released one of those men before his minimum sentence had been served. What is going on in the Parole Board that it is releasing such men into the community?

[Chris Grayling]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Parole Board and its decisions are independent, but I hope that one benefit of the establishment of the national probation service, with expertise in dealing with the highest-risk offenders, will be a greater degree of expertise sitting alongside the Parole Board to advise it on when it is appropriate to release someone and when it is not. I share his concern about ensuring it is safe to release people on to our streets and that they do not continue to pose a threat to society.

[Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

T4. My right hon. Friend will be aware that there has previously been considerable disquiet within the country over the effectiveness of community penalties, in both marking the gravity of offences and ensuring the effective rehabilitation of offenders. I know that he is alive to those concerns, but I would be grateful if he told the House what steps he is taking to ensure they are met.

[Damian Green]

I entirely share my hon. and learned Friend’s concerns about public confidence in community sentencing, which is precisely why we have changed the system so that in the future every community order must contain a punitive element. Indeed, the Offender Rehabilitation Bill creates a new flexible rehabilitation activity requirement to aid the rehabilitation of offenders while they are doing some community activity.

[Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)]

T7. Companies such as G4S and Serco have lucrative, multi-million-pound contracts to provide public services. When will the Secretary of State adopt Labour’s plan to extend the Freedom of Information Act to these companies, so that the public have an equal right to know?

[Chris Grayling]

I said I would not comment—and I will not comment—about the current investigation. I will simply point out that the issues regarding G4S and Serco relate to contracts let by the last Government.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

T5. Does the Secretary of State agree that we have a most excellent prisons Minister who has many superb qualities? One of the best of his qualities is that when he has made a decision and new facts are put to him, he has the courage to reconsider and change his decision.

[Chris Grayling]

The Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright) certainly has those qualities, and he will undoubtedly look at all the issues carefully. Another quality he has is that, when he needs to take a difficult decision in the interests of the country, he will do so.

[Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

The Justice Secretary intends all those who are given short prison sentences to be supervised on release. How many will be allocated to the national probation service, and what funding is he making available?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jeremy Wright)]

The right hon. Gentleman will know, because the matter came up during last night’s debate, that the national probation service will carry out a risk assessment for all short-sentence prisoners. It will then decide whether to retain them because they are high-risk offenders or to pass them to community rehabilitation companies. So I cannot give him a figure, because each case will involve a judgment for the national probation service.

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

T6. Are the Lord Chancellor’s proposed reforms on judicial review intended to reassert the primacy of Parliament over the courts, or to save money, or both?

[Chris Grayling]

First and foremost, those reforms are about ensuring that the justice system in this country is there for those who need it, and not used for purposes other than genuine redress. My view is that judicial review is being used at the moment as a delaying tactic and as a PR exercise. It does indeed undermine the will of Parliament and the will of the Executive, and it costs the taxpayer money. It should be used only when it is appropriate to do so, and not for trivialities.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

Will the Justice Secretary confirm that there will be no further court closures, which could undermine the administration of justice?

[Chris Grayling]

We will continue to review the court estate on an ongoing basis, but at this time I have no plans for substantial court closures. There might be occasional changes in the system, such as those we have seen recently in Liverpool, but I am not planning major changes to the court estate at this time.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

T8. What steps is the Department taking to tackle reoffending among female prisoners? Has the Minister come across the excellent social enterprise called Working Chance?

[Jeremy Wright]

My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the excellent work that is being done with female offenders by various organisations in the voluntary sector. Those organisations make a huge contribution in this regard. We are seeking to ensure that we recognise the particular characteristics of female offenders, that we address the significant problems caused by distance from home, which can have knock-on effects for family life, and that female offenders have an opportunity to work outside prison and to re-engage with lawful society. That is the basis for our reforms.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

A previous Justice Minister announced in a Westminster Hall debate that I secured just over a year ago that the Office of the Public Guardian had launched a fundamental review of the supervision of court-appointed deputies. Will the Minister tell us what changes will be made as a result of that review?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Shailesh Vara)]

This is an ongoing matter, and we are looking into it. I am happy to take on any comments that the hon. Gentleman might have, and I will look into it.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

South Yorkshire probation trust has reduced its reoffending rate by 13.4% over its target, and it attributes that in part to its use of impact teams. However, privatisation is likely to blow apart that collaborative working. Why are the Government pushing ahead with that plan?

[Jeremy Wright]

The hon. Lady might be referring to the local adult reoffending rate. The difficulty with that measurement is that it measures reoffending only over a three-month period. It is much more reliable to measure it over a longer period. She has heard me say many times that I recognise that much good work is already being done within the probation service, but that does not mean that there is no case for change. The case for change is that we still have very high reoffending rates, and we think it is necessary to do something about that. Our proposals will do so.

[Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD)]

One of the really bad ideas from the previous Labour Government was the so-called Titan prisons. The Attorney-General, the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) said so, as did the Justice Select Committee, and I might even have said so myself. So will the Secretary of State tell my why that really bad idea might now be considered a good idea?

[Chris Grayling]

We are not building Titan prisons. The proposed new prison in Wrexham, for example, will be a campus prison with a number of separate small units for 250 to 300 prisoners. It will benefit from the economies of scale achieved by shared facilities, but we will not create a single monolithic institution in which people are detained.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

In 2004, 16-year-old Robert Levy was murdered in Hackney Town Hall square. His parents, Pat and Ian, gave evidence to the murderer’s parole board this summer. Just recently, they received an insensitive and bureaucratic letter from Victim Support, requiring them to go through several hoops and to provide a lot of paperwork in order to claim the train fare. Let me quote Mr Levy:

“We are tired of jumping through hoops whilst on the face of things it appears the perpetrator has it all done for them without much trouble to them.”

We have a code and a commissioner, so when are we going to see an approach that will make it easier for victims?

[Jeremy Wright]

As the hon. Lady knows, I have met her constituent, Mr Levy, and I have to say that I was extremely taken with his courage and dignity. I am very disturbed to hear what she says; if she gives me the opportunity, I will look into it.

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

Last week, a devastating report entitled “The Payment of Tribunal Awards” was published. It found that less than 50% of people received full payment of an award following a successful employment tribunal. Does the Minister agree that more needs to be done to enforce these claims? Will he meet me, my colleagues on the all-party parliamentary group on citizens advice and representatives from Citizens Advice to find ways to resolve this shocking injustice?

[Mr Vara]

I am, of course, happy to meet my hon. Friend and his constituents. I would say, however, that in the context of the tribunal, there are two individual parties and none of the damages is owed to the state, so we have to be careful. We can provide advice and, where possible, assistance, but at the end of the day, enforcement has to be dealt with by the two parties concerned. As I say, I would be happy to see my hon. Friend.

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

A constituent had her name touted around Plymouth by a woman taking part in a custody case who, because of the cuts, had no legal aid and no support. This woman did not know that what she was doing was a contempt of court. What steps is the Justice Secretary taking to review the impact of his cuts and the potential rise in contempt cases as a result?

[Chris Grayling]

We will, of course, continue to review the impact of the changes we have made to legal aid, which were necessary because of the huge financial challenge we inherited in 2010. If the hon. Lady wants to write to us about the specific case, we will of course look at it.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

How many foreign national offenders do we have in our prisons, and what steps are being taken to send them back to secure detention in their own country?

[Jeremy Wright]

I am ready for this one this time! The answer is 10,833, and my hon. Friend and I are in agreement that that is far too many. As we have discussed before, the answer is that we need to make more use of compulsory prisoner transfer agreements. I can tell him that, as he knows, we have a compulsory prisoner transfer agreement with Albania, and 77 Albanian nationals have been referred to the Home Office for immigration enforcement and deportation. He knows, too, that we are part of the European Union prisoner transfer agreement—another compulsory PTA—under which 277 EU nationals have been referred to the Home Office. We are making progress, although it is not as quick as either of us would like.

[Mr Speaker]

I hope the hon. Gentleman now feels fully informed.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

Can the Justice Secretary explain why the Mesothelioma Bill is cited in the Ministry of Justice review of the mesothelioma exemption as one of the recommended criteria for bringing into force sections 44 and 46 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012? Those sections have nothing to do with the Mesothelioma Bill.

[Chris Grayling]

Off the top of my head, no, but I will happily trade letters with the hon. Lady and we will find out.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State agree with me that the comments by Frances Crook of the Howard League for Penal Reform—that magistrates should not be able to send people to prison at all—are typically idiotic? Does he further agree that the only Howard worth listening to on criminal justice matters is Michael Howard and not the Howard League for Penal Reform?

[Chris Grayling]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. It is always important for long-standing influential pressure groups to make sure they take a measured and responsible view in the discussions they have both in public and with Government.

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

My moustache and I are most grateful, Mr Speaker. More seriously, I remain optimistic that the Secretary of State will have a change of heart over Fenton town hall, which was used by the magistrates, and give it back to the people of Stoke-on-Trent. If he does not, what assurances can he give that the buyer that we think is waiting in the wings and subsequent purchasers will protect the first world war memorial that is located in that building? Many thousands of people are concerned about its future.

[Mr Vara]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for his patience. I can assure him that, in the event of any transfers of the building, there will be a covenant to ensure that the new owner preserves that very important and historic monument, which is a tribute to all who paid the ultimate price in the first world war.

[Mr Speaker]

I call Sheila Gilmore to ask her question, lastly and very briefly.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

In May, the now Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant), announced a new pilot in which tribunal judges would give detailed explanations to the Department for Work and Pensions of their reasons for allowing employment and support allowance appeals. When can we expect an evaluation of that pilot?

[Chris Grayling]

We are engaged in detailed discussions with the DWP. We are now providing it with much more detailed information, and paying close attention to the lessons that are learnt from that information.

Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, Sri Lanka

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)

- Hansard - - Excerpts

With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, and on behalf of my constituents Sam Morris and Mr T. Murugadas and 357 other residents of Ealing North, I wish to present a petition concerning the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting due to be held next week in Sri Lanka.

The petition states:

The Humble Petition of residents of the Ealing North Constituency,

Sheweth,

That the island of Sri Lanka is still experiencing the after effects of the recent war.

Wherefore your Petitioners pray that your Honourable House formally state their opinion that this country should not be represented at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting while so many issues are unresolved and so many people are still displaced as a result of this conflict.

And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, &c.

[P001284]

Development of a Public Open Space near Astro Grove (Longton, Stoke-on-Trent)

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)

- Hansard - - Excerpts

I have a petition signed by 1,000 or so constituents who are concerned that land given to Stoke-on-Trent city council by the Highways Agency to compensate for public open space taken by the A50 when it was built is now under threat. The land, near Astro grove and Power grove in Longton, has become a wildlife sanctuary but, sadly, the local authority is unwilling to rule it out for possible future development.

The petition states:

The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons ensures that this land is not to be sold for any development, and is only to be kept and maintained for leisure purposes, in line with the requirements of the Public Open Space order.

Following is the full text of the petition;

[The Petition of residents of Stoke-on-Trent,

Declares that land transferred to Stoke-on-Trent City Council by the Highways Agency in 1997, to compensate for the loss of public space from the construction of the A50 road, should retain its intended usage and function as a public space. The land in question, near to Astro Grove, in Longton, Stoke-on-Trent, exists as a Public Open Space (POS) and thus restrictions are in place to limit its usage and to prevent development on the site. Stoke-on-Trent City Council has also received funding to carry out appropriate landscape treatment on this site in order to retain its function.

The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons ensures that this land is not to be sold for any development, and is only to be kept and maintained for leisure purposes, in line with the requirements of the Public Open Space order.

And the Petitioners remain, etc.]

[P001285]

Safety of the A682 (Barrowford, Lancashire)

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)

- Hansard - - Excerpts

I want to present to the House of Commons a petition from the residents of Barrowford, Lancashire.

The petition states:

The Petition of residents of Barrowford, Lancashire,

Declares that the petitioners believe the A682 next to Barrowford Primary School presents a danger to the safety of the children that attend the school and others who live nearby, as the road gets busy during the times that children are picked up and dropped off to go to school.

The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge Lancashire County Council to place a zebra crossing on the A682 near to Barrowford Primary School, perpendicular to Rushton Street and opposite the nearby Spar shop.

And the Petitioners remain, etc.

[P001288]

Planning Applications for Solar PV Farms on Greenfield Land (Braintree, Essex)

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

Mr Brooks Newmark (Braintree) (Con)

- Hansard - - Excerpts

Solar photovoltaic farms are a blight on the English countryside, never more so than in the northern part of my constituency, where up to 300 acres of solar PV farms are being considered. I therefore present this petition on behalf of the residents of Foxearth and Liston, Belchamp Saint Paul and Belchamp Otten, and Pentlow parishes in the great and beautiful county of Essex.

The petition states:

The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Department of Energy and Climate Change to refuse all planning applications to build on sites where Solar PV farms will be developed.

Following is the full text of the petition:

[The Petition of residents of Foxearth and Liston, Belchamp Saint Pauls and Belchamp Otten, and Pentlow Parishes, Essex,

Declares that the Petitioners object to the siting of Solar PV farms because they will exceed the 50 megawatt limitation as set out in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 thus requiring consideration by the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change; further that these sites involve Grade II agricultural land which is within the top 21 per cent of agricultural land in the country and protected as such under the National Planning Policy Framework; further that the Department of Communities and Local Government issued in July 2013 planning guidance which referred to the requirements to consider technology and potential impacts on the local environment; further that there is an absence of locational need and a site search has not been fully carried out; further that the impact of the developments will be extensive and will include a two metre security fence on Greenfield land with significant consequences on the surrounding countryside; further that on two of the proposed sites a Grade I listed church and several Grade II listed houses will be overlooked; and further that the proposals are intended to last for 25 years but during that time they will effectively preclude agricultural use and will degrade the land and will impact upon the sites and surrounding areas.

The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Department of Energy and Climate Change to refuse all planning applications to build on sites where Solar PV farms will be developed.

And the Petitioners remain, etc.]

[P001290]

Dudley Magistrates Court

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)

- Hansard - - Excerpts

The petition calls on Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service to drop proposals to close our criminal courts, which would leave Dudley the largest town in the UK without a criminal court. The fact that 2,000 people have signed our petition in just a few weeks shows how strongly local people feel. I record my thanks to magistrates and former magistrates, including Colin Knipe, Chris Smith and Barbara Sykes, for their help and advice. Magistrates, victims, witnesses and others directly involved with the court tell me that closure would make it harder for local victims to testify, harder for local people to volunteer in court and harder for the press to deter crime by reporting on local cases. Local people want to see criminals held to account for the crimes they commit in Dudley.

The petition states:

The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons to urge the Ministry of Justice to stop criminal cases moving from Dudley Magistrates Court to criminal courts in Wolverhampton, Sandwell and Walsall.

Following is the full text of the petition:

[The Petition of residents of Dudley,

Declares that there are plans to move all criminal cases from Dudley Magistrates Court to courts in Wolverhampton, Sandwell and Walsall; further that the Petitioners believe justice should be seen to be done locally as it will be harder for local victims to testify, harder for local people to volunteer in court and harder for the press to deter crime by reporting on local cases; and further that moving the work of Dudley Magistrates Court may lead to current employees being made redundant or forced to move.

The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons to urge the Ministry of Justice to stop criminal cases moving from Dudley Magistrates Court to criminal courts in Wolverhampton, Sandwell and Walsall.

And the Petitioners remain, etc.]

[P001291]

Safety of Headland Road, Leicester

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)

- Hansard - - Excerpts

May I say, Madam Deputy Speaker, what a pleasure it is to present my first petition under your watchful eye?

Last Friday, in the company of Councillor Baljit Singh and Councillor Deepak Bajaj, I met Linden primary school and nearby residents who were concerned about traffic calming measures outside the school. They presented me with a petition with 414 signatures urging the Department for Communities and Local Government, with Leicester city council, to implement a 20 mph speed limit.

The petition states:

The Petition of residents of the UK,

Declares that the proposed traffic calming measures on Headland Road in Leicester are vital in ensuring the safety of local school children at Linden Primary School.

The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Department for Communities and Local Government and Leicester City Council to implement the proposed measures, including the 20 mile per hour speed limit without delay and before the next designated review of traffic calming measures.

And the Petitioners remain, etc.

[P001292]

Urgent and Emergency Care Review

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

12:35

[Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will update the House on Professor Sir Bruce Keogh’s urgent and emergency care review following this morning’s briefing to the media.

[The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)]

In January this year, the board of NHS England launched a review of urgent and emergency care in England. Urgent and emergency care covers a range of areas, including accident and emergency departments, NHS 111 centres and other emergency telephone services, ambulances, minor injury units, and urgent care centres. The review is being led by Professor Sir Bruce Keogh, NHS England’s medical director. A report on phase 1 of the review is being published tomorrow, and it is embargoed until then. [Interruption.] This is an NHS England report, and NHS England is an independent body, accountable to me through the mandate. The report that will be published tomorrow is a preliminary one, setting out initial thinking. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There are highly charged feelings on this matter, but the Secretary of State has been asked a question, and his reply must be heard.

[Mr Hunt]

I should underline the fact that this morning’s briefing was under embargo, an embargo which, to my knowledge, has been respected. The final version will be published in the new year.

Sir Bruce has said that he will outline initial proposals and recommendations for the future of urgent and emergency care services in England, which have been informed by an engagement exercise that took place between June and August this year. There will be further consultation on the proposals through a number of channels, including commissioning guidance and demonstrator sites. Another progress report will be produced in the spring of 2014.

Decisions on changing services are made at a local level by commissioners and providers, in consultation with all interested parties. That is exactly as it should be, as only then can the system be responsive to local needs. It is vital to ensure that both urgent and emergency care and the wider health and care system remain sustainable and readily understandable to patients. A and E performance levels have largely been maintained, thanks to the expertise and dedication of NHS staff. A and E departments see 95% of patients within four hours, and the figure has not dropped below the 95% target since the end of April. However, urgent and emergency care is falling behind the public’s needs and expectations.

The number of people going to A and E departments has risen historically, not least because of an ageing population. A million more people are coming through the doors than in 2010. Winter inevitably challenges the system further, which is why we are supporting the most under-pressure A and Es with an additional £250 million. Planning has started earlier than ever this year, and the NHS has been extremely focused on preparing for additional pressure.

We will look at Sir Bruce’s report extremely carefully. Reform of the urgent and emergency care system may take years to complete, but that does not mean that it is not achievable. We are exceptionally fortunate in this country to have in the NHS one of the world’s great institutions. NHS staff are working tirelessly to ensure that the care that people need will continue to be available to them, wherever and whenever they need it.

[Andy Burnham]

Rarely has this House been treated to a more disrespectful and complacent reply. There are new reports today of 12,000 patients spending 12 hours or more on trolleys in A and E. A and E is in crisis according to the College of Emergency Medicine, and this is before the winter has even started. People are increasingly asking, “Where are the Government and what are they doing about it?” So far all they have heard is, “Crisis? What crisis?” But behind the scenes it is a different story. Such is the panic in Whitehall, the Prime Minister has apparently taken personal charge and this morning the media were given a private briefing on a major review of emergency care. What is going on and why is the Secretary of State running scared, blaming NHS England and trying to keep this House in the dark? It should not be for us to drag the Secretary of State here to give Members information already passed to journalists.

Let me remind the House what the Secretary of State said at Health questions in July. He said that Bruce Keogh’s review

“will report this autumn, precisely so that we can make sure we learn any lessons we need to learn for this winter”.—[Official Report, 13 July 2013; Vol. 566, c. 902.]

To hear him now, it was all about the long term. Let me ask him: what are those lessons, and what immediate action is he now taking ahead of winter?

Weekend briefings suggested Sir Bruce emphasises alternatives to A and E, such as walk-in centres and 111, but Monitor reported yesterday that one in four walk-in centres have been closed and others are today under threat of closure. We need a clear answer. Will the Secretary of State stop further closures of walk-in centres? Does he now accept that his 111 helpline is flawed, and will he put nurses back on the end of the phone, rather than call handlers? And what of the recruitment crisis in A and E? There is a shortage of senior A and E doctors and, according to the Royal College of Nursing, 20,000 too few nurses. Will the Secretary of State give a clear commitment to bring all A and Es back up to safe staffing levels?

Last week, a complacent Prime Minister stood there, told us everything was fine, and even claimed that the average waiting time in A and E had gone down to 50 minutes, but that is not true. I have here a written reply from the public health Minister telling us it has gone up to over two and half hours. When are the Government going to show this House and the country some respect, cut the spin, and give us the real picture about a crisis that is happening right now?

[Mr Hunt]

Mr Speaker, I will tell the right hon. Gentleman what complacency is: it is refusing to have a public inquiry into Mid Staffs, where staff in A and E departments were bullied and harassed when they tried to speak out. He did not think it was worth having a public inquiry into the poor care that his Government swept under the carpet and which we are doing something about. There is one figure that he refused to mention: the A and E performance figures published last week of 96.4%—hitting the target, higher than the previous week, higher than this time last year. That sums it up: in a good week he wants to run down the performance of hard-working staff whereas this Government are backing them.

Why are we having an A and E review? It is to clear up the mess and confusion caused by 13 years of Labour mismanagement of our emergency services. The right hon. Gentleman talks about walk-in centres. Why were they introduced? Because of the disastrous mistake over the GP contract. The brave thing for his Government to have done would have been to admit they got that wrong and reverse it, but they did not. They introduced a whole new raft of services, which confused the public: A and E, walk-in centres, GP surgeries, telephone helplines. Tomorrow we will sort out those problems. Yes there are difficult decisions, but they are decisions his Government ducked and left the public exposed as a result.

Before the right hon. Gentleman runs down our A and E services, let me just gently remind him that he talked about a recruitment crisis, but we have 300 more A and E consultants than when he was Health Secretary, we have nearly 2,000 more people—[Interruption.] I am sorry that this is difficult for those on the Opposition Front Bench to listen to. We have nearly 2,000 more people being seen within four hours every single day than when the right hon. Gentleman was Health Secretary —that is some 700,000 more people every year. We have more hospital doctors, more hospital nurses, more treatments and fewer long waits than when he was Health Secretary, and he should celebrate that improvement in our NHS’s performance, instead of trying to run down the people on the front line.

I will tell the right hon. Gentleman something else we are doing. We are tackling the long-term causes of pressure in A and E that his Government absolutely failed to do: not just the GP contract but also the integration of the health and social care system, the lack of which means that hospitals are not able to discharge people from their beds on time, causing huge pressure. Today, the shadow Health Secretary has shown his true colours. The man whose Government made so many wrong decisions about A and E is exposed as trying to make political capital while this Government sort out his mess.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

How many extra lives does my right hon. Friend expect to save through consolidating the A and E facilities in London, by having a smaller number of hospitals with more doctors? Does he expect to replicate that across England?

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The changes we announced in north-west London will save hundreds of lives, by using principles that we will hear more of from Sir Bruce tomorrow. In particular, we are putting 800 extra people into out-of-hospital care, which will help the frail elderly, many of whom should never go to A and E—it is the most confusing place that someone with advanced dementia can go. If we can treat them at home, it is better for them and for our hard-working A and E departments.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

May I assure the Secretary of State that the people of Exeter are not confused about their walk-in centres, but appreciate them and have been using them in ever-increasing numbers? These centres are now under threat, so will he at least admit that closing NHS walk-in centres and scrapping Labour’s GP access targets has been a dreadful mistake?

[Mr Hunt]

Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman might like to hear what the British Medical Association said yesterday about walk-in centres. The BMA is not known for its support of Government policies, but it said that urgent care centres

“were often opened in places with little patient demand…The result has been a lot of money being spent on these facilities with some now closing because commissioners have found there is not sufficient demand”.

That is the problem we are sorting out.

[Paul Burstow (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)]

One long-term cause of pressures in our A and E departments is the lack of parity of esteem between physical and mental health. Does the Secretary of State agree that it is unacceptable that two thirds of people experiencing a mental health crisis do not get access within four hours to a psychiatric assessment? Was it not a failure of the previous Government not to set access standards for people with mental health problems? Is it not time, as the mandate does today, to deliver just that?

[Mr Hunt]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right about that. We do need parity of esteem between mental and physical health. The situation puts particular pressure on A and E departments, including the one closest to this House, at St Thomas’s hospital, where people said that the biggest single worry they have and the biggest single thing that makes it difficult for them to meet their targets is the lack of quick access to psychiatric services. We are looking at this matter and he is right to highlight it.

[Mr Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

The Minister said that changes taking place in urgent and emergency care are done locally for local need. What does he think of the following statement made by Sir David Nicholson last week before the Select Committee on Health? He said:

“We are bogged down in a morass of competition law…we have competition lawyers all over the place telling us what to do, which is causing enormous difficulty.”

Does the Secretary of State not agree that the Government were warned about that when they brought in the Health and Social Care Act 2012? They were told that competition law was going to create chaos in the NHS, and it is doing exactly that.

[Mr Hunt]

I think the right hon. Gentleman will find that some of the competition law powers that are being used and are causing Sir David worry were actually from the Enterprise Act 2002, which we are now looking at to see whether we can sort it out.

[Mr Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

Is the Secretary of State aware that hospitals in Norfolk have recently made it clear to MPs that one of the key drivers of a big increase in people going to A and E is the fact that many people are not going to their doctor? Does he agree that it is essential that the GP contract of 2004 is rewritten so that doctors provide that 24/7 cover? When will he be able to sit down with the BMA and make real progress to right a serious mistake that the Opposition made?

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend speaks wisely. The most senior A and E doctor in the country, Professor Keith Willett, said that he thought that between 15% and 30% of the people attending A and E could be looked after in the community. This is a root cause of pressure. I am afraid that the Labour party needs to show some humility before it starts whipping up public concern about problems that it had a very big part in making. I am in the process of discussions with the BMA, and I hope my hon. Friend will not have to wait too long for some good news.

[Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

Will the Keogh review genuinely examine the lack of parity in respect of those who are physically ill and those who are mentally ill? We are already suffering from a crisis in emergency mental health beds in London and we are seeing an increasing use of A and E departments for those who are mentally ill. Surely we should be looking at an increase in walk-in centres for the mentally ill, which have proven to be remarkably effective in helping those on the brink of a serious fall.

[Mr Hunt]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right that the urgent emergency care we offer to people with mental health problems is not up to scratch and needs to be a great deal better. Different solutions will be appropriate in different parts of the country, but often going to a normal A and E is not the right approach. We need to consider whether, when people have such conditions, there can be better access to people who know them, their medical history and their condition and who are in a position to advise them in a way that means they do not end up doing what I have seen happening time and again in A and Es, where people end up as frequent fliers, going again and again to an A and E just because there is nowhere else to go. That is one thing that we are trying to sort out tomorrow.

[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

We have heard a lot today about NHS A and E services in England. Will my right hon. Friend tell the House whether there are any lessons to be learned from A and E services in Labour-run Wales?

[Mr Hunt]

Wales has not met its A and E target since 2009 because the Welsh Government followed the advice of the shadow Health Secretary and cut the NHS budget by 8%.

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

This Government have been in power for three and a half years. They could have chosen to remedy some of the continuing problems in the health service, but what did they do? They decided to reorganise it from top to bottom. Is there any wonder there is a crisis this winter? Instead of closing A and Es and walk-in centres, why does the Secretary of State not walk away? It would give him more time to count his money.

[Mr Hunt]

Let me tell the hon. Gentleman that thanks to the reorganisation that he is so bitterly against, we have 5,500 more doctors on the front line and 8,000 fewer managers. We would not be managing to hit our A and E target today if we had not taken the difficult decisions that the Leader of the House took when he was doing my job.

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

Geography dictates that my Montgomeryshire constituents depend on A and E services in hospitals in England. Will my right hon. Friend reassure us that devolution will not be allowed to create a health care iron curtain between England and Wales, and will he ensure that decisions on A and E services in Shropshire take account of the interests of my constituents?

[Mr Hunt]

We will absolutely ensure that there is no iron curtain, but I must say that the increasing number of people coming from Labour-run Wales to seek treatment in England is an indication that people are voting with their feet because they know where the NHS is being better run.

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

On repeated occasions in this place, the Health Secretary has claimed to be saving A and Es when his proposals would remove intensive care units in many hospitals and allow blue-light ambulances to go sailing past their doors. Will the Health Secretary tell me what his definition of an A and E is?

[Mr Hunt]

That is exactly what tomorrow’s report is designed to clarify. It is not for me—[Interruption.] Let me say very straightforwardly—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I can scarcely hear the Secretary of State’s answers, and I want to hear them. Let us hear the response.

[Mr Hunt]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

The hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) will know that her constituents have some of the best stroke survival rates in England because we reduced the number of hospitals in London offering stroke services from 32 to eight. I am not going to stand in the way of those changes if they save lives.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

I very much look forward to the review, which is urgent. Given that accident and emergency departments do not operate in isolation, will the Secretary of State assure me that the review will consider the whole system, including support services, critical care units and the availability of specialist consultants—particularly those in paediatrics—who need to be available for an A and E to function effectively?

[Mr Hunt]

No one has campaigned more assiduously than my hon. Friend for his local hospital, despite the incredible tragedies and difficulties that it has been through and the pressures that has created for the people of Stafford. He is absolutely right: if we are going to solve the problem, we must consider the system holistically and consider how different A and E departments can specialise services. We need much more of a hub-and-spoke system, rather than one where every A and E has to offer exactly the same menu of services. If we do that, we will save more lives and that has to be the right thing to do.

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

Following Monitor’s report yesterday on the closure of walk-in centres, is it not the case that at the heart of the Government’s NHS reforms is a massive shift in power from the consumers—the patients—to the producers of services? When the Government’s slogan is, in effect, “All power to the producers”, it is not surprising that services have been reorganised in a way that does not benefit patients. May I suggest that instead of sticking up for the BMA, the Secretary of State starts to stick up for patients?

[Mr Hunt]

After what happened at Mid Staffs, we will not take any lessons on sticking up for patients—none whatsoever. We are taking the power out of the hands of the managers in PCTs and SHAs and putting it into the hands of doctors on the front line who are seeing patients every day. That is the best thing we can possibly do.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

My constituents tell me that they much prefer to go to their doctor than to any other centre. Will the Secretary of State try to get more doctors involved in out-of-hours care?

[Mr Hunt]

That is the tragedy of what happened in 2004, when the personal link between doctor and patient was broken because the previous Government abolished named GPs for every patient. My hon. Friend speaks very wisely, as that is exactly what most members of the public want—they want to be able to get in and see their own GP quickly and easily. That is at the heart of the problem that tomorrow’s review of A and E will seek to address.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Notwithstanding the brilliant local work of nurses and doctors, hospitals like those in the Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust face real challenges, including bed shortages and people having to wait for many hours for tests such as X-rays and so on. Sometimes, people wait in A and E for 12 hours for a bed. Does that not demonstrate how reckless and dangerous it is for the Secretary of State’s Department to impose cuts of £30 million on that hospital trust this year and next year, and will he reconsider?

[Mr Hunt]

Let me gently remind the hon. Lady that we have protected the NHS budget—we took a very difficult decision—but how the NHS budget is spent in local areas is a matter for local discretion. It is challenging for all hospitals, because if we are to address the long-term stability of the NHS we need to spend more money out of hospitals, which means finding efficiency savings in hospitals. We do not want to duck those challenges, which is why we are having the review that will be published tomorrow.

[Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend will be aware that there are concerns about whether blue-light ambulance services will continue to define what an A and E is. Does he agree that for some years now victims of stroke, trauma and other serious problems have not necessarily gone to their local A and E but to specialist hospitals, and that that has been the reason behind the excellent improvement in outcomes?

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend speaks extremely wisely. We have talked about stroke, so let me give another example, which is trauma. We have cut mortality rates by 20% as the result of a strategy to specialise trauma care. Those are the difficult decisions that the Government believe that we should not duck and that we need to face up to. If I may say so, when the Opposition were in power, they took a slightly wiser approach to the issue than the party political posturing we are getting today.

[Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State earlier quoted the suggestion that GP walk-in centres were in the wrong places, where there was little demand. Last year, 33,000 people used the under-threat Accrington Victoria hospital walk-in centre, and now there is deep anger with the Conservative party. Will he explain how 36,000 people going to overstretched Royal Blackburn hospital A and E will help the situation there?

[Mr Hunt]

The hon. Gentleman makes my point for me extremely eloquently. Under the previous Government, we had a top-down, ham-fisted policy of opening walk-in centres everywhere as a sticking plaster solution to the disasters with their GP contract. Sometimes they were valuable services, sometimes they were not. We are clearing up the mess, but sometimes, when those centres are useful and important for the public, we will keep them.

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

The origins of the recruitment crisis in A and E obviously predate this Government. Will Sir Bruce Keogh’s review highlight the local trusts, like that in Gloucestershire, which appear to have significantly worse recruitment and retention records than neighbouring trusts and have used it as a rationale for downgrading services—such as, in this case, those at Cheltenham general hospital?

[Mr Hunt]

I hope that it will. I hope that it will give clarity about the long-term future for A and E departments, which has been a difficult issue for this Government and for the previous Government. What people want is stability, and they want to know that there is a Government who are prepared to face up to difficult decisions. They want to know that they have a future, and I hope that tomorrow’s review is the first step towards providing that security.

[Mr Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr) (Lab)]

Is the Secretary of State aware that the A and E crisis is creating a huge backlog in specialist procedures, and will Sir Bruce Keogh’s review take that into account?

[Mr Hunt]

The number of people waiting more than a year for an operation has gone down from 18,000, when the hon. Gentleman’s Government were in power, to fewer than 1,000 now. We have reduced long waits at a time of great pressure on the NHS, so I do not recognise the hon. Gentleman’s figures at all, I am afraid.

[Mr Lee Scott (Ilford North) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend will have seen the disastrous reports that have come in about Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust, with some of the most alarming things including a report of a baby being put in a stationery cupboard. I am sure that, as he said in a recent debate, he will conduct a full review of King George hospital. Can that be done urgently, as we are now in a very serious situation?

[Mr Hunt]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for raising both publicly and privately his concerns about the hospital provision that his constituents face. We shall of course make sure that there is a proper review before any service changes are made. I hope that he will be reassured by the big change that happened this year with the introduction of an independent chief inspector of hospitals, who is going round the country rooting out poor care, not sweeping it under the carpet, as happened so often under the Labour Government.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State regret the loss of 6,000 nursing jobs since the last election?

[Mr Hunt]

The number of hospital nurses has gone up since the election, and as a result of the changes in the Francis report—the hon. Gentleman’s party refused to have a public inquiry many, many times—I hope that the NHS will recruit many more nurses.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

The three Members for north Northamptonshire— the hon. Member for Corby (Andy Sawford), my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) and I—have come together on a cross-party basis, and are working with local clinical commissioning groups and Kettering general hospital to try to attract more investment to our local A and E because of the increase in the local population. May I share with the Secretary of State the fact that all agree that up to a third of attendees at A and E could be better treated closer to home, particularly in excellent urgent care centres such as that in Corby?

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend speaks extremely wisely. He invited me to visit Kettering hospital, and I saw for myself that it was a very, very busy hospital. In the end, if we just stick with the current model we will reach bursting point, which is why we need to look at new models. That is why tomorrow’s review is important, and part of that—in fact, the bulk of the work in tomorrow’s review—is about how we transform out-of-hospital care, which is the big strategic change that we need to make in our NHS, and on which I am afraid the previous Government made so little progress.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

Tomorrow’s review is supposed to deal with issues to do with this winter. Will the Secretary of State give the House an assurance that there will be no crisis of A and E on his watch this winter?

[Mr Hunt]

A and E departments are under huge pressure. We are seeing about 1 million more people every year than three years ago, and we have done more this year than has ever been done in NHS history to help to prepare the NHS for winter, including giving £250 million to 53 local health economies where the pressures are greatest. We continue to monitor the situation very, very closely to give more support where we can.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

The crisis in nurse vacancies and recruitment highlighted today by the Royal College of Nursing affects the North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust, which tells me that it has been forced to recruit trained nurses from the Philippines, as there are insufficient UK nurses available. What is the Secretary of State doing to address that particular part of his failure?

[Mr Hunt]

I have to gently say to the hon. Gentleman that recruiting nurses from the Philippines did not happen for the first time under this Government. One reason why those nurse vacancies have gone up is that the Government decided to conduct a public inquiry into what happened at Mid Staffs. The system reacts to that by wanting to hire more nurses, and I think that he should welcome that, not criticise it.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

The report by the Health Select Committee on the A and E crisis found that only 16% of hospitals had the right level of consultant cover in A and E. Yesterday, we learned that half the vacancies for senior A and E doctors are unfilled, as doctors move to work overseas. The issue of staffing in A and E has been understood for the past three and half years, and there have been repeated warnings and reports. What has the Secretary of State done to address it and make sure that A and E wards have sufficient staff cover?

[Mr Hunt]

Recruiting 300 more A and E consultants than when the hon. Lady’s Government were in power.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

What has the Secretary of State got to say about the fact that in my area, compared with four years ago, it is harder to get a GP appointment. We no longer have NHS Direct, and cuts in adult social care mean that patients are not making room for other patients to go to A and E. The person raising that with me is the chief superintendant of Darlington police, who is fed up with his officers being held up by taking patients to A and E, as those patients would otherwise wait more than an hour for an ambulance?

[Mr Hunt]

The hon. Lady makes some important points, and I congratulate her on being the first Opposition Member to raise the fact that it has become harder and harder to get an appointment with a GP. [Interruption.] I know that it is hard to accept, but it is a fundamental problem, and a challenge facing our A and E departments that the Government are determined to sort out.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Before tomorrow’s report on the urgent and emergency care review, may I tell the House that in Northern Ireland, we treat urgent referrals by direction to the doctor on call and linking up with the chemist. Emergency referrals are done through hospitals, showing good practice and delivery. Is the Secretary of State prepared to contact the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Minister responsible to see how best practice works?

[Mr Hunt]

I am in regular contact with the Northern Ireland Minister for Health, Social Services and Public Safety about good practice in Northern Ireland, and I am delighted to hear that they are doing some good things in urgent and emergency care. We should be open to all good practice, not just in our country but all over the world.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State may have seen the report in The Sunday Times at the weekend about the dispute between the medical director for London, who said that 20% to 30% of blue-light A and Es should close, and Sir Bruce Keogh, who said that less than that should close. Disgracefully, the Secretary of State has not told us what is in Sir Bruce Keogh’s report, but we know that it is below that figure, so why did he announce to the House two weeks ago that four out of nine—45%—of blue-light A and Es in west London would close, pre-empting the Keogh review?

[Mr Hunt]

Because it is going to save the lives of the hon. Gentleman’s constituents; it will mean that 800 more people are employed in out-of-hospital care; it will mean three brand-new hospitals for the benefit of his constituents; it will mean seven-day working; and it will mean seven-day opening of GP surgeries. That is why.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

On reflection, does the Secretary of State regret the fact that he described people who felt ill enough to have to go to A and E on a number of occasions as “frequent flyers”? And would he like to apologise?

[Mr Hunt]

I am sorry, that is a completely ridiculous thing to say. I was using the phrase to talk about people who have to go back to the NHS time and again. The whole purpose of the reforms is to make sure that we give a better service to people who regularly use the NHS, and he should understand perfectly well what I was talking about.

[Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

What discussions has the Secretary of State had with his colleagues across government about the need for urgent additional investment in social care? Surely he appreciates that the savage cuts to local authority social care budgets have only added to the pressure on accident and emergency units.

[Mr Hunt]

I find it a little difficult to take a lesson from the right hon. Gentleman, as his Government cut social care funding per head when they were in power and when the economy was in much better shape than it has been since the financial collapse that they caused. If he looks at what we announced this summer, he will know that the Chancellor announced an extra £2 billion of support for the NHS budget going into social care to deal with precisely the problems that he raised.

[Mr Virendra Sharma (Ealing, Southall) (Lab)]

Last week, the Secretary of State assured—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I apologise to the hon. Gentleman, but there was a lot of noise. I am sure that the House will wish to hear his question—let him start again.

[Mr Sharma]

Last week the Secretary of State assured me that A and E at Ealing hospital is safe, but since then we have heard very confusing and contradictory statements in the local area. First, will the Secretary of State reassure us today that the A and E department at Ealing hospital is safe in the future? Secondly, will he meet me and my colleagues from the west London area—I have written to him—to discuss our concerns and so that we can express our feelings?

[Mr Hunt]

I am always happy to meet colleagues if they have concerns about what is happening in their constituency, but I absolutely stand by what I said. There will remain an A and E at Ealing. That was the decision that I made because I wanted to give clarity, but I also said that the shape and size of that A and E may change in accordance with the announcement that is being made tomorrow by Sir Bruce Keogh. I hope that will give the hon. Gentleman further clarity and further certainty to reassure his constituents.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State has already acknowledged that keeping people in their own home is one important way to relieve the pressure on A and E. I do not understand why, if he wants to make a real difference, he will not reinvest the NHS underspend to make up for the cuts in local government and put it into social care.

[Mr Hunt]

We have put in an additional £2 billion—that makes a total of £3.8 billion being invested to support the social care budget. That is significant because it is recurring expenditure. We have shown our commitment by continuing to support the social care system through this Parliament. The trouble with underspends is that they depend on how many resources we have in any particular year. It is therefore much harder to invest off the back of them.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Secretary of State has spoken about the importance of continuing care from one’s own GP to limit admissions to A and E, yet in Hackney, when GPs tried to take over and run the out-of-hours service, the commissioners were paralysed by the fear of legal challenge and, rather than putting patients’ interests first, put the rich lawyers’ interests first.

[Mr Hunt]

If I may say so, it was the Government whom the hon. Lady supported who removed the responsibility for out-of-hours care from GPs. I welcome and want to help any GPs who want to take it back.

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

This Secretary of State has been forced to answer more urgent questions in the House than even the Prime Minister about Mrs Bone. When will he stop blaming others about the mess he has made of our NHS, take some responsibility for the top-down reorganisation and get on with the job that he has been over-promoted to do?

[Mr Hunt]

Let me tell the hon. Gentleman how well the NHS is doing. If one listens to the rhetoric from the Opposition Benches, one could completely underestimate the hard work of people on the front line. There are 800,000 more operations being carried out every year in the NHS than ever happened under Labour. At the same time, long waits for operations have gone down. I think that is something to be proud of.

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

The response that the public health Minister gave to my written question showed that ambulance response times have increased over the past two years in 11 out of 12 trusts in England. Why is this happening?

[Mr Hunt]

Just as there is more pressure on A and E departments, there is also more pressure on ambulance services. We are treating that as very much part of how we support accident and emergency services over the coming period. There are particular pressures in the London area, the east of England and the east midlands, and we are doing everything we can to put those problems right.

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State referred to the Chancellor’s recent announcement about money for social care, yet this is only a tiny fraction of what the Government have already taken out of the social care budget through their 30% cuts to councils. Did he not realise the impact that that would have on A and E, or did he just not care about it?

[Mr Hunt]

I am very conscious of the pressure that having to sort out Labour’s deficit is creating on all Government Departments, but the Opposition cannot have it both ways. They cannot say that they are in favour of fiscal responsibility and then complain about every single cut. The difficult decision that this Government took was to protect the NHS budget. That is something that the Opposition did not agree with. They wanted to cut the budget from its current levels.

Points of Order

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

13:14

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Last night at 9.9 pm, as the Prime Minister was addressing the lord mayor’s banquet in the City, the Chancellor announced that the autumn statement would be moved from Wednesday 4 to Thursday 5 December, to accommodate a prime ministerial trip to China and get the Prime Minister out of answering Prime Minister’s questions again.

Aside from the spectacle of major announcements to the House being arbitrarily shifted around to avoid inconveniencing the Chinese communist party, is it appropriate that the Chancellor announced this change on Twitter and not to the House? Even today, it has not been confirmed by a written ministerial statement on the Order Paper; nor was it mentioned during last week’s business questions. Given the fact that the Chancellor announced the original date by Twitter, too, will you rule on whether the Chancellor’s conduct is in order?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her point of order.

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Andrew Lansley)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

The Leader of the House can come in in a moment, with pleasure. I am obliged to the hon. Lady for giving me advance notice of her intention to raise the point of order. The original date of the autumn statement was announced to the House during an earlier business question. I am sure that we are all extremely grateful for the long notice given. However, if something has been announced to the House about its future business, I would consider it courteous for the House to be informed formally of any change before the wider world was informed. A written statement would usually suffice if there were not sufficient occasion or urgency to justify a supplementary business statement. That is my very clear sense of the matter. I am obliged to the Leader of the House for his presence. If he wishes to rise to his feet, we are keen to hear him.

[Mr Lansley]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am grateful to the shadow Leader of the House for raising the point of order, as it gives me an early opportunity to confirm to the House that the autumn statement that was previously announced during business questions as taking place on Wednesday 4 December will now take place on Thursday 5 December.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the Leader of the House for that. He will, I hope, have heard the statement from the Chair. To put it very candidly and bluntly, these announcements should be made to the House, not by the mechanism of Twitter. I think it is pretty clear.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You are used to the Government making announcements to the press before they come to the House to make them. What happened this morning is different. The press have been privately briefed and the Secretary of State for Health has come to the House still not prepared to tell the House what is in the Keogh review. Is this the first time this has happened? Do you agree that it should not happen again? Will you now order that the Keogh review is put in the Library today, so that we do not have to wait till tomorrow to find out what is in it?

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. He asks whether this is the first time that this has happened. There are very few firsts in this place; most things have happened before at some stage or another. I am not sure that it is within my bailiwick to insist upon the deposit of the report today, as the hon. Gentleman rather earnestly beseeches me to do. I hope that he will not take offence when I say that he is rarely satisfied about anything. He is an experienced parliamentary hand and he knows that Members apply for permission to put urgent questions, and it is for the Speaker to decide whether to grant the urgent question. I did grant the urgent question, which carries its own message about my sense that it was important that the issue should be aired in the Chamber today. The hon. Gentleman took part, I believe, in the exercise, and I think we will leave it there for today.

Permitted Development (Basements)

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

Motion for leave to bring in a Bill (Standing Order No. 23)

13:18

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to regulate the construction of new basements and extensions to basements; and for connected purposes.

In a growing city, where house prices are enough to make grown men cry, what could have made more sense than amending the permitted development regulations in 2009, to allow residents to use their space more effectively and to build an extension, an attic conversion or a basement to provide more room for a growing family? Such is the logic that underpinned the amendment of those regulations, and the trend has been accelerated under this Government.

What no one could have foreseen is the impact that that would have in certain neighbourhoods in my constituency, and particularly elsewhere in central London, which is shocking even the most zealous advocates of planning deregulation. The grounds for such deregulation have literally, as well as metaphorically, been cut from underneath the feet of those advocates.

In my own borough of Westminster, the number of approvals given for basement excavations almost trebled between 2010 and 2012, while the number of applications that were refused fell: 518 basement applications have been made in the past four years alone, with only one in seven being refused. My understanding is that the figure for Kensington is closer to 1,000 applications, with 800 accepted. We should be in no doubt about the extent to which this trend will ripple outwards, particularly into more affluent communities.

Two factors make this picture even starker. First, basement excavations are overwhelmingly concentrated in a small number of postcode areas—Bayswater and St John’s Wood in my constituency, with the same pattern emerging in Kensington, Hammersmith, Camden and Brent. As the south-east Bayswater residents association says,

“Due to high property values there is inexorable pressure to build on every inch of spare space—now mainly by excavating basements, often with the loss of a garden—because building upwards is well controlled.”

Secondly, and crucially, we are not talking about the modest adaptation of a home for a growing family, or at least the kind of growing family that does not need a ballroom. Basement excavations have included ballrooms, swimming pools, spa complexes, gyms, gun rooms, private cinemas and garages with lifts and turntables for cars. They are not so much basements as vast subterranean pleasure palaces. Some people call them icebergs. I have likened looking down into one such scheme in St John’s Wood as being on the deck of an aircraft carrier.

One development in Kensington was recently described as being eight times the size of a typical London house. A Westminster example was described thus in the Evening Standard:

“Two mansions in Mayfair back on to each other,”

and the owners’ plan

“is to link them with a tunnel, creating a 14,000 sq ft underground area, with an enormous games room, sauna, pool, media room, car park and a plant room. Above that will be further bedrooms, staff rooms, two suites, a laundry room and security rooms. If and when it is completed, the combined home and its underground area will be marginally smaller than Westminster Cathedral.

In another case, four extra underground storeys include twelve bedrooms, seven bathrooms, a huge ballroom, a swimming pool, a hot tub, sauna and a massage room…carved out, going deeper into the London soil than the neighbouring buildings are tall. The Duchess of St Albans, a neighbour…has described the plan as ‘absolutely monstrous and unnecessary’ because ‘no one needs that much space’.

It is estimated that this scheme will involve shovelling 1,375 skipfuls of earth from under the house.”

Serious incidents arising from these excavations are, thankfully, still rare, but even so a skip fell through the road in a development in Belgravia last year, while a builder was buried alive in excavation works in Fulham. Worryingly, the Health and Safety Executive has delivered a damning verdict on the lack of safety in building sites across west London neighbourhoods where downward extensions were taking place. In April, the HSE reported that one in three of these luxury bunkers is being built with reckless disregard to the safety of the builders. It made unannounced visits to 110 domestic basement extension sites in the capital in March. It served 50 prohibition notices and stopped work at 34 sites. Poor excavation or structural support was found to be a recurrent problem, along with unsafe working at height, which is perhaps ironic for sites below ground level. The inspectors also visited 291 other sites during their month-long blitz, and of those 59 failed to meet approved safety standards—a failure rate of 20% compared with the basement failure rate of 31%.

What matters here is not just the impact of the individual project, but the cumulative impact of so many basement excavations on their neighbours and local communities. The fact is that residents are increasingly feeling under siege. Constituents of mine come to me reporting that first one immediate neighbour and then another are embarking on months, sometimes years, of excavation work, leaving them as islands in a sea of filth, noise, damaged roads and pavements, and worse. One constituent wrote last week to tell me:

“I know that two hundred year old houses do need work done on them but have a look at Hamilton Terrace”—

in NW8—

“It will be a building site and a development opportunity forever. A fine Georgian street has been turned into a greed magnet.”

Sometimes, works are carried out with sensitivity and consideration, often they are not, and it is not uncommon for the whole project to be managed through a company with which interaction is impossible. Sometimes, party wall agreements can be negotiated and are adhered to, but often residents found themselves massively outgunned by the companies and their lawyers, left in legal limbo or hugely out of pocket. As my constituent, Sir Hugh Cortazzi put it in a recent letter,

“Developers in their pursuit of profits generally do not seem to care about the convenience and amenities of local residents and neighbours.”

It is not just about near neighbours. We all have a common interest in the preservation of our trees, many of which face being compromised by the thin soil of gardens dug up and relaid over basement excavations. We have a shared interest in the preservation of our water table and the need to preserve soakaway capacity. The St John’s Wood Society says:

“Our planning committee is fully committed to doing all we can to preserve the character, gardens and historic buildings of the Conservation Area. We are…constantly thwarted by the lack of adequate planning policies to support our objections to excessive basement applications which are submitted, more often than not, by developers who have little or no interest in the area.

Unfortunately, current planning policy does not provide case officers with robust grounds for refusal which can be successfully upheld on appeal. Not only do these works take a long time to carry out…several schemes are being developed either simultaneously or consecutively and the situation has become intolerable for an ever increasing number of…residents. We are not against anyone improving and extending their homes…but the new brand of home extension in the shape of vast excavation works needs addressing urgently.”

Councils have found themselves unable to resist the rising tide of basement development, so now, four or five years in, they are developing local policies to restrict what can and cannot be done. But here is the rub, and the purpose of my Bill today. There is a real risk that their policies will turn out to be unenforceable. Already, Kensington council has had to delay the introduction of new, tougher policies, amid fears that they will not withstand a well-funded appeal. And well-funded appeals there will definitely be, since developers are investing, and hoping to gain from, sums of money that make the planning enforcement capacity of even a Kensington or Westminster council look puny. Westminster council is consulting on its new basement policy, too, but it recognises that there is only so much that it can do within the law as it stands.

The fact is that only a change in the law can help local councils do what they want to do to protect their residents. They need—our urban neighbourhoods and their residents need—statutory protection to underpin policies that would, for example, limit excavations to one storey and ensure that they are not built under listed buildings, that they do not take up more than 50% of gardens, that traffic management plans are in place, that the amount of space that is taken up is reduced from the current 85%, that they require the compulsory installation of pumps to prevent flooding from sewers, and much more.

Writing in his Evening Standard column, the Kensington resident and writer, Simon Jenkins, lamented that

“Giant diggers are advancing along the stucco terraces of Westminster and Kensington like monsters in H G Wells’ ‘War of the Worlds’. London’s guts are being ripped out. Its water table is subsiding into a gigantic marbled sump. No one is doing a blind thing about it.”

It is time to do something about it.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered,

That Ms Karen Buck, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, Mark Field, Glenda Jackson, Frank Dobson, Barry Gardiner, Mr Gareth Thomas, Clive Efford and Mr Andy Slaughter present the Bill.

Ms Karen Buck accordingly presented the Bill.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 22 November and to be printed (Bill 127).

Opposition Day

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[11th Allotted Day]

Housing Benefit

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I inform the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.

13:29

[Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House regrets the pernicious effect on vulnerable and in many cases disabled people of deductions being made from housing benefit paid to working age tenants in the social housing sector deemed to have an excess number of bedrooms in their homes; calls on the Government to end these deductions with immediate effect; furthermore calls for any cost of ending them to be covered by reversing tax cuts which will benefit the wealthiest and promote avoidance, and addressing the tax loss from disguised employment in construction; and further calls on the Government to use the funding set aside for discretionary housing payments to deal with under-occupation by funding local authorities so that they are better able to help people with the cost of moving to suitable accommodation.

This is an important debate, which is why it is so good to see so many Opposition Members on the Benches behind me and so disappointing to see so few Government Members on the Benches opposite. I am also sorry that we will not be joined today by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, who apparently has more urgent and important business at an intergovernmental conference in Paris. Some might welcome the fact that one of Parliament’s more dedicated Eurosceptics has suddenly developed such a passion for discussing his problems with our European partners—perhaps he has had a second epiphany—but those affected by his policy will be disappointed that he has chosen not to be here today to answer for the distress and disruption his policy is causing up and down the country and to explain himself to his victims, the more than 400,000 disabled people, as well as their families and carers, as many as 375,000 children forced out of their homes or pushed deeper into poverty and debt, and the foster carers and families of those serving in our armed forces who have also been hit. Those people are at the sharp end of the Prime Minister’s cost of living crisis. They are already struggling to survive and to do their best for their loved ones, yet they have been treated with callous disregard by this out-of-touch Government.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

Before the hon. Lady moves on from her remarks about the Secretary of State, is she really suggesting that he should not be discussing youth unemployment with other Heads of State? Is that what she will say the next time we discuss youth unemployment?

[Rachel Reeves]

Rather than going to a conference to discuss youth unemployment, he should be doing something about it in this country.

I hope that hon. Members on both sides of the House will have a chance to meet some of the people who have come to Parliament today, many of whom have travelled across the country, to tell their story and hear the debate. But even as they got off their trains and coaches in London this morning, the Secretary of State was already scuttling across the channel on the Eurostar.

[Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)]

One of my constituents who could not be here today has a terminal illness. I wrote to the Minister about his case but was told that there could be no guarantee that he would not be affected by the bedroom tax. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Secretary of State has shown the same callous indifference by not being here to try to defend this indefensible policy?

[Rachel Reeves]

It is the same callous disregard that has been shown to over 400,000 disabled people in all our constituencies across the country. It is incredibly disappointing that the Secretary of State is not here to hear those stories today.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

In Brighton and Hove there are now 300 council tenants in arrears who were not in arrears before the bedroom tax was introduced, and 205 of them have disabilities. Does the hon. Lady agree that this is a despicable policy brought in by a Government who simply do not care and that it is having a disproportionate effect on people with disabilities?

[Rachel Reeves]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. That is the story we are hearing in all our constituencies from people who are being hit by this policy and have nowhere to turn. Is not the truth that the Secretary of State does not want to answer for the waste and chaos in his Department, his failure to deliver the great welfare reform he promised, his failure to get more people into work and his failure to get the benefits bill down? He does not want to answer to this House, or to the British people, for the distress and damage he is causing, with desperate measures designed not to control costs or build a fairer system, but merely to distract from his own incompetence.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

The shadow Secretary of State promised that she would be tougher on welfare than this Government. Given that it was the previous Labour Government who introduced this policy in the first place, it seems that she is going to be not only not tougher than this Government on welfare, but not tougher than the previous Labour Government.

[Rachel Reeves]

We have been very clear about how we would pay for this policy, if indeed it costs as much as the Government have said it will: we would crack down on bogus self-employment in the construction industry, reverse the tax cut for hedge funds introduced in the Budget earlier this year and cancel the Chancellor’s failed “shares for rights” scheme. We have called this debate to bring the Government to their senses and to ask Members on both sides of the House to consult their consciences and their constituents and call a halt to the havoc this heartless policy has unleashed.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

Is not the essence of that heartlessness the extent to which the policy affects carers? Carers UK has said that three quarters of the affected carers it surveyed were cutting back on food and electricity as a result, and one in six face eviction. How do the Government justify that?

[Rachel Reeves]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, because many of the spare bedrooms are used by carers supporting some of the most vulnerable people in our constituencies. We think that the time is now right for each and every Member of this House to show where they stand, because we know the facts. Stories of the hardship and heartache that the Secretary of State is causing are streaming in from every part of the country and every constituency.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

I commend my hon. Friend for bringing this motion before the House today. In Tameside, New Charter Housing has seen the number of people in arrears rise by two thirds as a result of being clobbered by this pernicious bedroom tax, yet Tameside council’s discretionary housing payments go nowhere near tackling the real problems families are facing. This is not creating new capacity in housing; it is clobbering the poorest the hardest.

[Rachel Reeves]

As in Tameside, two thirds of the budget for discretionary housing payment in my constituency has already been used, despite the council adding £250,000 to the budget.

I have heard heart-rending testimony about the tax. I have heard about a man who received worrying letters about rent arrears while in hospital for a triple heart bypass because he suddenly had to find another £18 a week to keep the specially adapted home he had lived in for most of his life. I have heard about a woman with young children who had found another flat with a family and wanted to swap, but she was in a Catch-22 situation because she could not move until she had paid off the arrears she had built up as a result of the bedroom tax. I have heard about a family with a disabled son who have discovered that the room that carers stay in is now designated as a spare bedroom with a charge of £14 a week.

In so many cases, local authorities and housing associations are put in impossible situations, trying to minimise the impact of this badly designed policy on local people. Decent people in tough situations who are doing their best and trying to survive are being trapped by an absurd policy that makes no sense. They are terrified of losing their homes or sinking deeper into poverty and unmanageable debt.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is demonstrating through individual cases just how unfair this appalling policy is, but does she agree that it is also unworkable? Only last month in the borough of Sefton there were 4,963 people registered for a one-bedroom property, but just 10 such properties were available. Does that not demonstrate just how wrong the policy is?

[Rachel Reeves]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As well as being cruel, the policy is unworkable. I know that hon. Friends have heard many such stories, as many have already testified today, about people in their constituencies. I know that we will hear more this afternoon. We know that around 660,000 households across the country have been hit by this punitive tax. All the people affected are in this country, rather than in Paris, where the Secretary of State is today. Many of them have conditions that mean they need to sleep separately or accommodate carers or special equipment. A large number are families with children and they are already at or below the poverty line.

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

I join my colleagues in commending my hon. Friend for securing the debate. She is listing the people affected. A constituent came to see me the other day, a father whose children stay with him at weekends. It is the only chance he gets to see them. One of the conditions is that they have a separate bedroom. He will be stopped having his children to stay as a result of these cruel measures.

[Rachel Reeves]

It is an anti-family policy as well as an anti-disabled people policy.

The average hit per household is £14 a week, or £720 a year. It might not sound much to members of the Cabinet, but it is more than the cost of a daily school meal. It is almost the entire cost of feeding a growing child for a year, or equivalent to someone losing all their child benefit for a second child.

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady honestly think that the founders of the welfare state intended it to be used by single people to live in two, three or four-bedroom houses while families are living in overcrowded flats?

[Rachel Reeves]

When a Labour Government introduced the welfare state it was a safety net for some of the most vulnerable people. The 400,000 disabled people who are going to be hit by the bedroom tax are exactly the people who Beveridge’s and Clement Attlee’s welfare state were designed to protect—and shame on you for taking that safety net away.

Many of the people affected by the bedroom tax have nowhere else to go and no choice but to take the financial hit, making impossible choices between feeding their children, paying the gas and electricity bills, and paying the rent.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

The hon. Lady talks about affected families. What does she say to the almost 400,000 families who are living in overcrowded situations when they look over their shoulders at the almost 1 million spare bedrooms in Britain?

[Rachel Reeves]

I say that instead of presiding over the lowest rate of house building since the 1920s, this Government should get on and build some houses.

No wonder the Trussell Trust—[Interruption.] Government Members do not want to hear about food banks, and nor does the Prime Minister, but they will hear about food banks. The Trussell Trust cites the bedroom tax as the key driver behind a threefold increase in the use of food banks since April this year. No wonder more people are turning to payday lenders and to food banks. No wonder the Samaritans are training up staff to help people left desperate and distraught by the Secretary of State’s bedroom tax. Those who do not move may end up in less suitable housing—homes without adaptations for people with disabilities, or where children have to change school or live further away from family or support networks.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

Is my hon. Friend aware that people who have dialysis at home, who have moved into homes with a spare bedroom specifically so that having the dialysis equipment in a sterile environment will allow them not to use hospitals, are being expected to pay bedroom tax for a room that is actually a hospital at home? This is an appalling waste of public money, because hospital care costs more.

[Rachel Reeves]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Hospital care costs more, but so does making adaptations to a new property, which is what will have to happen if people are moved.

People up and down the country are asking why. Why are we putting vulnerable families through this? Why are we hitting some of the hardest-pressed households in our country? Why are we hitting disabled people like this? Why did the Prime Minister introduce this policy on exactly the same day as cutting taxes for millionaires? It shows how out of touch this Prime Minister and his Government are.

The Government would like us to believe that the bedroom tax is cutting the benefits bill and dealing with under-occupancy in social housing, but it simply does not add up.

[Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)]

The shadow Secretary of State is providing a litany of cases, half of which are exempt under the legislation while many others will be beneficiaries of the discretionary housing payment, which this Government have trebled to £190 million per year. Did not her party in government introduce the local housing allowance to cover tenants in the private sector? Why is it one rule for them and one rule for others?

[Rachel Reeves]

First, as the hon. Lady knows, the Government’s policy is retrospective whereas in the private sector it is not. Also, the discretionary housing payments are not nearly enough to cover this. In my constituency in Leeds—[Interruption.] The hon. Lady has asked the question; perhaps she will listen to —[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There is far too much noise—a complete cacophony of noise—on both sides of the Chamber, such that the Chair cannot even hear what is being said. I recognise the strength of feeling on both sides, but I appeal to Members, as I have said many times before, to have some regard for the way in which our proceedings are viewed by people outside this place, who would hope for some seemly conduct.

[Rachel Reeves]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

In Leeds, where I am a Member of Parliament, two thirds of the budget has been used with less than half the year gone, despite the fact that the council has topped up the discretionary housing payment pot to help as many people as possible, so that money is not nearly sufficient to help all those who are hit, particularly disabled people.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this is not just a callous policy but a downright stupid one, because in my constituency we now have two and three-bedroom properties lying empty and unable to be modified, while housing associations throughout south Wales have rising levels of bad debts on their books that are jeopardising their financial security?

[Rachel Reeves]

I could not agree more. It is putting housing associations and local authorities in impossible situations where they potentially have to condemn housing that is perfectly fit for people to live in because people cannot afford the rent.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

Can we nail the issue of dialysis, because these situations do happen? In my constituency, David Holdsworth is in renal failure and attached to tubes. He cannot occupy the same bedroom as his wife, and the other bedroom is occupied by their adult disabled daughter. They do not qualify for DHP—they have been denied it. This is more evidence of how pernicious this tax is and how out of touch this Government are with the most vulnerable in our society. [Interruption.]

[Rachel Reeves]

I thank my hon. Friend. It is a shame that of instead of just shouting that he is wrong, no Conservative or Liberal Democrat MPs came to visit today’s lobby of Parliament by people who are affected by these policies. It is also a shame that the Secretary of State is in Paris rather than listening to these stories and hearing about the impact of his policy.

[John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)]

Obviously it was the Labour party in government that introduced the bedroom tax—in the private sector. On 19 January 2004, Labour Ministers said:

“We hope to implement a flat rate housing benefit system in the social sector, similar to that anticipated in the private rented sector”.—[Official Report, 19 January 2004; Vol. 416, c. 1075W.]

The question for the shadow Secretary of State is, “When did you change your policy?”

[Rachel Reeves]

It will be interesting to see which way the hon. Gentleman votes this evening given that his own party conference has said that this is an unfair tax. Will he vote with the Conservatives or with his own party? Let me be very clear: if I am Secretary of State in 2015, the first thing I will do is reverse this unfair and pernicious tax. It is a shame that his party and his Minister will not do likewise.

There is a contradiction at the heart of this policy that shows how disingenuous the Government’s justifications are for it. On the one hand, they say that it is necessary to deal with under-occupation and overcrowding, yet on the other that the benefit savings they are claiming assume that nobody moves. So which is it to be, because it cannot be both? Is this a policy to cut costs by getting social housing tenants to pay more, or is it a policy to move people out of their housing to avoid paying the tax, in which case it does not raise any money? It just does not add up.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

Government Members have been calling out that this is a legitimate policy response to help with overcrowding, but the Government’s own impact assessment says that

“the highest rates of overcrowding are also those with the lowest percentage of under occupiers…this mechanism for encouraging the more efficient use of social housing may make less of an impact in those regions most affected.”

So the Government’s own impact assessment states that this policy is a nonsensical response to dealing with overcrowding.

[Rachel Reeves]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. The justifications for this do not stack up. People are not moving but they are not paying either. More and more people are falling into arrears. As many as 50% of them, hit by the tax, are now behind with their rent. The loss to local authorities and housing associations is already running into tens of millions of pounds, and the cost of evicting all those who have not paid their rent and then dealing with the resulting homelessness could cost many times more. While the Government preside over the lowest level of new home building since the 1920s, their answer is to make the housing crisis even worse by making it harder for housing providers to meet local housing need by blowing another hole in their budget and destabilising their fragile finances further.

[Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend will be aware of the research done by the centre for housing policy at York university on the lack of any financial benefits accrued from this policy. Does she agree that it is almost unheard of for such a policy to inflict so much misery on some of the most vulnerable in our society for so little financial benefit to the rest of the country?

[Rachel Reeves]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Indeed, analysis by York university’s centre for housing policy suggests that this will cost £160 million, because the Department for Work Pensions has underestimated the impact on the housing benefit bill of people moving to the private rented sector.

According to the National Housing Federation, 100,000 disabled people—some of whom we have already heard about—live in properties specially adapted for their disability, but the average grant issued by local authorities for adaptations to homes stands at £6,000. The total cost of doing the adaptations all over again could run into tens of millions of pounds.

[Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)]

They’re exempt.

[Rachel Reeves]

Would the hon. Lady like to stand up and say they are exempt, because that is not Government policy?

[Heather Wheeler]

What I would really like the hon. Lady to explain is how, out of the 77,000-odd properties in Leeds, only 36 have been swapped. What this is about is making sure that people who are in overcrowded accommodation can live somewhere decent. Would the hon. Lady like to address that?

[Rachel Reeves]

The hon. Lady said from a sedentary position that disabled people are exempt, but she would not say it when she was on her feet because she knows it is not true.

Many of those who move will end up in the private rented sector, meaning that the housing benefit bill may be much higher. The National Housing Federation says that families removed from a two-bedroom home in the social sector to a one-bedroom home in the private rented sector would end up claiming an average £1,500 more in housing benefit. How can that make sense? How do the sums stack up? They do not.

To cap it all, we have learned of the absurdity—the complete and utter travesty—of housing associations looking to demolish homes that the Government now refuse to house people in, while the families being forced out by this policy are left to the private sector, where rents are higher and conditions are poorer.

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

A young man who lives in Earls Court has total renal failure. His spare bedroom is a dialysis unit, but he has been told that he now has to pay the bedroom tax. He is very happy with the efforts of his Member of Parliament—who is not of my political persuasion—to attempt to free him from the chains of the bedroom tax, but my brother faces losing his home of 20 years for being a kidney patient. Does my hon. Friend not agree that this is beyond disgraceful?

[Rachel Reeves]

I thank my hon. Friend for that moving intervention. So many of us can give examples from our constituency surgeries. If Government Members were honest, they would say that they hear the same sorts of stories at their surgeries. They know that these people are not exempt.

This is not a housing policy or a way to get the benefits bill down. It is an attempt to victimise some of the most vulnerable families and most vulnerable people in our country, and it is making the housing crisis worse.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. May I make a small plea? Traditional families and communities where people lived by their grandchildren, looked after one another and had mutual concern are being broken up throughout this country.

[Rachel Reeves]

I can think of another example from my constituency, where a gentleman has lived in his house for 30 years. He brought up his family there, but the estate he lives on is made up of three-bedroom properties and if he is forced to move he will be moving away from the people with whom he went to primary school and secondary school, and from his children and grandchildren. How can that be fair and right, and how will it help foster the big society that we used to hear so much about?

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the contribution my hon. Friend is making. Before she moves on from talking about personal cases, I think we should pay tribute to all those people who came and told us their personal stories. That is a hard thing for some people to do. They are the people who have really fought this campaign and we support them in this House today. Does my hon. Friend agree that we must pay tribute to the bravery and courage of people such as my constituent, Ms Davis from Bebington, who came forward and told their story?

[Rachel Reeves]

I thank my hon. Friend for that contribution. Surgeries can be difficult when we discuss these issues with constituents and they break down in tears. It is people who have done the right thing, gone out to work and tried to support their families, but who have fallen on difficult times, done nothing wrong and whose children have left home or gone to university who will be saddled with this tax. I pay tribute to them for sharing their stories and to those who came to London this morning to tell us their heart-breaking stories.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

Is my hon. Friend aware that, in Islington borough, 3,100 families will be affected by the bedroom tax? The local authority is making a stupendous effort to build as much social housing as possible—the joke is that if someone moves their car, they will return to find that a flat has been built in its place—but even it has been able to let only 1,600 flats in the last year and it cannot keep up with the demand of people who need to move because of the bedroom tax, let alone because of the general housing crisis.

[Rachel Reeves]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention.

We say that it is time to stop this cruel and mad policy. It is time for Members on both sides of the House to take a stand. It is time to stand with the desperate families who are being forced out of their homes or forced into debt, and time to stand with anyone who knows anything about housing or homelessness, the plight of disabled people or the lives of children in poverty, who are all warning that this policy is fast becoming a fiasco. Indeed, it is time to stand with the father of the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and chair of the Lochaber housing association, Mr Di Alexander, who says that the policy is

“particularly unfair in that it penalises both our tenants and ourselves for not being able to magic up a supply of smaller properties.”

It is a shame that the Chief Secretary listens to the Prime Minister instead of to his father.

It is also a shame that the pensions Minister does not listen to his own party, which only last month, at the Liberal Democrat party conference, voted overwhelmingly against the bedroom tax, saying that it is

“discriminating against the most vulnerable in society”,

and noting that the Government have shown

“a lack of appreciation of the housing requirements of children and adults with disabilities and care needs”.

I am afraid that that is what we get with the Liberal Democrats: they say one thing at their conference and when they are out on the doorsteps, but they vote another way here when it really counts. When they could make a difference, they turn the other way. While the Secretary of State scuttles off to Paris, he gets his Liberal Democrat pensions Minister to defend a policy that is not even part of his brief and that is in contradiction with his own party’s policy. I say shame on him and shame on his party.

We know that tough decisions are needed to build a social security system that is fair for all and to bring the benefits bill down, but this policy does neither. It may well cost more than it saves, but to be absolutely certain that its reversal will require no extra borrowing we have identified the funds that could more than cover the costs. They will be raised by cracking down on bogus self-employment in the construction sector, reversing the tax cut for hedge funds announced in this year’s Budget and cancelling the Chancellor’s failed shares for rights scheme, which according to the Office for Budget Responsibility has opened up a tax loophole of up to £1 billion.

The Labour party is committed to reversing the bedroom tax, if elected in 2015, but we know that for many families that is too long to wait, so I hope that Members on both sides of the House will vote with us tonight. If the Government stick their heads in the sand, let no one be in any doubt that this will be the beginning, not the end, of our campaign to cancel this unjust and unworkable tax. If this Government do not repeal it, the next Labour Government will.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. In a moment I shall call the Minister to move amendment (a) in the name of the Government. Before I do so, I remind the House that, in recognition of the enormous number of Members seeking to catch the eye of the Chair in this debate, I have imposed a five-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches. Let us first hear the Minister move amendment (a).

13:59

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)]

I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “House” to the end of the Question and add:

“notes the substantial structural deficit which was inherited from the previous Government and the need to get the nation’s finances back into shape; further notes the need to bring expenditure on housing benefit under control; further notes that the proposed reversal of this policy would cost the Exchequer around half a billion pounds a year; regrets any exaggeration and misrepresentation of the effects of the policy; recognises the inequality of allowing social tenants to receive benefit for a spare bedroom whilst denying this opportunity to private tenants; supports the Government’s action to deal with this unfairness whilst protecting vulnerable groups such as pensioners and providing substantial funding through Discretionary Housing Payments to local authorities to support other tenants who would otherwise be adversely affected; further notes the Government’s continuing commitment to monitor the effects of the policy and the use of Discretionary Housing Payments; and welcomes the potential beneficial impact of this policy on those living in overcrowded accommodation and the 2.1 million families on waiting lists.’”

I begin by reasserting that the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions is meeting European leaders at a long-arranged summit to tackle the vital issue of youth unemployment. The hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) might not think that a priority use of his time, but we do.

The hon. Lady’s motion did not mention people living in overcrowded accommodation. Indeed, the voice of those in overcrowded accommodation has not been heard from the Labour Benches, and it is the coalition Government who are speaking for those people. This policy will help to address those long-standing needs.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Steve Webb]

I will give way in a moment, but I want to make a little progress. Let me take the first line of the Labour motion and change one word so that it reads,

“this House regrets the pernicious effect on vulnerable and in many cases disabled people of deductions being made from housing benefit paid to working age tenants in the private rented housing sector deemed to have an excess number of bedrooms in their homes”.

The Opposition position seems to be that this is pernicious and evil when it affects social tenants, yet not merely acceptable but policy when it affects private tenants. There are two coherent positions: one is the Government position that asks anyone on benefits to contribute towards the cost of an extra bedroom, and the other is to state that anyone on benefits will receive housing benefit, regardless of the size of house they need; that would cost a lot of money but it would be coherent. The Labour party’s position is incoherent. It states that social tenants should not have to pay towards an extra bedroom, but that private tenants should. We have heard cases of people who need extra bedrooms, for example for dialysis machines. Social tenants need an extra room for that machine, but private tenants should have to pay for it. Surely some mistake.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

One of the strangest things in this argument about the private rented sector is that during the passage of the Welfare Reform Bill I never once heard the Government mention it—it is one of those later justifications. The problem is that people in the private rented sector were not suddenly told one day, “Your house is too big; you have to start paying for the extra rooms regardless of whether you can move.” That is a huge difference and the two things are not comparable. If we want to talk about equalising, perhaps we should equalise rents.

[Steve Webb]

I am interested that the hon. Lady mentions rents, because if we compare private and social tenants, she is saying that social tenants, who already benefit from subsidised rent, should not have to pay for an extra bedroom, whereas private tenants paying a market rent should pay for it. That does not seem fair to me.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Steve Webb]

I will give way in a moment. In an intervention on the hon. Member for Leeds West, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming) pointed out something that has not hitherto been flagged up—Labour’s intention to extend the principle of the local housing allowance to social tenants. Let me quote Hansard from January 2004 when the late Malcolm Wicks stated:

“We hope to implement a flat rate housing benefit system in the social sector, similar to that anticipated in the private rented sector…We aim to extend our reforms to the social rented sector as soon as rent restructuring and increased choice have created an improved market.”—[Official Report, 19 January 2004; Vol. 416, c. 1075W.]

Interestingly, the Labour party planned to do that, yet when this Government do it, suddenly it is somebody else’s problem.

[John Hemming]

From what the Minister has said, the Labour party was quite happy to have a bedroom tax, not just in the private sector but also in the social rented sector as soon as rents had gone up.

[Steve Webb]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on drawing the House’s attention to the Labour party’s plans. Not only did the Labour party invent the principle of paying for an extra bedroom, it intended to extend it.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

What research did the Government do into the flexibility of the housing market, in both the private and public sectors, before introducing this policy? Was it a case of introducing the policy now, researching it next year, and reporting on it in 2015?

[Steve Webb]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising the flexibility of the housing market because to hear Labour Members one would imagine the market was static. When they talk about the availability of one-bedroom properties—someone said a moment ago that there were 10 available or something—those are empty one-bedroom properties. If one looks, for example, at social housing swap websites, significant numbers of social tenants are looking to free-up small properties and exchange with those looking for family-sized accommodation. There is plenty of evidence of fluidity. Tens of thousands of social tenants move house every year; this is not a static market.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

The Minister said that we are ignoring the potential benefits of his policy on overcrowded accommodation. Will he tell the House why his amendment includes the words “potential beneficial impact” and say how many people have been helped to date?

[Steve Webb]

I am pleased to hear the hon. Gentleman refer to overcrowding, because strangely that was an omission from the Labour motion. It is almost as if the voice of the overcrowded has not been heard. To give him a sense of scale, based on the English house condition survey we estimate that more than a quarter of a million households in social accommodation are overcrowded. Census data, which offer a different definition, suggest there are getting on for 400,000 overcrowded households. The research the Government are undertaking as the policy is rolled out will monitor the extent to which people are trading down and moving from overcrowded accommodation, and the extent to which they take jobs, take in lodgers or use discretionary housing payments. People can respond to the policy in a whole raft of ways, but the idea that we can have hundreds of thousands of people in overcrowded accommodation while there are free spare bedrooms does not seem fair.

[Mr Ellwood]

There is a sense of déjà vu in this debate because we discussed this issue in 2008 with reference to the private sector. Going back to 2008, one major problem is the lack of housing stock and new builds. Just 30% of new houses are single dwellings, although the demand for that is 60%. Does the Minister agree that that imbalance needs to be addressed?

[Steve Webb]

My hon. Friend is right. Labour Members say there is a mismatch between housing stock and housing need, but who was doing the house building for 13 years? Why do we have that mismatch? On the volume of social housing construction, I was shocked when I saw that in many years of the previous Labour Government, fewer than 25,000 new units of social housing were built per year. Even in these difficult economic circumstances, the coalition Government are already building more social housing every year than in most years of the Labour Government, and that will only increase.

[Mrs Main]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent point. Perhaps he would like to extend it by inviting the Labour shadow Minister to apologise for the failure to build social housing—a failure that Labour’s own spokesperson identified as woeful, bleak even.

[Steve Webb]

My hon. Friend is right. The level of new housing association properties built was well below 25,000 in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006. The Government are already building well over 25,000 social houses a year, and have further plans for expansion.

[Emily Thornberry]

The hon. Gentleman began his contribution by talking about overcrowding, which is something Labour feels very strongly about, certainly in my borough. Part of the problem, however, is empty nesters—elderly people whose families have grown up. If the principle behind the bedroom tax is to free up homes and move people to smaller units, why does it not apply to pensioners?

[Steve Webb]

I am not sure whether the hon. Lady is encouraging us to apply the policy to pensioners.

[Emily Thornberry]

The hon. Gentleman will be surprised to hear that I am doing my job and probing the Government to find out the purpose of this policy. He began with the justification of dealing with overcrowding—something I feel very strongly about after what I have seen in my surgeries—but my borough authority has always had a policy of speaking to people as they retire, and encouraging them to move onwards, not doing this.

[Steve Webb]

At least an Opposition Member is talking about overcrowding, which is a start—we might be making progress. The hon. Lady is right that we need to do more to assist and support older tenants to move into more suitable accommodation. One thing we have discovered in the course of doing that work is how little many social landlords knew about their tenants. We were shocked to discover that. Part of the process is social landlords engaging with their tenants and helping them to move to the right sort of accommodation.

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

My hon. Friend mentioned the mutual exchange service, otherwise known as HomeSwapper. Is he aware that 56,000 one-bedroom properties, 147,000 two-bedroom properties and 104,000 three-bedroom properties are available?

[Steve Webb]

We often hear from Opposition Members the refrain, “There aren’t the properties,” but my hon. Friend has exploded that myth. Significant numbers of people want to move from one-bedroom properties to two-bedroom properties, and from two-bedroom properties to three-bedroom properties. That will be facilitated by our measure.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Steve Webb]

I will give way to my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Mr Kennedy).

[Mr Charles Kennedy (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (LD)]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way—it is characteristically generous of him, particularly because he knows my past record and that I have been unable to give my support to his policy. I have a specific question on how the policy will develop. The Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs recommended some time ago that communities of fewer than 3,000 people could be exempted from the impact of the policy. I represent the largest geographic constituency in Britain, and that question is of great interest to the Highland council welfare committee. Will he please look at it?

[Steve Webb]

My right hon. Friend and his hon. Friends have been effective in lobbying for the needs of remote rural communities. That is why we specifically made available this year an additional £5 million, focused exclusively on remote rural communities, which face difficulty because of the distance people might have to travel to alternative accommodation. I hope that that Government decision this year has helped to address those concerns.

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

What solution does the Minister suggest for a Hebridean island where there are 105 houses, 50% of which are single occupancy, but only 20% of which have one bedroom? If people live on such islands, what is the solution?

[Steve Webb]

I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman was listening a moment ago when I referred to the specific additional funding we have allocated to remote rural areas to respond to that problem.

[Philip Davies]

Does the Minister agree that the spare room subsidy is one reason why we do not have the right mix of housing? Social housing providers could build houses as big as they wanted, knowing that the Government would cover the full bill irrespectively. In that respect, does he deplore the social housing provider in my area, of which a Labour MP is a director? It complains on the one hand that it has too many three-bedroom houses—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Just to help hon. Members, we need shorter interventions. Many hon. Members wish to speak and the matter is important to all our constituencies, so we need short interventions.

[Steve Webb]

I am grateful, Mr Deputy Speaker, but my hon. Friend raises an important point on the responsibility of social landlords to build housing stock to meet the needs of local people. For too long under the previous Government, that did not happen.

My hon. Friend made the point that some social landlords have worked the system. One or two hon. Members have shouted, “No, that cannot be the case,” but I want to refer to the oral evidence given by Fife council to the Scottish Affairs Committee. Fife council saw the arrangements as a nice little earner. Apropos of two-bedroom properties occupied by a single person, Fife council said:

“we have under-occupied them to maintain an income from them”.

It also stated that the

“progress that we had made in maintaining our income by allocating properties with perhaps a spare bedroom is under risk now.”

I do not apologise for that. The purpose of housing benefit is not to subsidise social landlords who are using the system; it is to help people who are in need.

[Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)]

The extra money that the Government have given to sparsely populated councils for discretionary housing payments has been welcome. It has helped Argyll and Bute in particular and other sparsely populated councils. Can my hon. Friend give me reassurances that it will continue in future years?

[Steve Webb]

My hon. Friend has been a doughty campaigner for his rural constituency. I cannot commit the Government to a further £5 million—that is the amount allocated this year for remote rural areas—but I am aware that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury tends to be quite sensitive to the needs of remote Scottish constituencies.

Let me address the amendment, because the shadow Secretary of State did not mention the state of the nation’s finances—she used to be an economist, so I am surprised she did not mention the subject. The context of the debate is a deficit in 2009-10 in excess of £150 billion a year. The previous Government were spending £4 for every £3 they raised in taxes—that was not investment for the long term, but borrowing money to pay today’s bills. There is nothing progressive or fair about asking our children to pay the costs of current spending to benefit ourselves. That is why the context needed to be addressed.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Steve Webb]

I am going to make progress.

The deficit was £150 billion. How can we address that? The biggest area of public spending is the Department for Work and Pensions. More than half of that budget goes on pensioners and pensioner-related benefits, which we had pledged to protect. That meant that a very substantial budget—the working-age welfare budget—had to be addressed. The biggest income-related benefit is housing benefit. The biggest group of housing benefit recipients comprises social tenants. We are told that the Labour party would have sought to address the budget deficit, but if we are looking to do so, housing benefit for social tenants must be looked at. If we have to make savings in that, where do we do it? We look at spare rooms in the social housing sector.

However, some people legitimately have a need for an additional room or should not be asked to move. The issue of adapted accommodation was raised. We could have dealt with adapted accommodation in two ways. First, we could have written in a long, complicated statutory instrument what is and is not adapted accommodation. Clearly, just a hand rail would not constitute adapted accommodation and a whole extension probably would, but what about the properties in the middle? Given that there are often no records of how much has been spent on adaptation, trying to write that into the law of the land would not have been an effective way to help those in need.

We therefore decided that we would estimate the cost of protecting those with substantially adapted properties—our estimate was £25 million—and allocated the money to local authorities to assist those in need. [Interruption.] From a sedentary position, the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) says that it is not enough. Last year, we were told, if I remember rightly, that the discretionary housing payments we had made available for other housing benefits changes were “not enough,” but, at the end of the year, local authorities repaid to the Government £10 million of unspent discretionary housing payments.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I can absolutely guarantee that the Minister will not be getting any of his money back this year from any of the local authorities, and certainly not from Manchester. My constituency has among the highest number of people affected by the bedroom tax in the country. The money is fast running out, if it has not already run out, because there are far more people with adapted homes than there is money to go around. I can guarantee that he will not be getting any money back from Manchester city council this year.

[Steve Webb]

We have estimated £25 million to cover adapted properties. The hon. Lady might have better statistics than the Government on adapted properties, but I suspect that the default position of Labour Members is to say, “It’s not enough; it should be more.”

Let me address the issue directly to respond to the hon. Lady’s point. In 2012-13, we made available £60 million of discretionary housing payments. This year, we have trebled that amount to £180 million. That money is what we might call hard cash for hard cases—the cases to which hon. Members have referred. I say this sincerely to hon. Members: those who raise individual cases should be holding their local authorities to account. The Government have given local authorities the money to help people in need. In fact, we have gone further. Within year, we have allocated an extra £20 million for local authorities to bid for. If they have exhausted, or if they anticipate exhausting, their discretionary housing payments budgets, they can come to the Government for a top-up. So far, barely a dozen local authorities have asked for additional funding.

The hon. Member for Leeds West mentioned the strain being putting on her local authority’s discretionary housing payment. Leaving aside the fact that Leeds has an extraordinarily low rate of home swaps—in other words, is the local authority doing the right thing by its tenants?—it has not asked the Government for a share of the £20 million. If Leeds is so cash-strapped for DHPs, why has it not asked us for the money it says it needs, rather than turning away people it thinks are vulnerable?

[Robert Flello]

The Minister talks about cash-strapped authorities. Stoke-on-Trent has been the third hardest hit by cuts every year and simply cannot mop that up. He made a point about swaps. In Stoke-on-Trent, approximately 11,000 people are on the waiting list. Where are the one-bedroom flats? Where are the two-bedroom places? They do not exist in Stoke-on-Trent. Will he tell me where they are?

[Steve Webb]

The hon. Gentleman misses the point. He mistakes the issue of empty properties for properties that are currently accommodated. The social housing swap website indicates tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people in smaller properties who want to trade up, while people in larger properties want to trade down.

In response to the hon. Member for Manchester Central, I am rather startled by this figure, but it appears that last year Manchester local authority sent back to the Government £595,000 of unspent DHPs.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and his colleagues for the extra allocation of money. My local authority has bid for an extra £600,000, which I hope it will receive. I supported the motion at the Liberal Democrat conference arguing for changes in this policy. [Interruption.] I will take no lessons from Labour Members. Will my hon. Friend look at exempting those who have applied and are eligible for a smaller property, and are waiting to be allocated?

[Steve Webb]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for referring to our policy motion, which is a darn sight better than the one we have been asked to consider by the Opposition. The Government are addressing many of the elements in our conference motion. For example, the motion calls for

“an immediate evaluation of the impact of the policy”

which we are undertaking, and

“A review of the amount allocated to local authorities for the Discretionary Housing Payment Fund”.

[Lucy Powell]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The Minister incorrectly gave figures for last year—the bedroom tax was introduced only in April. I was talking about money that will come back this year. I can guarantee that the Minister will not be getting any money back from Manchester this year—the year of the bedroom tax.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. We do not need any help from those on the back row. That was not a point of order, but the hon. Lady has put her point on the record.

[Steve Webb]

I will come back to that in a moment.

I can assure my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) that we are addressing many of the points raised in the conference motion, not least because the motion congratulates our colleagues on their role in securing additional discretionary housing payments—something they can all be proud of.

The hon. Member for Manchester Central says that I referred to last year’s figures. I did, because we have not got to the end of this year yet. Last year, we stood here and other Opposition Members said about last year’s budget exactly what she has just said. We allocated DHPs for other changes to housing benefits. They said there would not be enough money, but at the end of the year substantial amounts were repaid.

[Lucy Powell]

rose—

[Steve Webb]

I have no idea what that gesture means, but last year we allocated just under £1 million to Manchester, of which more than £500,000 was repaid. This year we have allocated nearly £2 million to Manchester to address those concerns. If it finds that it is still short of cash, despite sending back £500,000 last year, we will of course consider an application to our top-up fund, which we have not so far received.

We have heard nothing from the—[Interruption.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. In fairness, a lot of people want to listen to this. All of our constituencies are affected and it is better if we all listen. The Minister has given way a lot. Hon. Members should indicate that they want the Minister to give way, but please accept it if he does not want to

[Steve Webb]

I am grateful, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am aware that a large number of hon. Members want to participate in the debate, so I will sum up the Government’s position.

The Opposition do not talk about the £150 billion deficit, because they are rightly embarrassed and are ashamed of the state in which they left our finances. They would have had to deal with the same deficit that we had to deal with, but we have no idea how they would have done so. The idea that they could reverse this change by finding £500 million from obscure corners is implausible. They could not raise anything like the sort of amounts they are talking about. We recognise that it is not appropriate to expect every person to move to a smaller property, which is why we have trebled the budget for discretionary housing payments. I say to Opposition Members and all my hon. Friends that if someone comes to see them with a legitimate reason not to trade down—they do not have an option to work, to take in a lodger, or to do the other things people do —the local authority should be asked to explain whether it has spent its cash and, if it has spent it, whether it has asked the Government for more cash. We can then have a conversation. Until that point, we need fairness between—

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. I said that hon. Members should indicate if they want to intervene, but do not continue to stay on your feet, Mr Burden. It is for me to judge and for the Minister to give way. Please do not take advantage of the situation. That is not good for this Chamber.

[Steve Webb]

We need action on overcrowding, we need fairness between social and private tenants and we need action on the deficit. Those are the things we need. The Labour party has no answer to those problems. The coalition has addressed them. I commend the amendment to the House.

14:27

[Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)]

Let me begin by putting on record that I think that the bedroom tax should be abolished. This is a pernicious and vindictive measure that blames people and is causing a huge amount of distress. It blames, then punishes, people who very often have had little control or choice over the house in which they live. It punishes people whose crime is not to earn enough money to afford their rent. It punishes people who have lived in their council house for most of their lives but have temporarily lost their job and are now deemed as having an extra bedroom. It punishes the victims for a failure of housing supply, and punishes those who would like to move to a smaller property but cannot because none is available.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

The hon. Lady says that the bedroom tax should be abolished. Does she agree that it should be abolished for private sector tenants, too?

[Dame Anne Begg]

There is a fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of social housing. When my parents got their first council house, they thought that that was their home for life. That is not the same for people who rent in the private sector as a stepping stone to buying a house. My parents never had that expectation, and anyone who has lived in a council house would understand that.

The bedroom tax hits the most vulnerable, many of whom do not qualify, despite everything that has been said, for discretionary housing payments. In Aberdeen, I have been hearing the stories of people who have fallen on hard times and become victims of drug or alcohol abuse. They are now trying to get their lives back together but cannot, because they are being hit by the bedroom tax. For example, a 37-year-old merchant seaman sustained injuries in a car accident, and he therefore needed a ground-floor flat. He was allocated a two-bedroom flat because that was all there was, and he has now been hit by the bedroom tax. A 47-year-old disabled man, who, after his parents died, continued to live in the two-bedroom flat that he had been born in, has been hit by the bedroom tax.

[Caroline Lucas]

The hon. Lady is making a powerful case. Does she share my concern about the scale of debt being created by the Government’s brutal policy? Freedom of information figures show that one in three council house tenants are being pushed into rent arrears. Given that not enough smaller properties exist, how is that possibly fair or progressive?

[Dame Anne Begg]

And in many of my examples, people’s situations have been made worse, because they now have housing debts, so they cannot be re-housed and have to return to the very hostels that they thought they were escaping from.

Also hit by the bedroom tax is a 52-year-old woman who suffers from depression and chronic anxiety and who depends on her neighbour and so cannot contemplate a move. I know of many more examples. Some people would move but cannot, because suitable properties are not available, while others cannot move because they would lose the support that they depend on to lead independent lives.

Even if the Government do not accept Labour’s proposal to scrap the tax—I always live in hope—they must extend the exemptions. I shall propose just two very modest ones that they should accept, if only because, given how they have been shouting this afternoon, their Back Benchers obviously think these things are exempted already. The first exemption should apply to homes specifically adapted for disabled families, about which I really do not accept the Minister’s argument: this is a man who thinks that he will change the whole pensions system in Great Britain, yet he is not clever enough to come up with a definition of an adapted home. I don’t think so! The second exemption is for situations where it is unreasonable to expect a couple to share a bed or room because one or both have a disability.

On the first exemption, it is incredibly difficult and expensive for someone who needs adaptations to their house to move. Council tax regulations recognise that people who need extra room because of a disability pay council tax on a lower band, so it is ridiculous that this space requirement is not recognised in housing benefit regulations. I know from personal experience how difficult it is to find suitable housing and how long adaptations take to make, and this is an exemption that the Government could easily include.

On the second exemption, whoever in government thought it acceptable to expect a couple, one of whom is disabled, to share a bedroom clearly has no idea of the size of the average council house bedroom. It is certainly not big enough for a hospital bed, possibly some lifting equipment and a second bed for the other person, and such an arrangement would not give a good night’s sleep to someone who might also have an important caring role. Discretionary housing payment is not a solution. It is meant to be transitional—to get people from where they are now to where the Government want them to be —whereas the situations that I am describing are permanent.

I could talk about disabled children, but those two situations should certainly be exempted, and those people should not have to apply year on year either. No matter how much money is made available, it is wrong that they must apply for a discretionary payment, and the word “discretionary” is the key, because it means that they will not necessarily get the money. If Ministers do not accept the need to get rid of this measure, at least they could extend the exemptions; these modest measures would not cost more either, if what the Government say is right, because these people are already getting discretionary housing payments. The exemptions would alleviate a great deal of anxiety and make this appalling measure a bit more bearable for some of our constituents. But I stand by my original comment: it is time that this measure was abolished.

14:34

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, opposing the main motion but supporting the amendment in the name of my right hon. Friends. It is also a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg), the Chairman of the Work and Pensions Committee. We might disagree on elements of the policy, but I appreciate that she holds her opinions very strongly.

Government Members are keen to create a fair housing market. It is astonishing to hear Opposition Members talk of the criteria, given that they voted for them with the introduction of the local housing allowance. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello) talked about divorced families, but that situation happened before and still happens now. Why should those in the private sector or people who own their own homes be treated differently? I recognise the point about the retrospective nature of the policy, but the Government are trying to fix problems left unfixed by the last Government, and although some of these necessary changes might seem difficult, overall fairness is what truly matters.

[Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

What would the hon. Lady say to Mr and Mrs Goodwin of Caerphilly borough, both of whom are registered blind, yet have to pay the bedroom tax? Where is the fairness there?

[Dr Coffey]

I do not know the details of the hon. Gentleman’s case, but I am sure that he is taking it up with his local council. Rather than responding to individual cases, however, I would prefer to stick to the principle of why we believe this to be fair and right. I will come to my reasons in a moment.

On social housing, as the Minister said, it would be wrong to expect thousands of homes to sit empty waiting for people to move in. I took up such a case in my own constituency recently. The local council said that it was not getting as much new homes bonus as it had expected, and I wondered whether that was because Suffolk, thought to be prosperous, was missing out. We looked into it and discovered that 120 of the homes sitting empty belonged to the local housing association. I found that extraordinary. So we brought the association in to find out what was being done to maximise the use of those houses—whether they were one, two or three-bedroom homes. Not only will Flagship have to pay more money council tax, if those homes are not used, because we have allowed councils to charge 100% for empty homes after a certain time, but maximising their use would help the council to keep more of its new homes bonus.

Of course, the market can operate in social housing, as has been eloquently explained, via house swapping. I understand that 392 house swaps have been arranged in north Kensington, compared to only nine in Doncaster. It is incumbent on Members to work with their councils to understand what they are doing to facilitate house swapping. From what I learned this morning, my own area is not doing enough, and I will pursue that matter in the future.

[Sheila Gilmore]

The problem is that the hon. Lady and her Front-Bench team do not seem to know what the policy is for. We hear that it might be about making savings, but if everyone slots into the right-sized house—according to the Government’s criteria, which I do not necessarily accept—there will be no saving. Is it about making savings or making better use of properties? If it is about making better use of properties, there are lots of better ways to do it.

[Dr Coffey]

The beauty of Government Members is that we think we can achieve both. We believe we can save the taxpayer money and put it towards the affordable homes programme. Our estimate—I appreciate that it is only an estimate and that we will have to wait and see—is that it will save £500 million a year. Meanwhile, we have set aside £4.5 billion for the affordable homes programme to build houses in this Parliament and are already arranging the programme for the next Parliament.

[Hywel Williams]

rose—

[Mr MacNeil]

rose—

[Dr Coffey]

I will not give way. I have given way already and lots of people want to speak.

With this policy, we are trying to achieve multiple aims, by making better use of the housing stock and working to get more housing built. It is worth noting that Labour voted against the Growth and Infrastructure Act 2013, which is one of the things that we introduced to unblock housing developments.

The hon. Member for Aberdeen South and the Minister mentioned adaptations for disabled people. More than a quarter of my constituents are over 65, so hon. Members will not be surprised to learn that my constituency has a fair number of adapted houses and flats. It is appropriate that local councils should make an assessment and decide whether it is better for someone to stay in their home, rather than having to redo the adaptation somewhere else. I understand the point that the Minister made about this. If a wet room needed to be recreated, for example, there might well be merit in deciding that instead of someone having a three-bedroom house with a wet room, they should move to a one or two-bedroom apartment, as appropriate. We are saying to councils and housing associations that, instead of Whitehall setting those criteria, they should look after their housing stock together and ensure that people’s needs are met.

Listening to the stories that have come out today—I appreciate that they are personal stories about what people are experiencing—anyone would think that we in government had done nothing about this. However, we have allowed councils to retain the underspend in discretionary housing payments from previous years, and we have put in extra money for those payments. It is not as though we are sitting on our hands and doing nothing.

The last sentence of the Labour motion talks about using

“the funding set aside for discretionary housing payments to deal with under-occupation by funding local authorities so that they are better able to help people with the cost of moving to suitable accommodation.”

In an answer to a parliamentary question, the Minister has told me that a £20 million fund was set aside for new ideas for councils working together. At that time, only five councils had applied for that funding, and I would encourage our colleagues to speak to their councillors about that.

The hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) talked about pensioners. There might be some people who can work an extra three hours to capture that extra £14 a week. [Hon. Members: “What?”] The Government are fixing the problems of the past. This debate reinforces the fact that we in government want to fix the problems, and that Labour remains the party of welfare.

14:41

[Mr David Crausby (Bolton North East) (Lab)]

I intend to use the term “bedroom tax” today and not “under-occupancy penalty” or “single room subsidy”. If that offends anyone, I can assure them they will not be anywhere near as offended as thousands of my constituents have been by this repulsive Government attack on disadvantaged and disabled people. The conflict surrounding the description of this despicable act reminds me of Margaret Thatcher’s attempt to force the term “community charge” down the throats of the British people. Not surprisingly, she failed, and history damned it as the poll tax. The same fate awaits the single room subsidy.

The policy itself will also fail because, like the poll tax, it is based on mean-mindedness and political dogma. It will be also rejected by Conservative and Liberal leaderships yet to come, and once it has gone—as it will do after the next election—it will be disowned. Even as Margaret Thatcher was being driven away from Downing street in tears, John Major was planning to ditch the poll tax. He had remembered what Mrs Thatcher had clearly forgotten: that, regardless of how big someone gets for their boots, if they want to win elections and stay in power they should keep in touch with public opinion. They should also bear in mind that our electorate are, I am proud to say, for the most part decent and fair-minded people who know a pig in a poke when they see one. John Major understood that, which is why he went on to win the next election in 1992.

Prime Ministers have their albatrosses, however: John Major’s was the exchange rate mechanism; Margaret Thatcher’s was the poll tax; Tony Blair’s was Iraq; and Jim Callaghan’s was the winter of discontent. The bedroom tax will belong to the present incumbent. As with the ancient mariner, it will hang round his neck in shame.

[Dr Coffey]

The hon. Gentleman might wish to check the recent opinion polls. We would appreciate it if he were more consistent about changing the rules for people on local housing allowance. If they were so bad for private sector rented flats, why is the situation so different for the public sector?

[Mr Crausby]

I do not think that my political principles have changed, to be perfectly honest. I would have put forward these same arguments prior to the election as well.

On a more serious point, nearly 2,500 people back home in Bolton have been affected, and more than 75% of them have fallen into arrears since April—so much for this being a money-saving measure.

[Sir Tony Cunningham (Workington) (Lab)]

On the difficulty of moving, I have a constituent who has got into arrears because of the bedroom tax. The only way in which she can get out of arrears is to move to a smaller property but, guess what, she cannot move because she is in arrears. Does not this demonstrate the madness of this policy?

[Mr Crausby]

Absolutely. I will come to that point in a moment.

The fact is that millions of pounds will be lost. That represents much-needed cash that needs to be spent on making living conditions better, not worse. The demand for debt advice and financial service advice is bound to soar, and housing staff will concentrate most of their efforts on chasing rent arrears and helping people to move—when they can, that is. Legal expenses will escalate, and the potential cost of evicting decent families is enormous. This additional expense might not come directly from the Government’s coffers, but it will come from British people’s pockets and, frankly, we have better things to spend it on.

One example of the measure’s inflexibility involves constituents of mine who have two children, a boy and a girl. The girl was nine when they moved in, just before the bedroom tax was implemented. They were not entitled to live in a three-bedroom house until she was 10, when she could no longer be expected to share a room with her brother. As a result, the family were penalised for months until she was 10. The problem with this cruel measure is that it is focused on punishing people, and not on dealing with the problems of under-occupancy.

Under-occupancy is plainly a problem, but the bedroom tax is definitely not the solution. Where is the justice in denying tenants the opportunity to move to smaller, more energy-efficient properties when there are hardly any available—that is certainly the case in my constituency —and at the same time penalising them financially? The sensible solution involves helping people and building affordable homes for rent. It also involves giving tenants an incentive to downsize, not making them suffer because they are poor and in receipt of welfare benefits. Back in Bolton, the Conservative and Liberal councillors actually get it, and they have voted for a council motion to abolish the bedroom tax—then again, maybe they understand what John Major understood when he abolished the poll tax.

14:48

[Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bolton North East (Mr Crausby). In my five minutes, I shall explain why what is going on in Labour-run councils is so different from what is going on in Conservative-run councils. I had the honour of being the leader of South Derbyshire district council when the Conservatives took control from the Labour group in 2007. In 2008, we implemented the Labour policy of the local homes allowance and we managed fine. That is coming along, and I am delighted to say that the present leader of the district council is my beloved husband. He is also managing fine. In our retained stock, 318 families are affected by the measure, and we have immediately adopted a policy of appointing a specific officer to talk to each of those 318 families.

[Barbara Keeley]

rose—

[Heather Wheeler]

I am not giving way; I have only five minutes.

The important issue is what we are doing about under-occupancy and what we are doing about the 1,700 families on the huge waiting list as a result of no new properties being built. I can say that in South Derbyshire—

[Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)]

rose—

[Heather Wheeler]

No, I will not give way to the hon. Lady.

We saw this policy coming along in South Derbyshire for some time. What did we do? We built 88 new units of one and two-bedroom properties. Immediately, the council was able to swap 18 families, and Home Swappers was able to swap a further 86 families. We are proactive in South Derbyshire. We saw what was coming and we talked to the 318 families. The amount is £11.88 a week. Some 44 of the 318 families have said that they want to pay that £11.88.

[Barbara Keeley]

rose—

[Heather Wheeler]

No, I am not giving way to the hon. Lady.

That is what a proactive council does. I ask Labour Members: what are you doing talking to your Labour leader; what are you doing talking to your housing chairman; what are you doing talking to the Homes and Communities Agency; what are you all doing? The answer is, “Not enough”.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. The hon. Lady says “you”, but I am not responsible and I have no wish to be responsible for what she says.

[Heather Wheeler]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I apologise. What are Opposition Members doing about it? Clearly not enough.

I shall finish. This motion is despicable. Thank goodness for the reasoned amendment, which I shall vote for with great pleasure.

[Barbara Keeley]

rose—

[Heather Wheeler]

I will not give way.

Mr Deputy Speaker said that everyone in this Chamber is responsible for what goes on in their constituencies. For goodness’ sake, Labour Members should start leading in their constituencies.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

I do not think I quite said that, but I call Jessica Morden.

14:52

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

The bedroom tax hits Wales the hardest, which is why it is good to see so many Members from Welsh constituencies on the Opposition Benches; I see that, on the Government Benches, Wales is represented by the lone voice of the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies).

[Barbara Keeley]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Jessica Morden]

I will.

[Barbara Keeley]

I thank my hon. Friend, but it is a pity that the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Heather Wheeler), who put questions to Labour Members, did not let any of us intervene. In my constituency, 280 households affected have been able to move—close to the hon. Lady’s 318—but 85% of affected households, which means 4,500 in Salford, cannot move. The hon. Lady should think a bit more about those figures: 300 is nothing in comparison with the work load of Opposition Members.

[Jessica Morden]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention, and she is exactly right. The bedroom tax particularly hits people in Wales—a point to which I shall return. The policy affects proportionally more housing benefit claimants in Wales than elsewhere in the UK, with 40,000 households affected by the bedroom tax—46% of working-age social housing tenants, when the UK average is 31%, and 25,000 of those have a disabled person living in the household. These are huge figures.

A little under a year ago, social housing tenants in my constituency received their letters telling them that, thanks to this coalition Government’s changes, they would have to pay more rent or move home—that is effectively their choice. Opposition Members warned then of the terrible impact the bedroom tax would have on some of our most vulnerable families, and of the fear and uncertainty it would bring. I hope the Minister does not underestimate in any way the palpable fear and anxiety felt out there among the disabled communities and families with small children.

[Mrs Moon]

Does my hon. Friend also appreciate the humiliation and the distress caused for many people with disabilities who have been forced to claim the discretionary housing payment? They have to fill in several pages of a claim form—the claim will often last only for six weeks—detailing, for example, how often they wet the bed, how often they need the bedding changed, how often they put the heating on, and so forth. That is a personal invasion, which they found humiliating.

[Jessica Morden]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. That is not the only process they have to go through, either. The cumulative effect of the Government’s different benefit changes, particularly on disabled people, makes things all the more arduous for them.

The warning from Opposition Members was that far from saving money, this policy could end up costing money. The warning was that the very notion of tenants moving to smaller homes was clearly absurd, as there were nowhere near enough smaller properties for them to move into.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend recall the Government’s 2012 impact assessment, which said:

“Estimates of Housing Benefit savings are based upon the current profile of tenants in the social rented sector, with little tenant mobility assumed. If a significant number of tenants wished to move, this would reduce direct savings and place extra demands on social landlords.”

Does she agree that this confirms that the Government’s real intention was to balance the books on the backs of the poor and vulnerable?

[Jessica Morden]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. It is clear that the Government will save money only if people stay put and pay up, which is the fundamental point.

The shortage of housing is no more acute than in Wales, where traditional three-bedroom properties predominate and there is a huge shortage of smaller social properties. Again, the warning back then was that discretionary housing payments were not enough to help the disabled and that housing associations would be left with a burden of debt, and unenviable choices.

All those warnings were ignored by the Government coalition parties. Government Members said that debates such as this one were characterised by exaggeration, that we were painting too bleak a picture and that our predictions were inaccurate. Tragically, those predictions were not wrong.

All Members have constituency cases to quote, so here are just a few of mine from the last couple of weeks. The mother of a disabled child who up to now used the third bedroom as a sensory room for her autistic son, as recommended by a paediatrician, is now struggling to find the extra rent. A divorced father whose two sons normally stay with him during the summer months has had to move because he cannot afford to keep his current home and will no longer have that access to his children. The largest group is the numerous families with disability adaptations to their properties who have no prospect of being moved to smaller accommodation that fits their needs because it would cost far too much to adapt the new properties. It is now clear that the financial “assistance” provided to already cash-strapped local authorities is not enough, as I see every day in my case work.

[Lucy Powell]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Jessica Morden]

I would love to, but I am running out of time.

Local housing associations are working hard and using their creativity, doing their best to lessen the impact. From the work I see in my constituency, I realise that they know their tenants and have been in contact with them in the years preceding this situation. The simple fact remains that the vast majority of people hit by the bedroom tax have nowhere to move to within existing social housing provision.

A BBC Wales report earlier this year found four local authorities in Wales, including Monmouthshire, had no one-bedroom properties at all. In Wales, Shelter Cymru has argued that the chronic shortage of one and two-bedroom properties will drive many households into the private rented sector, where the local housing allowance for smaller two-bedroom properties outstrips the rents of three-bedroom social property. The difference is as much as 46% across Wales, and in Newport private rents are 36% higher. One Gwent housing association pointed out that every single private rented property is more expensive than the social rented property.

More damningly still, over the summer my office conducted some research on housing associations in Wales, showing that more than 50% of affected housing association tenants previously not in arrears—these people were always up to date with their rent—have now been plunged into debt and fallen behind on payments, with housing associations in Wales shouldering over £750,000 of extra debt. These are people who were up to date with their rent before April. When even the hon. Member for Monmouth commenting on the Welsh Affairs Select Committee report admitted publicly that the bedroom tax is simply not working in Wales due to the dearth of smaller properties, we know just how badly judged this policy is.

The bedroom tax is a bad and cruel policy. It is forcing people who cannot move into debt. I am thus very pleased that my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) tabled the motion before us today.

14:58

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

Since we have heard a lot of anecdotes from Labour Members, perhaps I should tell one or two myself. I was contacted by the BBC—not an organisation known for its right-wing reactionary views—and asked to meet and talk to people affected by the spare room subsidy. I went along and heard some very interesting stories. I met a lady in her late 50s who had worked her entire life. Her family had left and she lived on her own in a house with too many bedrooms. She was going to have to move. Having been made redundant, she had gone out and got herself another job in an area where it was difficult to do that. I had a great deal of respect for that lady, and I still do. I feel sorry for her. I think one would have to have a heart of stone not to feel sorry for somebody in that position. However, when a system is spending billions of pounds and looking after millions of people and that system then changes, there will always be people with unfortunate stories to tell, and I believe that she was one of them.

[Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[David T. C. Davies]

I will give way once, and once only, to an Opposition Member. If the hon. Gentleman wants me to give way now, I shall be happy to do so.

[Ian Murray]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his generosity. There is a point that he and his hon. Friends continually miss. I have a constituent who is disabled and lives in a two-bedroom council property. Given that 660 people in my constituency are affected by the bedroom tax and 25,000 are on the housing list, the only way in which he can move to a one-bedroom property in Edinburgh is to go into the private sector. Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that that will cause the housing benefit bill to rise?

[David T. C. Davies]

Let me return to what I was saying. The BBC took me to meet three groups of people, whom it had chosen. The second lady whom I met was looking after four children. They were not her own children; she was their grandmother. The mother, because she was not the main carer for the children, was going to lose out on housing. What those people wanted were two large houses to look after the same family. While I felt sorry for everyone involved, including the children, I have to say that the state is not there to provide not one, but two sets of very large houses for people with large numbers of children.

Another question arose while I was meeting that lady, and it is a frank question. I never use the term “single mother” because I think that it is pejorative, and it has affected people in my own family. I think it is a generalisation. However, I have absolutely no hesitation in talking about feckless fathers. Those children had been brought into the world by a group of different males, and those males, having brought those children into the world, had disappeared and left the two ladies to try to bring them up themselves.

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[David T. C. Davies]

No. I said that I would give way only once to an Opposition Member.

I think it absolutely outrageous that so many young men in our society feel that they can go out, get women pregnant, allow them to have children, make them bring up those children by themselves—often on benefits—and then just disappear. That is utterly shocking. I hope that Ministers will note what I am saying, and that they will get hold of some of those feckless fathers, drag them off, make them work—put them in chains if necessary—and make them pay society back for the cost of bringing up the children whom they chose to bring into this world.

I also met a young couple, 17 years old, both of whom had never worked in their lives. They were living in a two-bedroom or perhaps a one-bedroom flat, and were being expected to suffer some inconvenience—perhaps to move into a studio flat. Let me say to Ministers that, in many instances, they are being far too generous. Why should the state pay for two people to set themselves up in what is frankly a teenage love nest? When I was 17 years old, if I wanted to see my girlfriend I would go and see her on a park bench in Newport. Why are the Government paying for those young people to have a flat all by themselves at all, regardless of whether it contains one bedroom or two?

I got into a lot of trouble, because I suggested to the young man that perhaps he should go out and find himself a job. He said that there were no jobs, which, incidentally, contradicted the example of the lady whom I had seen before him: she had found work. I said, “Why do you not move to where the work is?”, and immediately received a whole load of criticism.

I was even sent an e-mail from someone who wrote “You are a Christian. You should be serving the Lord. One day you will stand by the Lord and account for this hardship.” I wrote back to him saying, “I read my Bible. I do not see anything in the Bible that says that 17-year-olds should be given a flat, but I see plenty of examples of people who have had to move to find a better way of life: Abraham going off to the promised land, or Moses, or the disciples, who toured all over Europe. They all moved.”

Victoria station is a prime bit of expensive real estate. There is Boots, Costa Coffee and Starbucks, and there is an office which is recruiting people to work for Pret A Manger. I went there one day last week, and saw that there were 100 vacancies at Pret A Manger in central London. It was just waiting to take people on. Young people with an attitude and an ability to go out and do a bit of work can find a job with no problem whatsoever, and I do not think that we should be supporting them in the way that we are.

Opposition Members have heard a few anecdotes from me, because they have liked giving anecdotes themselves. What we have not heard from them is anything with much substance. They do not want to talk about the fact that they introduced a measure like this for the private sector. None of them will answer the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey). They do not want to talk about their disgraceful record on house building, which has led to a disgraceful level of overcrowding. Most of all, they do not want to talk about the fact that by borrowing hundreds of millions of pounds which they did not have, they created the financial crisis that forced us into this situation in the first place.

I am very happy to be here supporting the Government —the coalition Government—on this important issue today. I have only one criticism of the Front Bench, and that is this: the next time we are expected to come here and defend a policy with which all of us on these Benches agree, they should issue us with umbrellas, so that we can shield ourselves from the shower of crocodile tears that are raining down upon us from Opposition Members.

15:04

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am not sure how to follow that, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I shall do my best.

I listened very carefully to the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies), and also to other Government Members, including the Minister. At the end of the Minister’s speech, I concluded that they just did not get it. Almost a decade ago, the Secretary of State, who is not with us today, set up the Centre for Social Justice. He said then that his aim was to put social justice at the heart of British politics. What could be more opposed to that aim than this appalling, cruel and unjust policy of the bedroom tax?

The hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Heather Wheeler) said that 300 families in her constituency were affected by the tax. In a single ward in my constituency, Norris Green, more than 1,000 families are affected by it, and 2,500 are affected in the constituency as a whole. It is a totally different situation. One in six households in a ward that suffers enormous social and economic deprivation are faced with the cruel and unjust policy that she defended.

However, it is not just the cruelty and the injustice to which I am objecting. The bedroom tax also undermines the good work that is being done by social landlords working with local communities. We are seeing increasing amounts of rent arrears, and increasing numbers of void properties. Many people who are finding the money to pay this tax are having to give up other essentials as a result. As others have pointed out, they are going to food banks and to payday lenders. Two in three of those affected have disabled people living in their households, and—again, others have mentioned this—many of them have adapted their homes to meet the needs of their disability.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) said, the policy also undermines communities. Why should people who have lived in communities for decades, who have been born and have grown up in those communities, be forced to leave them?

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for highlighting some of the injustices of this policy. Does he agree that Labour councils such as the one in my patch in Carmarthenshire should introduce a no-evictions policy?

[Stephen Twigg]

I do not want to see people evicted, but I think that there is a more intelligent way of achieving what the hon. Gentleman and I want to see than merely adopting a slogan. I think that Labour and other councils all over the country are doing their very best to prevent evictions

In Merseyside a year ago, there were 1,378 empty properties run by social landlords; the figure is now 1,956. That is a 40% increase. In Liverpool, rent arrears have already risen by 12.5%, and we are only six months into this policy. We heard a great deal from the Minister about discretionary housing payments. The pot for Liverpool is £1.6 million, but the housing benefit shortfall that has resulted from the introduction of the bedroom tax is £7.5 million. In other words, less than a quarter is available through discretionary housing payments. A lady who came to my surgery last week had just received her second discretionary housing payment, with my support. It will last her until January, but the money simply will not be there in January for her to receive a third payment.

[Lucy Powell]

We heard about Manchester city council’s discretionary housing payment pot. I now have the figures. Manchester has been allocated £1.9 million, and £1.2 million of that has already been spent. Did my hon. Friend gather from the Minister, as I did, that he was guaranteeing that all those who qualified for money from the discretionary housing fund would be able to receive it later in the year?

[Stephen Twigg]

I listened carefully to what the Minister said, and it seemed to me that he was saying exactly that. I should appreciate an answer to my hon. Friend’s question from the Minister. If the needs of the lady in my constituency whom I have just mentioned are the same in January and there is no longer any money left in the pot in Liverpool, will the Government come up with the additional funds that are needed to ensure that those discretionary payments continue?

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Stephen Twigg]

I have given way twice, so I shall not do so again.

I have also noticed a perverse effect of this policy on the constituents who come to see me. Often now, people who have been on the social housing waiting list for some time and who are entitled to a larger home are reluctant to move to a larger home. That is sometimes because they would have to pay more. However, I am meeting families who would not be subject to the bedroom tax but who are nervous of taking the larger property because they think their situation might change in the future—they might lose their job and therefore have to go on to housing benefit, or their sons or daughters might move away and suddenly they have spare bedrooms.

The result of this is not just a general increase in the number of empty properties, but, in particular, an increase in the number of empty larger properties. Liverpool Mutual Homes has had a brilliant programme over recent years of improving its properties so the standard is very high, yet it is finding it very difficult to fill those properties. In April last year LMH had just 18 vacant three-bedroom properties; that number has now trebled to 54. How can that be right, and in the name of dealing with overcrowding how can it make any sense to have an increase in the number of empty larger family properties in Liverpool and other communities around the country?

We heard earlier from the hon. Member for South Derbyshire about leadership. The Opposition are showing real leadership. This is an enormous issue in the city of Liverpool, in my constituency and across Merseyside. It is directly affecting families and communities across my constituency.

The Prime Minister said at last year’s Conservative party conference:

“Conservative methods are not just good for the strong and the successful but the best way to help the poor, and the weak, and the vulnerable.”

Where is the social justice in the bedroom tax? There is no justice. Where is the compassion we used to hear about from this Government? There is no compassion.

The promises we have heard—the words of the Minister today, the words of the Prime Minister last year—ring very hollow in my constituency, not just to those affected by the bedroom tax, but to others who care about the communities in which they live. This is a tax that hits the poor, the weak and the vulnerable. It is a symbol of the social injustice for which we know the Conservative party stands. I urge colleagues on both sides of the House, including the Liberal Democrats, to vote with us tonight against this cruel, unjust, unworkable bedroom tax.

15:12

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

I voted against this policy before and I will again be voting against the Government today, but I have to say that the Labour motion is tortuous and convoluted and not very well argued. My hon. Friend the Minister who opened the debate for the Government is right that the Labour party is incoherent in that it brought forward policies introducing a bedroom tax in the private sector yet opposes it, on the basis of a principle it claims to abide by, in relation to this measure.

[Ms Buck]

I want to nail that argument, which we have heard time and again from the Conservative party. The fact is that the local housing allowance did not apply to existing tenants. That is the fundamental difference.

[Andrew George]

The point still applies because ultimately the previous Government were seeking to achieve exactly what the current Government want to achieve in respect of the social rented sector.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Andrew George]

I will not give way again on that point.

The debate has thus far largely focused on talking about a ghetto—or, rather, reservation—of people who live in social rented accommodation. It is, however, important to place this debate in the context of the way in which the whole housing market works and the important role social housing plays in relation to that.

In my constituency, many properties are sold as recreational investments to wealthy investors to be used as a second home or holiday home. Meanwhile, some hard-working, low-paid families will be evicted from their council houses because the Government believe they have one more bedroom than they deserve. I voted against this policy previously and my opposition to it is, if anything, even stronger now that I have met many of my constituents who are affected by it.

This policy will not increase the stock of desperately needed affordable homes for local people. The spare room penalty or bedroom tax victimises the most marginalised in our communities, undermines family life, penalises the hard-working low-paid for being prepared to stomach low-paid work, and masks the excessive cost and disruption to the disabled who have to move from expensively adapted homes. It is, in my view, Dickensian in its social divisiveness. It is an immoral policy.

[Barbara Keeley]

The hon. Gentleman is making a good speech and I am glad he will vote with us tonight. Does he agree that one of the most vindictive aspects of this policy is the way it penalises carers? I have mentioned the Carers UK research on how carers are being affected. It found that among the households affected, one in six carers—people who cannot get more hours of work because they have given up their jobs to care—had rent arrears and faced possible evictions.

[Andrew George]

The hon. Lady makes a very good point. I think this policy has been introduced in such a headlong rush that some of the inconsistencies and consequences have not been thought through carefully enough. The issue has been approached from entirely the wrong angle. If there is a problem with the housing stock, it is wrong that people in the social housing sector who are apparently over-housed should, in effect, be blamed by people elsewhere in the local community who are rather under-housed. They are being blamed for the effects of the failure of successive Governments to build enough affordable homes of sufficient size to give communities the flexibility to be able to ensure that local families have accommodation of adequate size and to meet the range of needs that exist.

The Liberal Democrats have proposed a mansion tax. That has been opposed by some people with large mansions who are quite happy to impose a bedroom tax on people who are clearly going to be severely affected by that. Furthermore, in rural areas like mine, many of the people who are affected and who are prepared to uproot themselves and move—in many cases from long-standing family homes to a smaller property—cannot find a property within 20, 30, 40 and sometimes 50 miles. In order for many rural areas to be able to comply with this policy, people have to uproot themselves from their community and place of work, their children’s schooling, their church, and their social and family networks—from everything—and go to alien places. Even in Cornwall there are places which many Cornish folk would find alien to them. That is the only option for them, however, other than having to face extremely penal charges in order to carry on living in their current home.

I was involved in building affordable homes for local people before I was elected to this place. We tried to introduce new schemes with sufficient three and four-bedroom accommodation to ensure that the community would in future have the flexibility to meet the range of needs that might arise. That was important because these properties would be available for decades. This tax will discourage housing associations and others who want to build housing in years to come from making sure they build a broad range of properties and thereby provide the flexibility to meet future needs. They will instead build smaller properties, which will result in increased overcrowding in future. If we go in that direction, we will end up with further ghettos. The ghettos of the future will be built as a result of this policy. That will be the consequence of going forward on this basis. If this policy is not based on a prejudice in respect of some of those who are marginalised, many of whom do not vote, I am sorry to say that it is based on an indifference to the most vulnerable families in our communities.

15:19

[Dr Alasdair McDonnell (Belfast South) (SDLP)]

I rise to support the motion, but before I do so, I would like to express my deep appreciation to all hon. Members who have expressed their condolences on the death of Eddie McGrady; their sympathy is deeply appreciated, and I thank them for it.

The bedroom tax is a pernicious and cruel tax that is causing untold hardship to the most vulnerable in our society. This crude and ill-thought-out levy is perhaps the least palatable part of the Government’s welfare reform programme. Only parties so detached from the lives and struggles of ordinary people could be so heartless as to inflict this tax, which is causing so much hurt to people whose only crime seems to be that they cannot afford to buy their own home. The fact that the Government—or, more correctly perhaps, the Deputy Prime Minister—have been dragged kicking and screaming into undertaking independent research into the impact of it all tells its own story; in his heart, he must know that this tax is wrong.

[Mrs Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab)]

While recognising that the Deputy Prime Minister has been dragged kicking and screaming into this, does the hon. Gentleman find it regrettable that the review of the bedroom tax will not come through until 2015?

[Dr McDonnell]

Yes, I do, and I am deeply concerned about that. However, we do not need any more research to tell us that this tax is wrong and that it will inflict an inordinate degree of hardship that shames us all, and the Government in particular. Those who are suffering from the impact of this tax—they are some of the very weakest in our society—do not want research on how it will affect them; they want these cruel deductions in housing benefit stopped, and stopped now.

I represent a constituency in Northern Ireland where the bedroom tax has not yet been introduced, and my colleagues in the Northern Ireland Assembly and I are fighting tooth and nail to prevent it from happening. That is because more than 32,500 households in Northern Ireland are bracing themselves for the pain and suffering this tax would cause. They look at what is happening on this side of the Irish sea and they are deeply fearful. A couple of aspects of this bedroom tax make it an even crazier proposition for us in Northern Ireland: we quite simply do not have the required housing stock for people to downsize, and the stock we do have is, sadly, segregated.

[Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

I welcome everything that the hon. Gentleman has said. Does he agree that there are times in this House when things are so profoundly wrong that those on both sides of the House recognise it, but the trouble is that some cannot get around to admitting simply that they were wrong? Will he urge those who have not yet been convinced to say exactly that?

[Dr McDonnell]

I agree entirely with the right hon. Gentleman The point about this tax is that when it was introduced it looked bad, but with every week that goes past it looks worse. We have to do what we can. With all honesty and all integrity, I can say that I think it is damaging, and I will come on to say why.

Given the number of people on disability payments in Northern Ireland, the lack of alternative housing and the complicated matter of segregated housing, which I have mentioned, the bedroom tax poses us unique challenges that are currently being overlooked here. These issues do not particularly affect this side of the Irish sea, so let me go into them in some detail.

The Northern Ireland Housing Executive manages mainly three-bedroom homes that were built 20 to 30 years ago, because that is what we needed then, and it is facing unique pressures because of these benefit reforms. Even if some of the 32,500 households affected request to be rehoused in smaller properties, the smaller properties they require simply do not exist at this stage and it will take us 10 years at least to get them built. Northern Ireland does not have enough small homes to cater for people forced to downsize.

The unique and sensitive situation of segregated housing in Northern Ireland makes things even worse and needs to be taken into consideration. The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission has come out against the bedroom tax, highlighting the pockets of deep poverty and the fact that more than 90% of public housing is segregated along religious lines—that is a hangover from the troubles, whereby people are segregated for safety. Northern Ireland is facing unique, exceptional challenges that would be severely worsened by the tax. It is failing the most vulnerable in society and no Government could or should be very proud of that.

Not only would the bedroom tax be cruel and savage in Northern Ireland, but it would be illogical. Research has shown that implementing the bedroom tax in Northern Ireland would cost more than it would save or was designed to save. The Northern Ireland Federation of Housing Associations and the Chartered Institute of Housing have published figures showing that implementing the tax would cost the housing associations and the Northern Ireland Housing Executive £21 million per year, but would save only £17 million per year, so the mathematics of this brutal tax do not make sense either. I draw the House’s attention to the following words from Cameron Watt, chief executive of the Northern Ireland Federation of Housing Associations:

“It’s clear that the numbers don't add up on bedroom tax. Northern Ireland cannot afford the human or economic damage this policy would inflict.”

The Social Democratic and Labour party, which I represent, has social justice as a core pillar of its purpose and its existence as a political organisation. The bedroom tax is a clear assault on social justice, as was demonstrated clearly by the Housing Rights Service, which provides independent housing advice and training in Northern Ireland. The HRS has told us how it is already being contacted by many social housing tenants who are living in fear and dread of the bedroom tax. Many of those tenants have lived in the same home, as secure tenants, for a lifetime and cannot understand why they should suddenly be asked to pay more or get out. The HRS has told us about

“clients with disabilities who need an additional bedroom to store medical equipment”,

and we have heard about that again today. The HRS has also spoken of

“single fathers who require more than one bedroom to facilitate overnight access to children.”

The introduction of a bedroom tax and the implementation of the under-occupancy penalty can only result in increased hardship, confusion and the erosion of community cohesion. This is a bad tax, a pernicious tax, and it is my fervent hope that, like the poll tax, it is consigned to the dustbin.

15:27

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

Before I make my speech, let me say that I listened to the passionate remarks made by the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), who was really unhappy about the impact of the benefit changes. However, perhaps he would like to speak to his Labour-run Liverpool council and ask why, when it received £892,000 in discretionary housing payments last year, it actually sent back £337,000. Perhaps he could take that up when he leaves the Chamber—

[Stephen Twigg]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Mrs Main]

No, I will not take an intervention—[Interruption.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order—[Interruption.] Order. That means you, too, Mr Rotheram. Let us calm down. The hon. Lady has made a statement and I think Mr Twigg would like to have caught her eye, but it is up to the Member who has the Floor whether they want to take an intervention.

[Mrs Main]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I think that Mr Twigg can just ponder for a while—[Interruption.] I am going to shock the Opposition, who obviously want to shout me down. Unicorns do not exist, fairies do not exist and a bedroom tax does not exist.

[Stephen Twigg]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The hon. Lady did not show me or the House the courtesy of allowing me to intervene after she referred to something that I had said. Does she accept that the figures that she has given are from before the bedroom tax was introduced? This year, Liverpool city council will certainly spend the entire discretionary housing pot.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

That is not a point of order, but it was certainly a point of clarification.

[Mrs Main]

As I was about to say, unicorns do not exist, fairies do not exist and—it does not matter how often Opposition Members say it—a bedroom tax does not exist. I found it very interesting when we all looked at our Order Papers yesterday and there it was: we were going to discuss a bedroom tax. Funnily enough, however, we are not discussing a bedroom tax, because it does not exist and it would be procedurally out of order for us to debate it. The mishmash of today’s debate has been rushed through because the Opposition realise that by closing their eyes and saying the wishful words “bedroom tax” they cannot conjure one up—it does not exist. If they consult Tolley’s tax guide, they will see that they are being financially illiterate—

[Emily Thornberry]

rose—

[Mrs Main]

No, I will not give way. The hon. Lady can make her own remarks.

It appears that in trying to garner support for the incoherent policy that tried to level the playing field with the private rented sector—I thought that was a good idea as a Labour party policy—Labour started the process that should have been continued by ensuring that people paid for the accommodation that they were using. I have not heard from Opposition Members—perhaps they can illuminate the House and the public on this point during their speeches—what, if they choose to get rid of the inequality of a bedroom tax, which obviously does not exist, but let us go with the fantasy for a moment, they will do when they are in power. Will they allow the anomaly, or will they pledge, at goodness knows what expense, to reverse the proposals that they introduced in 2008?

[Sheila Gilmore]

rose—

[Mrs Main]

No, I will not give way to the hon. Lady.

The Opposition should also address overcrowding. As yet, they have not done what Mr Tom Copley says that they should do and apologise for the fact that they never addressed the dire need to build more social housing to allow—

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mrs Main]

No, the hon. Lady will have her time at the end.

Mr Copley said:

“As a Labour politician one of the things that really galls me is that there’s this statistic that more council homes were built in the last year of Thatcher’s government than were built in the 13 years of Labour government, and that’s something I think as a Labour Party we need to apologise for.”

The apology needs to be made because the dearth of social housing that we inherited was a direct result of Labour’s inability in the good times to deliver sufficient adequate social housing. The Labour party should be ashamed of itself and it should apologise.

I do not think that the Opposition has a coherent policy. They want to penalise people in the private rented sector. They are not making any commitment to redress the imbalance, yet they wish to have what they see as a core vote that might be deserting them in droves. We helped the aspirational working class during Thatcher’s era under the right to buy, but unlike us, they introduced a policy to penalise only the private sector. Labour is the party of inequality, not the party of equality. I congratulate the coalition Government on all their efforts to level the playing field for more people both in social and private rented housing.

15:28

[Sandra Osborne (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Lab)]

I invite the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) to come to my constituency and ask my constituents whether the bedroom tax exists or whether they are away with the fairies.

[Mrs Main]

rose—

[Sandra Osborne]

I am happy to give way.

[Mrs Main]

I am delighted that the hon. Lady wishes to give herself another minute, although her colleagues might object. Would she like to explain how Labour was prepared to level a tax on the private rented sector and why they believe another tax is being introduced in the social rented sector when no such tax exists? Why are they shroud waving?

[Sandra Osborne]

The hon. Lady’s question has been answered by colleagues on numerous occasions today and it is an absolute red herring.

We can all accept that welfare reform is necessary, but it must be based on what is fair and what best protects the most vulnerable. In other words, it must provide a secure safety net. Plenty of people are plummeting to the ground right now in my constituency. The Government’s reform is based on pure populism; they are picking on the poor and turning one section of the community against the least well-off, many of them disabled, while having the bare-faced cheek to say that we are all in it together.

When was it decided that only those with means have the right to a stable and loving home environment, never mind the fact that smaller social rented homes are not available? I am tempted to ask, “Hands up all hon. Members who have at least one extra bedroom in their home,” or perhaps even, “Hands up those who have one extra house.”

The cost of living is the main concern in my constituency, and we all know that the use of food banks is rocketing. The local citizens advice bureau tells me that the number of people coming to it with problems connected to payday loans is increasing. I am worried about tenants getting into debt as a result of the bedroom tax, but, in some ways, I am more worried about the people who pay the bedroom tax. Where do they find the money, as they cannot possibly afford it? How many of them are sitting silently at home, feeling that there is nowhere to turn? It may come as a surprise to some Members who do not understand working-class values, but getting into debt or seeking discretionary housing payment, even if people are entitled to it, is anathema to many of them.

I challenge the Government to have the courage and honesty to admit that the measure is not about under-occupancy at all. It is part of a regime of sanctions on those who dare to be poor. The Government should also have the courage and honesty to admit that this is an attempt to shift responsibility for this shambles on to underfunded local councils and housing associations, which have been left to pick up the pieces.

[Gordon Banks (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Lab)]

Although the bedroom tax is disgraceful and its impact on residents who are affected is absolutely shocking, I hope that my hon. Friend will make a point about its impact on housing associations and councils that have built up arrears and will not be able to deliver good housing in future.

[Sandra Osborne]

Indeed. Councils face massive cuts in their budgets and daily increases in the demand for services, and they are inadequately funded to provide discretionary assistance to those who face bedroom tax arrears. That is not helped by the kind of council beauty contest that the Scottish National party has encouraged between Labour-led and SNP-led councils, or any other combination of council leadership, about who is doing most to protect tenants from eviction. All councils, I am sure, are doing their best to protect tenants in difficult circumstances.

[Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one thing that could be done in Scotland would be the enactment of the Member’s Bill introduced by my former colleague, Jackie Baillie MSP, in the Scottish Parliament?

[Sandra Osborne]

I am going on to refer to that.

In East Ayrshire council, 2,300 tenants are caught by the bedroom tax, and more than 1,400 are already in arrears as a result—that is 62%—and the figure grows every month. The council estimates that it will have £500,000 of arrears by the end of the financial year as a result. In Scotland, as my hon. Friends have said, we have the added dimension of an SNP Government on pause, while they throw everything into their referendum campaign.

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Sandra Osborne]

I do not have time, sorry.

Even scrapping the bedroom tax is relegated to a “things to do after independence” file—a very fat file indeed. The SNP boasts that it will abolish the bedroom tax after independence. People should not hold their breath waiting for that day to come, but nor should they have to wait for a Labour Government to scrap the tax. The Government should have the decency to scrap it now, and they would do so if they had an ounce of decency.

We need action here and now, and if the coalition Government are not prepared to act others must do so. That is why Labour has introduced a Bill in the Scottish Parliament to ensure that any social tenant who is genuinely unable to pay the bedroom tax will not be evicted. The Church of Scotland said in support of the Bill:

“Whilst we recognise that local authority budgets are being continually squeezed, forcing those who cannot afford these additional payments to carry the burden for this flawed policy is not fair.”

It is for times like these that the Scottish Parliament was created. The bedroom tax is a perfect example of just how the Scottish Parliament could act to make a real difference to tenants across Scotland, when the UK Government refuses to listen, but that would mean making devolution work for vulnerable Scottish families, and the SNP cannot allow that to happen. When it comes to the bedroom tax, the SNP, like the Tories, has its own agenda and priorities. This Government see nothing wrong with the bedroom tax, as we have heard. In fact, some Government Members do not even think that it exists. The SNP see it as an opportunity for building resentment. Only Labour sees it for what it is—a social injustice which must be scrapped.

15:39

[Mike Freer (Finchley and Golders Green) (Con)]

Having sat through 90 minutes of a Westminster Hall debate last week ostensibly on housing supply, where housing supply was barely mentioned, I am not surprised that housing benefit has barely been mentioned in today’s debate. We have had the same old stories as we heard last week and in previous weeks trotted out yet again. The Labour party is still fiscally incoherent and still policy incoherent.

Thirteen years of Labour created the problem. For 13 years, the Labour Government did nothing about it. They created the perfect storm of insufficient house building, record overcrowding and housing benefit out of control. This is a Labour problem and even a Labour solution, as we heard earlier today.

[Mrs McGuire]

Is it the Government’s case, then, that they inherited a bad situation and have set about making it worse?

[Mike Freer]

No. The crux of the matter is that we inherited a bad situation and we are setting about putting it right. That is what this is about. At least the Labour housing spokesman on the London assembly had the honesty to stand up and say that the Labour party got it wrong and that it should apologise, as my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) mentioned. He also pointed out that every Conservative Government have built more social housing than any Labour Government in recent history. Even in Mrs Thatcher’s last year, the then Government built more social housing than was built in all 13 years of the Labour Government, so we do not need lectures on housing supply and social housing from the Opposition.

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

Is not the central issue of this debate the fact that it is wrong to ask the taxpayer to pick up the bill for some people who have accommodation that they simply do not need?

[Mike Freer]

My hon. Friend is right. My casework is about families living in overcrowded accommodation who cannot get into the right accommodation. That is what we need to put right.

With reference to London, as that is the most populous part of the UK, let us not forget how Labour’s Ken Livingstone destroyed social house building at a stroke when he was Mayor. His arbitrary thresholds ground social house building to a halt because builders built to the threshold and then they stopped.

[Emily Thornberry]

rose—

[Mike Freer]

No, I am sorry. I have given way once and I am running out of time.

Under that policy, we got no social housing at all on smaller developments because builders built to the threshold. That was Labour’s legacy in London. Of course there are difficulties, as the population makes the transition to the new arrangements, but, as I mentioned, I cannot be alone in the Chamber in having to deal with constituents in accommodation that is too small for them, where children and parents are sharing bedrooms, where children of different sexes approaching puberty have to share bedrooms, or where living rooms are doubling up as bedrooms.

What about the families consigned to emergency accommodation? We do not hear much about that from the Opposition today. That is a problem forgotten by Labour and being dealt with by the Government. It is argued that it is cheaper to subsidise spare rooms than to move people or adapt homes, yet the overall costs of converting larger properties to smaller accommodation would be repaid by the savings on emergency accommodation alone.

[Sheila Gilmore]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mike Freer]

No. I have given way once already and we are running out of time.

[Sheila Gilmore]

rose—

[Mike Freer]

You can bob up and down as much as you like. I have given way once.

The capital cost of adaptions for disabled people moving into smaller accommodation is also likely to be offset by the savings in rehousing those who are in temporary accommodation. In my authority, the average cost of adaption for a disabled property is £7,000, yet my council spends on average on emergency accommodation £14,000 for one placement. So one placement would pay for two houses to be adapted. Again, the fiscally incoherent Labour party argues that the cost of downsizing is offset by the housing benefit, but what about the larger families already in the private sector who may then be rehoused in those properties that become vacant? Little is said of that saving.

This is a completely one-sided debate. What about the private rented sector? People in such accommodation do not get spare rooms. What about the people in my office? They work, yet they do not even get a flat of their own. They have to share. You are quiet on the private sector. Let us make it fair. This was your policy. You were quite happy to tax the private sector spare rooms, but now you say no.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman should calm down and stop accusing the Chair of everything. He repeatedly uses “you” when he should be directing his accusations to Opposition Members, not the Chair.

[Mike Freer]

I would never be rude to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, as you well know, but I feel passionately about this. I was raised in a two-up, two-down, with no outside toilet—[Interruption]—with an outside toilet and no inside bathroom. Opposition Members might laugh, but I know what it is like to live in poor accommodation and I do not need lectures from them about what it is like to live in poor accommodation. The Conservative party is the party of aspiration; it is the party that is solving the mess; and I will vote for the amendment.

15:45

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

In powerful speeches from the Front and Back Benches, we have heard arguments against the bedroom tax, all of which were predicted and laid out by the Government in their impact statement. The impact statement made it clear that if this policy worked, in so far as it allowed people to downsize and their properties to be occupied by other social tenants, it would not save money, and that savings would come about only if the policy did not work. Contrary to the statements from some Government Members, those two objectives are mutually incompatible.

The impact statement showed that an estimated one in three of those affected would go into arrears. The Government knew that arrears were the likely consequence of this policy, and that is what we have seen. What we have not heard is another truth, which is that two thirds of those people affected by the bedroom tax are also affected by the Government’s cuts in council tax benefit. Out of their very low incomes of £75 or £105 a week they are having to make a contribution of £14, or in some cases £20-plus, for their bedroom tax and their council tax.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Is not one of the big problems the lack of accommodation? It is ridiculous to try to move people from large to small accommodation when we do not have it. Will that not contribute to the housing bubble?

[Ms Buck]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I was about to make that point. The impact assessment also told us—as has been mentioned already this afternoon—that the distribution of properties across the country does not match the two objectives of downsizing and dealing with overcrowding. In the north-west, in Yorkshire, 43% of social tenants are affected by the bedroom tax, and I think the figure is worse in Wales. That is more than double the rate for London, yet it is London that has the most serious problem of overcrowding: one in six properties is overcrowded. So the policy is predicated not just on people moving from one property to another in their neighbourhood or community, which might have some sense to it, but on people moving from one part of the country to another, from one end of the country to another. Frankly, that is not how people live. People are not sticks of wood. People are not crates of dry goods that can be put in a container and taken from London to Liverpool or Wales, because that is how the distribution of property suits their needs.

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend that this will lead to the mass movement of vulnerable people around the country. What impact does she think that will have on seaside towns, which have many hundreds of houses in multiple occupation, which are not fit to bring children up in, or for anybody to be living in?

[Ms Buck]

My hon. Friend is right. We are already seeing some of the impacts of this and other housing and welfare policies impacting detrimentally on seaside towns, in the same way as happened in the 1980s and 1990s. But the fact is that this policy simply cannot achieve the objective of tackling overcrowding because the larger properties are in the wrong place, and the numbers demonstrate that. It will work only if people do something that they do not want to do, which is to leave their homes, communities, networks, grandchildren, and families—to leave the people for whom they provide care.

That is also why those Government Members who have repeatedly made the argument that the Labour Government introduced a local housing allowance that applied a restriction on bedrooms in the private sector are so fundamentally wrong. A third of all private tenants across the country have lived in their homes for less than a year. Whether we like it or not, and whatever changes we might want to make to it, the private rented sector is highly mobile. Some 40% of all social tenants have lived in their homes for 10 years or more.

People went into a social property believing that it was a home for life. They believed that they would be able to bring up children, look after elderly relatives, care for people, live in their communities and contribute to them because they had a home there. That has now been removed, and it has been removed—this is the absolute cruelty of the bedroom tax—retrospectively. The situation simply cannot be compared with the private rented sector, because people in that sector move around much more and they are not impacted retrospectively.

[Dr Coffey]

I agree with the hon. Lady that this is retrospective, unlike her point about local housing allowance, but the principle is the same, although it might not have been applied retrospectively when it was introduced by the previous Government. On her point about private mobility, it is we on the Government Benches who are trying to help people buy their homes.

[Ms Buck]

There is no attempt to do anything of the kind, otherwise people would be looking at longer-term tenancies and introducing that. The fact is that there is no principle in this. The principle of a tax being retrospective, as it is in this case, is the only principle that matters.

Even within the Conservative-led London borough of Westminster, which has a serious overcrowding problem, people are still unable to move. They are unable to move within the borough, let alone to Liverpool or Wales. Of the 405 families affected—it is a small number, because London is not the most affected by the bedroom tax—only 40 have been able to move. Half of them are in arrears and half of them are disabled.

I will conclude my remarks by referring to one of the many difficult cases that have been brought to my attention. A gentleman e-mailed me at the weekend. He wrote:

“I’m a 50-year-old single man living in a two-bedroom flat and have been hit by the so-called Bedroom Tax. I’m on employment support allowance and have been suffering from Chronic Depression and Anxiety for several years now and I’m now finding these latest attacks on the weakest and most vulnerable in society very difficult to deal with. I have little money and now find my rent arrears total nearly £800 as a result of the Bedroom Tax. I’m continuing to pay the previous level of rent, but the council have now sent me a letter saying that the next step will be to serve me with a Notice of Seeking Possession if I don’t pay the arrears in full. I simply can’t do this.

I’m loth to downsize for several reasons. My main reason is that I’ve lived at my present address for over 29 years and there is a lot of sentimentality connected with my home… because I lived here with my brother, who sadly passed away… This is my last link to him and I really couldn’t envisage living anywhere else. I’m feeling increasingly fatalistic and helpless and my thoughts are turning more and more to ending my life, which is something I’ve successfully avoided since my brother’s death. This latest setback just seems so insurmountable and there really doesn’t seem to be any sympathy or understanding… I no longer have anywhere to turn.”

He asked me to vote against the bedroom tax this afternoon, and I will be very proud to honour an obligation to him by doing so.

15:52

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) and my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer), both of whom illustrated the passionate arguments on both sides of the debate. On one side, there are the concerns about overcrowding, and many constituents have come to see me about that. One constituent, in particular, has been trying for 10 years to move out of her two-bedroom house with her partner and three children and into a three-bedroom house. On the other, there are concerns about people who find themselves in the position the hon. Member for Westminster North has just outlined.

Housing policy in this country has been in a bit of a mess for years, under many Governments. I remember the attempt at housing market renewal in north Staffordshire, when the previous Government tore down hundreds, if not thousands, of perfectly good houses in an attempt to boost house prices. What a misguided policy.

[Emily Thornberry]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is a sensible policy to interview people in social housing as they reach retirement or as their children leave home and discuss the possibility of their moving into homes for life so that they can give up the three or four-bedroom houses in which they have brought up their families and hand them over to families who need them?

[Jeremy Lefroy]

That is an eminently sensible policy and I am glad that the hon. Lady has raised it.

The Government’s amendment

“notes the Government’s continuing commitment to monitor the effects of the policy and the use of Discretionary Housing Payments”.

I welcome that openness. Indeed, this debate is a good opportunity, about seven months into the policy, for the Minister to hear about what is taking place on the ground. Having yesterday met local authorities from the area that I represent, I want to give a few figures and describe a bit of the experience that they set out to me.

As of 30 September this year, in just a small part of my constituency and in one of the social housing providers, 371 out of 467 affected households were in arrears—over three quarters. Another provider had 19 affected households that were at “notice seeking possession” stage. That has arisen only since April, although, importantly, I understand that those 19 households are now being sorted out through the application of discretionary housing payments.

[Chris Ruane]

I believe that £100 million has been set aside for DHP, but that it is going to be cut by 33%. What impact does the hon. Gentleman think that cut will have on the tenants he is talking about?

[Jeremy Lefroy]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I will come to that later in my speech. Discretionary housing payments are extremely important because they provide flexibility; indeed, I would wish for a bit more flexibility.

My authority is working very hard to assist people who are in difficulties as a result of this policy. I want to draw out a number of things from its experience. First, it is vital, as the hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) said, that local authorities work with social housing providers to help all those affected.

[Lilian Greenwood]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jeremy Lefroy]

This will be my third intervention, but as it is the hon. Lady, I will.

[Lilian Greenwood]

I wonder how it will be possible for local authorities to help all those who are affected. Nottingham was allocated £696,000, and over 6,000 tenants in the city are affected. Its total missing housing benefit amounts to over £4 million. It is no surprise when Nottingham City Homes tells me that over half its tenants are in arrears. There is simply not the money to assist all those who are affected.

[Jeremy Lefroy]

I am sure that the Minister has heard that. He mentioned the extra £20 million, which I should hope that Nottingham would bid for. Perhaps that sum could be increased; in fact, that is something I would ask for.

Discretionary housing payments are extremely important, as shown by the experience of my local council. As the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg), said, the system needs to be administered more flexibly so that, perhaps, hard cases that are currently excluded are included. Again, I am sure that the Minister is listening.

We have heard about tenants getting into debt and therefore being unable to move. That Catch-22 situation has to be dealt with. People who are in arrears must be able to move if they are in arrears as a result of this policy and not of historical arrears. The Government could consider the rates that are charged, which are set at 14% and 25% for one-bedroom and two-bedroom properties. Perhaps there could be a lower rate that was increased gradually over the years as additional appropriate housing was provided. This must not result in evictions. Some councils have no-eviction policies, and that is a very commendable approach. I would look for all possible measures to be taken prior to eviction being enforced.

Many unintended consequences of the policy were mentioned by the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) and, particularly in respect of rural areas, by my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George). Those need to be looked at very carefully, and am sure that the Minister will do so.

The Government could also look at the costs of administering social housing. Let me put this in perspective. In South Staffordshire, the discretionary housing payment pot is £90,000, and people are working very hard to make the system work. I was therefore a little surprised to read that the salaries and benefits of the directors of one of the local social housing providers were £223,000, £160,000, £149,000, £136,000 and £139,000. Given that those salaries are paid from the earnings and taxes of hard-working people, perhaps the Minister will look at how housing associations that pay such salaries could themselves contribute to discretionary housing payments.

The Government have committed to monitor the effects of the policy. This debate is a good chance for the Government to listen to reasonable suggestions for changes to the policy in the interests of all our constituents.

16:00

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

As time is short, I refer the House to my speech on this matter in Westminster Hall last week and to a speech I made in February, when Plaid Cymru, the Scottish National party and the Green party called a debate on this very issue. I am glad that the Labour party has asked for this debate and I will support it as it supported us in February. I also refer the House to my amendment (b).

The aim of the under-occupancy penalty is allegedly to free up the logjam in available housing, but one of my fundamental objections to it is that the Government are using tenants as a battering ram to do so. That is unacceptable. I asked the Secretary of State a few days ago,

“what estimate he has made of the number of people in Wales who will move house as a result of the social housing under-occupancy penalty.”

The answer is interesting:

“The Department is not able to reliably estimate the number of people in Wales who will move house as a result of the Removal of the Spare Room Subsidy due to the small sample sizes involved.”—[Official Report, 4 November 2013; Vol. 570, c. 95W.]

Clearly, the Government do not expect huge numbers of people in Wales to move. They do, though, expect to make substantial savings on housing benefit. That is the reality—not moving people on, but making savings on benefits. The direct experience of my constituents is that they cannot move on. There is nowhere for them to move to.

Earlier this year, I asked the Government what research had been undertaken on private market elasticity—the ability of the market to provide—in response to the bedroom tax in rural Wales. I was told that no such research had been undertaken before the charge was brought in. There would apparently be research in 2015, and reports would be published in 2016, a full two and half years after the charge was introduced.

More fundamentally, I am concerned about the effect on estates. I was brought up on a council estate. It was a very stable area, with a mix of people from a variety of backgrounds. Many of them were the sort of people who had seen their children move on, but who still lived in three-bedroom houses and provided such estates with the anchor and stability that we believe to be so important. They knew the difference between a house and a home—a distinction that has eluded the current Government.

I will end by referring briefly to funding for hardship and to my amendment—I regret that it has not been selected—which also stands in the names of my right hon. Friend the Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd) and my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards).

My own local authority of Gwynedd has a review group on hardship payments. It brings together people from the voluntary sector, Shelter, the Department for Work and Pensions and even the Member of Parliament. Gwynedd county council, to its credit, has added substantially to the fund, with the result that the number of people in arrears is fairly small at present.

[Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)]

In my constituency, some people who originally were successful in getting the hardship fund are being told when they reapply that they cannot have it because they are not showing sufficient hardship or because they have not shown that they are doing enough to rebudget. Is the hon. Gentleman familiar with that experience? This week a constituent told me that they now have to choose between heating and eating because they are not getting the fund payment.

[Hywel Williams]

The hon. Lady makes a telling point and the group in Gwynedd is certainly concerned about that. It goes to the very heart of the cash-limited nature of the fund, which is something that I objected to when the social fund was introduced: it pitted one payment against another, bringing an element of competition to something that should be there to fulfil people’s basic needs, and that is one reason why I object to this policy. I hope there will be no evictions and that the Minister will clear up uncertainty about the fund’s future.

I would also like to hear those on the Labour Front Bench pledge to adopt a “no evictions” policy—the subject of my amendment—where they have the power to do so. Labour’s policy of abolishing the bedroom tax will not come into force until at least 2015, should it win the general election. However, Labour is in power in 77 councils, and the Welsh Labour Government have power to adopt a “no evictions” policy with immediate effect.

If Labour is serious about scrapping the bedroom tax, it should also be serious about preventing the worst effect it can have on tenants. For me, that is particularly true for the Welsh Government, where the Welsh First Minister has the power to stop evictions. For example, Labour in Rhondda Cynon Taf voted with Plaid Cymru for such a policy. The Scottish National party in Scotland has pre-eviction procedures, and I understand that Labour colleagues in the Scottish Parliament are proposing a Bill to bring in a “no evictions” policy—I think they are; possibly they are not. Perhaps they are not sure themselves.

In the Welsh Assembly, Jeff Cuthbert AM said:

“We cannot undo the bedroom tax. We can seek to reduce its impact and we are trying”—

all very laudable. Lesley Griffiths AM said that

“there would be a very high cost, not just a financial cost, but also in terms of the quality of life of people in relation to eviction and then rehousing.”

Plaid Cymru’s Jocelyn Davies asked Carwyn Jones, the First Minister:

“Will you tell us which social landlords in Wales are also going to adopt this no-eviction policy?”,

and he replied:

“That is a matter for local authorities to decide. I can well understand the thinking behind the no-eviction policy, but it is for each local authority to decide how it wishes to approach this inequitable situation.”

With all due respect to the First Minister of Wales, he is wrong. It is in his power to decide. It is time for those in power in Wales, long on rhetoric and slow to act, to give a lead. If he will not give a lead in Wales, might he not be led by Labour here in Westminster?

16:06

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams), and I declare at the start that I have more experience of council housing than many colleagues. Similar to the hon. Gentleman, I too grew up on a council estate, in south Manchester, with my mother, father and four siblings. It was not big, but it was home. We lived there because we needed to and because the state was able to help us find a home that we could fit into and was affordable to my hard-working parents.

Social housing is there for those in need. Housing needs change as families expand and contract. The needs of a family with four children are different to those of a divorced empty-nester. The hon. Gentleman used the example of a council estate where a house is also a home and a place to live. In my personal circumstances, when my father died 30 years ago and my mother was on her own in a three-bedroom house, she moved out and now lives in a one-bedroom flat, thus releasing that property back to the housing stock.

[Mr MacNeil]

How often does the hon. Gentleman envisage that people should move homes during the course of their adult lives?

[Graham Evans]

I cannot really answer that because it varies so greatly. I have moved several times but I am now settled with a family and envisage not moving for a while. It varies due to individual circumstances.

[Chris Ruane]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the three great stresses in life are death, divorce and moving house, especially if someone is being evicted or forced out? What effect does he think the bedroom tax will have on the mental health and well-being of people forced out of the homes they love?

[Graham Evans]

The hon. Gentleman raises a very good point and he is right to say that moving house is one of the most stressful things in life.

In my constituency, a disabled lady who lived in a three-bedroom property had to sleep in the lounge and was not able to get upstairs. An appropriate home was found for her with one bedroom on the ground floor and she is very happy. Her old house is now filled by a young family with two children and one on the way. Moving house is very stressful, but sometimes it is the right thing to do.

The debate is a rare example of when I can use Karl Marx as a policy template. We can consider the social housing market using the phrase:

“From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!”

That is to say, what people can afford is what they need. It is a simple enough concept to support low-income families but, in reality, housing policy has moved far away from it.

First, let us consider the ability to pay. Housing benefit payments almost doubled from £11.2 billion to £23 billion under the previous Government. That is a cost of £900 per household per year. If hon. Members ask my constituents whether paying £900 per year to pay for other people’s rent on top of their own is reasonable, they will get a short response. In fact, if the Government had not taken action—this Government are prepared to take the tough decisions when Opposition Members are intent on driving Britain to economic ruin—the cost of social housing would have risen to £25 billion in the next financial year.

Secondly, let us consider the need element. As I have set out, I understand the importance of social housing and why the country needs it. Let me be clear that the right type of housing should be available to those who need it. A quarter of a million families are in overcrowded accommodation, and 2 million households are on social housing waiting lists. In part, that is because of the lowest housing growth since the 1920s, and that was under a Labour leadership. Some who do not need social housing insist on remaining, blocking families who have urgent need.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman gave the House some statistics, but will he concede that, unfortunately, many of the vacant properties he describes are in the wrong places for the people who need them?

[Graham Evans]

There is an element of that in various communities. In my area, people like to live within their own communities. I accept that. The problem is not straightforward, but it is not insurmountable either. People can swap homes within local communities, but I agree with the hon. Gentleman that that is a problem. The problem is not insurmountable for good local housing trusts or local authorities. It might not happen overnight, but with a little bit of creative thinking, moves can be accommodated—people can downsize and upsize.

[Mrs McGuire]

The hon. Gentleman accepts that the situation cannot be changed overnight, but does he believe it is fair that people should be caught in the trap of having to pay the bedroom tax? He is contradicting his own argument.

[Graham Evans]

I am sorry I gave way to the right hon. Lady.

I want to make one final point. Opposition Members have had nothing to say about someone earning £140,000 a year who uses social housing, not least because the person in question is Bob Crow, the leader of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers.

Unless we reassess ongoing housing needs, we will be unable to support those who need it the most. The changes need to happen, and it is important that they happen now, to restore fairness to the social housing sector in line with the private sector.

16:13

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

There is no doubt that the bedroom tax is a brutal, callous and unfair policy that affects some of the poorest and most disadvantaged people in our communities, not least those who are disabled. They have been forced into arrears and further debt, and forced to go to food banks. The policy is having a major effect on many people in our communities.

I want to address some of the points that Government Members are using to justify what they are doing, such as the cost. We do not know whether the cost savings are achievable. Some hon. Members argue that they are not, but there is a great deal of doubt. For instance, the Government would have to take account of the £65 million increase in discretionary housing payment budgets that has already been set aside for 2013-14; the additional costs of fitting aids and adaptations for disabled tenants who move; the significant additional costs to housing associations that face increasing rent arrears, re-let times, rent collection and tenant support costs, and the impact of lost development capacity, at a time when the Government are trying to drive increased supply; and the additional indirect costs to other public services, such as homelessness, health, social and advisory services, of coping with the knock-on effects and consequences of tenants moving or accumulating debt. All need to be taken into account, which undermines the Government’s case for savings.

The Government’s amendment mentions

“the potential beneficial impact of this policy on those living in overcrowded accommodation”.

It is worth noting the word “potential”. I asked the Minister to provide figures, or any evidence, to justify the claim that there would be a significant “beneficial impact”, but he was not able to do so.

Government Members have been talking all afternoon about the private rented sector. It is important to understand the difference between sectors, and it is clear that some people do not. The method for calculating housing benefit in the private rented sector is local housing allowance, which is entirely different. It is a fixed allowance paid depending upon household size and circumstances, with no reference to the size of home occupied. A tenant can choose to use the fixed allowance to under-occupy a larger home in a lower-value area without any reduction in benefit. Rents in the private rented sector are not regulated. It is necessary to impose tighter benefit restrictions to curb excessive market rents. Social rents are regulated and are approximately 40% lower. The private rented sector performs a different role from the social rented sector, as hon. Members have made clear. In general, it provides shorter-term accommodation for younger households. Some 28% of household heads in the private rented sector are over the age of 44, compared with 60% in the social sector. That is a significant difference. What is being asked for is a retrospective change.

The Government’s brutal changes are affecting real people in my constituency. I spoke to Mrs Knight on Saturday morning. She has had adaptations throughout the house to ease difficulties that her husband is experiencing: a walk-in shower, a bio bidet, a wheelchair access door leading outside, hand rails on the doors, a drop rail in the bathroom, a rail fitted to the bed, raisers on the seat, and a through-floor lift into the bedroom. They are losing a significant amount of money—£700 a year. They have lived in the house for 29 years and brought up their family in it.

[Chris Ruane]

My hon. Friend has just given a comprehensive list of the improvements made to his constituents’ home. If they move to other accommodation, will the council have to pay again to put in those facilities again?

[Derek Twigg]

As usual, my hon. Friend makes an important point. Of course the council will have to pay again, and it is significant expenditure.

What about large families that have split up, where some of the children stay with their father for three or four days a week but he has been hit by the bedroom tax? How is that helping families? How does that help parents to stay in touch with their children? The excuse given by the Minister at the time was that it would depend on who had responsibility for the children, but it is causing problems for families.

What about a single man who has lived in a house all his life and has recently become unemployed, finding himself having to live on £70-odd a week and trying to find the difference for the bedroom tax? We talk about the discretionary payment system, but they are temporary payments and finding a job in my area is not easy.

In response to a question I put to the Prime Minister earlier in the year, he said:

“Let me be clear…pensioners are exempt, people with severely disabled children are exempt and people who need round-the-clock care are exempt.”—[Official Report, 6 March 2013; Vol. 559, c. 949.]

That turned out not to be true and I challenged the Leader of the House on it the following day. On the Monday, the Government dropped their appeal to overturn the decision of the Supreme Court on the exclusion of disabled children. People with a disabled child and two spare bedrooms are hit by the bedroom tax. When universal credit comes in, pensioners with one person in the household under the pension age will be hit by the bedroom tax. Disabled people, unless they have a full-time or part-time live-in carer, are not exempt. Disabled people whose family members or friends are supporting them are not exempt. This is a terrible policy. It needs to be changed quickly.

16:19

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Halton (Derek Twigg), who has given a reasoned and reasonable speech, and my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans), who provided a different perspective. I start from the principle that it is morally indefensible that 1 million families are waiting for a council property and that 250,000 families live in overcrowded accommodation while at the same time 1 million empty bedrooms are allowed in the social rented sector. Anyone who tries to defend that is extremely foolish.

There is a fundamental philosophical difference between the Opposition and the Government. People in social rented accommodation cannot expect to live in the same home for life without any change to their circumstances being recognised. People in social rented accommodation should stay there for a period and then move on and up when they can. My mother and father started in council accommodation and were the first in our family to buy their own home. Then, during the Thatcher revolution, the rest of my family were able to acquire their own homes, and we became a proper property-owning democracy.

[Katy Clark]

Does the hon. Gentleman not accept, however, that that was not the initial purpose of social housing? The initial reason for social housing and building council houses was not to deal with social need, as he and other Government Members have said, but to improve the standard of housing in this country? Is that not what council and social housing is about?

[Bob Blackman]

During the second world war and the 1950s, there was clearly a need, which was why the Conservative Government in the 1950s built record numbers of council properties—to enable people to live in decent accommodation. I agree about that. Clearly, however, social housing should be based on need, not expectation for life, and as people start new careers and move on, they should vacate social housing for the benefit of others in greater need.

[Sheila Gilmore]

rose—

[Bob Blackman]

I am not giving way again.

The Labour party clearly does not recognise this fundamental change that needs to take place.

[Sheila Gilmore]

rose—

[Bob Blackman]

The hon. Lady can keep popping up and down, but I am not giving way.

The Labour party would hand out £500 million of taxpayers’ money while presiding, as it did, over record low levels of housing development. It failed to provide the housing needed during its term of office, and this Government are now trying to turn that around after many years of neglect. The last Government allowed social rents to increase, knowing that housing benefit would pick up the costs for the vast majority of tenants: about 80% of tenants were receiving the maximum housing benefit. That is fine while people are fully occupying those properties—they will be in need, because they will have been assessed as being in need—but once they are under-occupying those properties, it becomes right and proper for Governments and councils to say, “It is time for you to move on and for a family who need that property to move in.”

Earlier, someone challenged the position in the private sector. On average, home owners occupy their property for seven years before choosing to move on, but of course some people fall on hard times and have to sell their property in a rush or lose everything when they lose their job or become disabled. We have to have sympathy and ensure supply for those people across the board. In the private rented sector, on the other hand, we need longer tenancies, because currently they are often for six months or less. Clearly, however, we need some equalisation between the private and social rented sectors.

There are other courses of action that councils can consider. My own local authority has brought in incentives for people who under-occupy to move out. It will give them cash incentives to enable them to buy their own property or move to a smaller property when their families have moved on. That is the right sort of approach. There should be a carrot and stick approach. If someone chooses to under-occupy, they will get less benefit. If they choose to occupy a property that they no longer need, they should not expect the public sector—the taxpayer—to fund them.

[Sheila Gilmore]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. It is hard to know where to start in responding to what he is saying. If this were a matter of choice, it would be a very different issue. Why is it appropriate to apply a financial stick to people who do not, by definition, have the financial capacity to move on because they are on benefits? In those circumstances, there is no choice to be made. An amendment was tabled to the Welfare Reform Bill which would have resulted in this measure applying to people who had been made a reasonable offer but refused it. Does the hon. Gentleman regret the fact that the Government did not accept that amendment?

[Bob Blackman]

I thank the hon. Lady for her rather long intervention, which I thought became more of a speech. We need to be clear that people do have a choice. People can choose to under-occupy, and if they so choose, they should not expect the taxpayer to pick up the cost through housing benefit. There must be a clear incentive for people to move on.

[Mr MacNeil]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Bob Blackman]

I am not giving way a third time.

The Opposition need to accept the principle of the change, which is that anyone who under-occupies should bear the cost. All afternoon, we have heard a series of heartbreaking stories of people being required to move from properties that they have lived in for a long time. I have every sympathy with people who have been fed the story that they have a home for life, that they can expect to live in it for ever and that the taxpayer will always pick up the cost. The reality is that that is the story that Labour has always sold people.

That illustrates the difference between the parties. Labour would rather have everyone working for a public authority, being dependent on public housing and not being aspirational. We believe in helping people to achieve their aspirations and get to a decent position. We believe in improving the situation in the private sector and enabling people to work and to aspire to being the best that they can be. That is the difference between us. We are the party of the hand-up; Labour is the party of the hand-out.

16:24

[Mr Nick Raynsford (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

I draw the House’s attention to my entries in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, including the chairmanship of a social housing provider.

This is a cruel policy, based on an unsound and in some respects fraudulent premise. It is cruel because it is causing anxiety, fear and misery to large numbers of people who have done nothing wrong. It is cruel because it is deepening poverty and deprivation in an arbitrary and unfair way, and because the large majority of those who are adversely affected by it can do nothing to mitigate its impact.

The policy is also cruel because it conflicts with basic human instincts, such as the instinct of a parent to have their children to come to stay at the weekend if they normally live with a former partner elsewhere. There is also a basic human instinct for a disabled person to have a carer stay overnight from time to time, or to have a spare bedroom for medical needs such as dialysis.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

A constituent of mine is unable to share a bed with his wife due to his painful disability. The bedroom tax will leave his family £9.52 a week worse off. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the bedroom tax pays scant regard to the pain that it causes?

[Mr Raynsford]

My hon. Friend makes an obvious and clear point that illustrates one of the deeply unfair and cruel impacts of the policy.

The policy runs against basic human nature when teenage children are told that they cannot expect to have a bedroom of their own, particularly at a time when those in charge of education are emphasising the importance of children having a bedroom in which to do their homework, so that they can do well at school.

[Ian Mearns]

I have seen an estimate that 375,000 children could be affected by the bedroom tax. Is it the Government’s deliberate policy that up to 375,000 children might have to move school because of moving house as a result of the bedroom tax, so disrupting their hard-earned education?

[Mr Raynsford]

My hon. Friend, along with many other colleagues, has forcefully made the point about the destructive impact on communities and the impact on people who are unfairly forced to move because of the bedroom tax and other measures.

I have talked about the cruelty of the policy. I shall now show that it is unsound and in some respects based on a fraudulent premise. That premise is that the bedroom tax is about making better use of the social housing stock. This is simply wrong when the supply of smaller lettings available to those adversely impacted is hopelessly inadequate. It is wrong when, according to the Local Government Association, less than a quarter of those hit by the tax have the option of mitigating it by moving into smaller accommodation. It is clearly wrong when the largest single group of people known to be under-occupying social housing—notably those who are over retirement age—are exempt from the tax.

I can understand why, politically, the Government do not wish to be seen to be penalising elderly people, but they cannot on the one hand claim that these measures are about achieving better use of the social housing stock and then entirely ignore the largest group of people known to under-occupy accommodation. Recently visiting a 91-year-old pensioner living in a four-bedroom property brought that home very clearly to me. The council is giving priority for a move locally not to people like her, although that would be logical, but to people who are hit by the benefit cut of the bedroom tax, because it is only right that those people should be given priority, to protect them from the tax. We thus get these absurd and perverse consequences where the policy works against the very objective that it is supposed to achieve.

We have heard about the other perverse consequence—the extent to which the policy is leading not to better use of the housing stock, but to increased vacancies among larger properties in areas where people simply cannot afford to occupy and pay the bedroom tax, and to increases in rent arrears, which is not just bad for the affected tenants, putting their tenancy at risk, but bad for the landlords who require rental income to fund increased investment in social housing.

On all the bases, then, on which this policy is being promoted, it is not succeeding and it is having perverse and damaging consequences. The hard truth is that this is not a policy prompted by a desire to make better use of the country’s social housing stock. If that were the real intent, pensioners would not be exempt, and the Government would be increasing, not cutting, investment in new social housing. Indeed, if the impact of the bedroom tax were, miraculously for everyone affected, to find alternative smaller accommodation, the policy would fail because the Department for Work and Pensions would be left with a half a billion pound hole in its budget.

The whole wretched policy emerged not out of an evidence-based study of patterns of occupation, need and mobility in social housing, but out of a crude cost-cutting imperative that was introduced in total disregard of the human consequences. It is a deeply flawed and cruel policy, based on unsound premises, for which all those who are responsible in the Government should be ashamed. The sooner this wretched tax is abolished, the better.

16:33

[George Hollingbery (Meon Valley) (Con)]

It is an honour to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) and the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford), with whom I have sparred on a number of occasions on similar issues.

We need to pose ourselves a question: what is dealing with the spare room subsidy about? Is it about reducing the housing benefit bill? Yes, of course it is. The Government propose a £500 million saving, which is important. Let us not delude ourselves, however. We face a structural problem with housing: there is too little of it, and what there is of it is too expensive. The only way meaningfully to reduce the housing benefit bill is to increase the supply of housing hugely—something that we all know will not happen overnight. It did not happen on the watch of the previous Government, but it is happening at least in part on this Government’s watch. Although an important saving is being made, reducing the housing benefit bill is not the principal thrust of the reductions in spare room subsidy.

[Jonathan Edwards]

May I take up that point, which is raised in the Government amendment? Notwithstanding the bedroom tax, the cap on benefit and the annual real-terms reduction in the uprating of benefit, the Office for Budget Responsibility still predicts that the housing benefit bill will rise. This is a failed policy.

[George Hollingbery]

What the hon. Gentleman says demonstrates that, as I have just pointed out, what we need is a massive increase in the amount of housing that is built. That was a failure on the part of the last Government, and it has not been easy for this Government to rectify it during the current recession. I believe that we are doing a great deal to try to rectify it, but the real answer is to build a very large number of new houses. That cannot be done in an instant, which is why the housing benefit bill is almost bound to rise in the short term.

This is, in my view, a policy about behavioural change and about the chronic underuse of publicly owned housing assets. Those who live in social housing have no incentive to downsize, because they have tenancies for life. I understand the motivation behind that: as has already been pointed out today, these are not just tenancies, but homes. However, the position is not sustainable given such a limited supply of stock. The Government have, of course, taken action to end tenancies for life, but that will take a very long time to feed through the system. Meanwhile, there are vast numbers of people on housing waiting lists and large numbers living in overcrowded homes, while 1 million or more dwellings have an extra bedroom. That cannot be right.

[Katy Clark]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[George Hollingbery]

I will, but by doing so I shall take time away from Opposition speakers.

[Katy Clark]

Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that that there is a complete mismatch between the types of homes that are available and what the Government want people to do? In North Ayrshire, for example, 2,260 council tenants are affected by the policy, but only 59 tenants in under-occupied properties have been able to move since April.

[George Hollingbery]

The point is well made. I entirely accept that there is indeed a mismatch in many parts of the country. However, it is not impossible for people to move between local authority areas. That happens in the private sector, and there is no good reason why it cannot happen in the public sector. Certainly, it is more difficult, but there is no reason why it should not happen.

I recently visited a young family in Wickham, which is in my constituency. The couple had one child and another on the way. There was one bedroom upstairs, with a small bathroom, a kitchen-sitting room-dining area downstairs, and that was it. The child was living in a cot in the sitting room. Just yards away were two and three-bedroom homes under-occupied by lifetime tenants.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I must apologise to the hon. Gentleman. The clock is wrong, and I should warn him that he does not have five minutes and four seconds left; he has only four minutes and one second.

[George Hollingbery]

Thank you for that warning, Madam Deputy Speaker.

The situation that I have described cannot be right, either in terms of the use of resources or in terms of plain fairness. According to the switching site HomeSwapper, those who have successfully moved as a consequence of these changes often say that their understanding of the unfairness of the situation was a significant part of their motivation. However, it is also important to note that the potential reduction in housing benefit payments was what made them actually do something about it.

The unfairness is, of course, only exacerbated by the rules governing the private rented sector, under which only the space that is needed is paid for. That has been referred to at length this afternoon. Presumably, if the principle of ensuring the right number of bedrooms is unfair in social housing, it is also unfair in private housing. That point too has already been made. The motion

“calls on the Government to end these deductions with immediate effect”.

I can only imagine that the Opposition will propose similar changes in the private sector, as the same principle applies. If so, how much will it cost, and if not, why not?

It is clear that the Opposition’s thinking on this matter has been, to say the least, inconsistent. In 2011, I was a member of the Committee that considered the Bill that became the Welfare Reform Act 2012. We had a long discussion, and a number of amendments were tabled to clause 68, which established the principle of the spare room subsidy reduction. All the points that were made were salient, the amendments—most of which were tabled by the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck), who is no longer in the Chamber—were perfectly sensible, and, in large part, the Government have introduced provisions to deal with them. Interestingly, however, no Division was called on a stand part motion, and no attempt was made to remove the clause on Report. I am a novice in these matters, but my interpretation of what happened is that the Opposition accepted the principle. If that is not the case, I should like to hear why it is not.

The Opposition’s difficulty with welfare reform as a whole is clear. Recently, the hon. Member for Westminster North, who very ably took large parts of the Welfare Reform Bill through Committee, including clause 68, was reported as saying that the Opposition had not won the public debate on welfare, and it appears that she is right. Ipsos MORI carried out a survey of 2,000 people in late August this year from which it concluded that:

“By a margin of 3 to 1, the majority of the British public believe that the benefits system in Britain is too generous.”

Interestingly, it also revealed that the public broadly supported the Government’s position on the spare room subsidy.

Back in April, Peter Watt, former general secretary of the Labour party, wrote on the “Labour Uncut” website:

“I don’t know what Labour’s position on welfare reform is”,

and added,

“Labour has in the past also talked tough on welfare and that it would like to reduce welfare bills. The problem is that it is currently fighting a battle in which it is opposing the government’s attempts to achieve this. So Labour appears confused.”

Today, in this motion, we see yet another example of this confusion.

It must be right, at a time of acute overcrowding co-existing with a great deal of under-occupancy in the social housing sector, for the Government to take action to encourage change. A broad policy of this sort will inevitably throw up real-life difficulties when applied in the particular, but the Government have been very careful to deal with as many of them as possible and have made many exceptions to the general rule. They have also made substantial amounts of money available through discretionary housing payment to ease the transition for those who are affected.

Furthermore, evidence shows that over 10% of those who have been affected by the change so far have come off benefits entirely, which must surely be welcomed by all. Change of this sort is never easy to implement, but that does not mean it is not fair in principle and that it is not necessary. In this case, it is both, and I will certainly vote for the Government’s amendment this evening.

16:39

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Meon Valley (George Hollingbery) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford), who made an excellent contribution.

I am pleased to be called to speak in this debate and I am proud that the Labour party now has a commitment to axing this appalling policy. I am proud of Opposition Members’ contributions to this debate, which stand in stark contrast to some of the drivel we heard from the Government Benches, much of which showed a lack of understanding of and basic research into how this policy is being delivered on the ground.

One example of that was in the contribution of the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), who said people should simply work an extra three hours a week to pay for this. If she knew the policy, she would be aware that those in work and receiving housing benefit who work an extra three hours a week will lose 85% of that extra income to pay for their rent and council tax. Therefore they would still have to pay the bedroom tax.

I am the MP for Manchester Central and my constituency has the highest number of people affected by the bedroom tax in the country—over 4,000. That is not just a number; it is people struggling desperately as a result of this unjust policy.

I have three main criticisms of this policy, and they build on the points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich: it is a morally wrong and corrupt policy; it costs more than it saves; and it does not even work. By any measure, that is a pretty damning indictment of a policy.

It is morally wrong because it is such a blunt instrument and it is punishing all sorts of vulnerable people who have done nothing wrong. We have heard many examples from colleagues, charting the human cost of this disastrous policy. I want to highlight one other.

Elizabeth has a very disabled son, Ryan. Their case has been highlighted by the Manchester Evening News and the Daily Mirror, both of which have been running excellent campaigns against the bedroom tax. Ryan is a disabled adult and requires around-the-clock care, including overnight care. He is not excluded from the bedroom tax policy, however, because he is not the tenant of the property. Therefore, they are subject to the bedroom tax. After many weeks and months of anxious worrying, Elizabeth finally, after my intervention, was awarded the discretionary housing money. However, this does not take away from the fact that she is not sure what is going to happen next year or the year after that. That is the kind of anxiety people are facing. On the discretionary housing payment, I am delighted that the Minister has today said that if more claimants qualify but the £1.9 million that Manchester city council has received is not enough, the Government will guarantee those payments.

This policy also costs more than it saves, as is highlighted by the case of my constituent, Alan. He is in his late-50s and he has worked for most of his life. He lives in a two-bedroom property because no one-bedroom properties were available for him. He was made redundant and is now on benefits of £71.70 a fortnight. His social housing costs £60 a week and he has been asked to pay the bedroom tax out of that money. If he wants to move to the private sector, which is the only real option for him, that will cost him at least £100 a week in rent, which the housing benefit bill will have to pay. So that is going to take costs up, not down.

The final point I wish to make is that this policy does not even work. Many Government Members have talked about how it deals with overcrowding and people on the housing waiting list. In Manchester, 19,000 people are on that list and that figure has not moved one jot since this policy was introduced, because all the slack of available property is being taken up by people doing housing swaps. The only properties becoming available are two-bedroom properties in blocks of flats, which are unsuitable for families with children. So those properties are going to people in band 5—people who are not most in need. Those who are most in need are being pushed further and further down the waiting list.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making a strong speech, in which she mentioned families with children. Did she share my shock at Lord Freud’s comment that families who are separated should get a sofa bed to deal with the problem of being hit by the bedroom tax? Was that not a shocking thing to say about the situation of families in this country?

[Lucy Powell]

It was a shocking thing to say. It showed a complete failure to understand what family life is like and to understand that many fathers—I thought the Conservatives claimed to be the party of the fathers—have contact with their children only if they have a spare bedroom for them to stay in, so they will be losing that contact. That is a disgraceful aspect of this policy.

Perhaps if the Government had done a little more research, analysis and modelling before introducing this proposal, they might have foreseen some of these knock-on consequences. Labour Members are all for looking at how we can deal with some of the issues relating to under-occupancy and housing shortage, but this sort of brutal, blunt instrument does nothing to address that—in fact, it does quite the opposite. We need a long-term strategy bringing together the housing associations, other policy makers and tenants to work out how we can best use a carrot and stick approach to deal with under-occupancy. What we have from this Government is a morally corrupt policy that does not work and is going to cost the taxpayer even more.

16:47

[Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)]

In debating today’s motion, it is instructive to look back at the manifesto on which Labour Members stood at the last election. They talked about the need for “tough choices on welfare” and stated:

“No one fit for work should be abandoned to a life on benefit, so all those who can work will be required to do so.”

They also promised reforms to housing benefit so that the state does not subsidise people to live on rents that working families could not afford. As we have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming), when they were in government they intended to introduce the very same measure. So what happened?

Labour has reverted to type, defending those who are getting more than their fair share out of the system, to the detriment of hundreds of thousands of others who are worse off through no fault of their own. They include the 6,687 households on my local authority of Dudley’s housing waiting list. That is why Labour has opposed every single measure this Government have taken to reform the welfare state.

The public know that the catalyst for the reforms we have introduced was the ballooning deficit left to us by the previous Government. The overriding mission behind the reforms had a much wider moral purpose: to make work pay, to end the something for nothing culture, to ensure a strong safety net for those who cannot work and, in the case of the reforms to housing benefit, to reduce overcrowding and homelessness.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady is talking as though the only people in social housing are those on benefit or not working. It is an in-work benefit. More importantly, many people in this country who work for the minimum wage and work very hard will never be able to afford to purchase a property. That is why we have social housing and why we have homes for life for those people.

[Margot James]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention and I agree with much of the principle behind it. Of course, some people will never be able to afford to buy their own homes—although this Government are intent on helping as many people as possible to own their own homes—and that is the purpose of social housing and housing benefit. There is no argument with that principle, but we must be cognisant of the number of people who, at the moment, cannot even get council housing or privately rented social housing. That is one of the driving purposes behind the reform.

The subsidy has become something of a totemic issue for the Opposition. They want to position the end of the subsidy and the creation of a level playing field between all recipients of social housing support as a modern day poll tax. Whatever the merits or otherwise of different systems of raising taxes locally, there is no doubt that the poll tax lacked public support. That is the difference, and it is worth exploring why the policy we are debating today enjoys public support.

The MORI poll that my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (George Hollingbery) mentioned found that 78% of respondents supported the need to reduce under-occupation and overcrowding in social housing, whereas 54% of them agreed that people of working age who live in social housing should receive less housing benefit if they have more bedrooms than they need. Some 60% of those polled believed that those affected should seek work or work longer hours if they could.

[Emily Thornberry]

The hon. Lady drew a parallel between the bedroom tax and the poll tax, and said that the difference between the two was that the poll tax was not popular. Does she therefore accept that the bedroom tax is a tax?

[Margot James]

I certainly do not. It is not a tax. A tax is a Government levy on somebody’s income, whereas we are clearly talking about reducing a subsidy.

Let me return to the subject of work. Many groups are exempt from the measure, including people in receipt of state pensions, families with disabled children, foster carers and other groups. Those who are in a position to seek work or extra work should either do so or try to swap their property for accommodation that meets rather than exceeds their needs. If their accommodation exceeds their needs, that is not a tenable or fair position for the long term. We are talking about only a few extra hours of work a week at the minimum wage. Instead of conducting a campaign of misinformation against the reforms to housing benefit—reforms that Labour accepted were necessary at the last election—local authorities should instead be helping people to downsize to accommodation that meets their needs, freeing up much-needed housing stock for the 2 million families on housing waiting lists.

I commend the Government for taking the tough decisions and, moreover, for their commitment to build 170,000 new social houses by 2015. In addition to this measure, that will help to ease overcrowding in many homes. I also hope that the Government will take a lead in encouraging housing associations and local authorities to convert some of the excess of large properties at their disposal so that we can begin to meet the needs of the 60% or so of people applying for social housing for single occupancy. I hear far more complaints from constituents who endure overcrowded accommodation than I do about ending this spare-room subsidy. I find the contents of my postbag quite instructive in that regard, so I shall support the Government amendment.

16:55

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

In the lead up to the 2010 general election and in a desperate attempt to detoxify the brand, two words were bandied about to persuade the electorate that there would be a different kind of Tory if the Conservatives were elected. Those two words were “compassionate conservatism”, whatever that is. Wolves in sheep’s clothing—that is what I call it. No one standing on a Tory ticket in the next general election should be in any doubt whatsoever that once again it will be two words that will define their heartless brand of ideological politics—“bedroom tax”.

What happened to the Prime Minister’s mantra that we are all in this together? What happened to the Chancellor’s claim that he would not balance the Budget on the backs of ordinary people? Whatever happened to big society? Almost two thirds of those affected by the bedroom tax in my part of the world are disabled—that is 21,000 people hit the hardest while millionaires get tens of thousands of pounds every year in a Tory tax bung. Before the inevitable accusations of being feckless or unemployable are levelled against any of my constituents by Members such as the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies), whose rant should be videoed and played to anyone who doubts that it is the same old Tories, let me point out that 6,000 people on Merseyside who are now in rental arrears had never missed a payment in their life until the coalition’s welfare changes. The majority of those clobbered by this Con-Dem con trick are ordinary working people on low wages. This is entirely a Tory and Lib Dem-manufactured hardship imposed on those who need help the most, driven not by fiscal constraints but by political dogma.

I want to concentrate on three consequential areas of this policy. First, the Government have not given sufficient regard to the impact that it has already had on housing associations.

[Ian Mearns]

My hon. Friend is right that there is a significant impact on housing associations. The Home Group, a large housing association that has many properties in my borough of Gateshead and thousands of properties across the north of England, has seen a 53% increase in arrears in the past 12 months, mainly as a result of the bedroom tax.

[Steve Rotheram]

My hon. Friend is right. In areas such as Liverpool and other major UK cities, rent arrears have increased dramatically, which means that housing associations have to find a way to combat the decrease in income while, at the same time, they are expected to commit to building more one and two-bedroom houses. That has the potential to affect their asset base and their ability to borrow money to build those houses.

Secondly—again, colleagues have mentioned this—this is a policy that will cost the Exchequer more than any potential savings. On Merseyside, housing demand is inversely proportionate to supply. As a consequence of not having enough of the right housing type it is virtually impossible for people caught in the bedroom tax trap to move into suitable social housing, so they are forced to consider renting in the private sector, even if that costs more than staying in their existing property and even if no one wants to move into the house that they are kicked out of. It is the economics of the madhouse, and it is our neighbourhoods that are suffering, decimated by a reckless and irresponsible Government inflicting poverty, creating urban blight and breaking up established communities. They are carrying out Thatcher’s legacy by causing instability that destroys the very fabric of society on which established communities are built.

My final area of contention is the social engineering that this Government are imposing on the poorest areas. Moving house may mean kids moving school, as has been mentioned, but it is also about families moving doctor and dentist, and mothers and older children who used to live within walking distance having to travel many miles to see each other. Many families have been forced out of the homes that were theirs for many decades. If they had been paying a mortgage instead of rent, which they could have done, they would have owned the property outright by now. For many they are homes, not houses. Hard-working families have been penalised simply because they could not afford a deposit. Surely that is not what is meant by “compassionate conservatism”—an oxymoron that will be consigned to the annals of political history alongside “Lib Dem principles”.

Be in no doubt that the overwhelming majority of the British people will not support a policy that punishes the poorest, the disabled, our armed forces, those riddled with cancer, the suicidal, the frail and the vulnerable. As the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Margot James) alluded to, this is the Tory poll tax of the 21st century. To think that this policy is a vote winner is severely to underestimate the compassion of the British people. I will always put my trust in the real people outside this place, rather than in a bunch of born-to-rule Tories who have no concept of what ordinary people have to contend with on a daily basis, and a Lib Dem party that has long since sold its soul.

17:01

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

I was getting flashbacks to 1970s socialism during that contribution—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) is very proud of that; that is good to hear.

It is said that a lie can be halfway round the world before the truth has got its boots on, and such is the case with Labour’s bedroom tax. I am pleased that the name of the debate has changed, and I welcome the chance to clarify the details of the policy. I am sorry that the debate has been somewhat binary. Some good points have been made by Members on both sides and some pertinent questions have been asked. The hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) posed a very important one: how does somebody who is told to go out and work in order to pay for that second room manage to do that? I hope the Minister will elaborate on this, but the universal tax credit system will come in to address that.

The debate has illustrated the cultural divide that exists between this Government and Labour. On one side there is an attitude of responsibility and holding welfare reform to account, and on the other there is a continuing concept of offering welfare as a lifestyle choice. That is no longer possible. After 13 years of Labour the cost of housing benefit doubled to £21 billion. That is unacceptable. The cost to taxpayers was £900 per household. The system was getting out of control. There was no house building programme, leading to overcrowded accommodation, and there was no management of the housing stock, which left some families receiving housing benefit of more than £100,000.

[Katy Clark]

Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that the reason that housing benefit has gone up is the rising cost of rent in the private sector? Does he not accept that this Government’s policy of trying to force house prices up is putting rents up, which will make the housing benefit problem even worse?

[Mr Ellwood]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. I cannot accept that a doubling of housing benefit to £21 billion is accounted for by the private sector alone. There are other aspects, such as the type of housing we are building. We were building the wrong type of houses—60% of new houses built needed to be for single occupancy, but only 30% were. That is Labour’s legacy. It raises the fundamental question of today’s debate: in these financially tough times, should those on housing benefit be allowed to stay in accommodation with more bedrooms than they really need? This Government say no and Labour says yes, even though it said no in 2008 when we had exactly the same debate on private sector housing, proving that a little inaccuracy sometimes saves a ton of explanation.

[Mrs McGuire]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Ellwood]

Very briefly; we are eating into other Members’ time.

[Mrs McGuire]

I do not think that the hon. Gentleman was in the Chamber for the earlier clarification, given by my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck), that the local housing allowance was not retrospective. This tax is retrospective and it penalises people for not changing their circumstances.

[Mr Ellwood]

I welcome the hon. Lady to the debate. It is clear that Labour still has not learned from its mistakes. In the last eight years of government, Labour lived beyond its means. In 2002-03, it spent £26 billion beyond its means. Four years later that rose to £33 billion. In its final year of office, the deficit rose to £156 billion. That always accumulates, which means that by 2010 when Labour departed office we had a debt of more than three quarters of a trillion pounds. Where are these benefits that Opposition Members endorse? Where will that money come from? To date, Labour has refused to support a single reform to the benefit system put forward by the Government. Aside from failing to recognise, first, the need for reform of our complex system, and secondly, the consequences to society in promoting a something-for-nothing culture, Labour has voted against £83 billion-worth of welfare savings introduced by the Government, proving that it has yet to learn the lessons of the past.

Labour owes the taxpayer an explanation as to how it would afford to keep its complex, costly and broken benefit system in place. The challenge is simple. Thanks to the housing shortage, created under Labour, some 400,000 people are in overcrowded housing. Yet there are almost 1 million spare rooms throughout the UK paid for by the taxpayer at a cost of around £0.5 billion a year. This policy better matches our housing stock, but also protects the most vulnerable, such as pensioners, those in foster care, disabled children and those requiring overnight care. They are all exempt, as indeed are those who have served in the armed forces.

Those affected by the policy, as others have made clear, who are living in larger than necessary housing have four choices. First, they can participate in a house swap scheme, which has not really been embraced by all councils. Secondly, they can pay the reduction in housing benefit, which equates to about £14 a week for a room. Thirdly, they can sub-let that room. Finally, they could apply for the hardship scheme, and a couple examples have been given of that. I am pleased to hear the announcement today that if councils run out of that hardship funding, they can apply for more. That is a message that needs to be sent from both sides of the House, to ensure that councils do not run out of this important support.

The policy already exists in the private sector, introduced, as I say, by Labour in 2008. I welcome this policy and the debate, which I hope will help Labour Members to recognise how inaccurate and misleading some of their comments have been. I am pleased that the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg) is in her place. I have a lot of respect for her, but she spoke eloquently about a council home being a home for life. I cannot agree with that analysis. A council home should be there as a method of support for those trying to get on in life and for those in a difficult period of their life. It should not just be given to somebody as a gift, early on in their lives, never to move away from. That is the distinct difference between the two sides of the House, on which we will have to agree to disagree.

I welcome the policy and the debate, and I look forward to the Minister clarifying some of the many points that have been made by Members on both sides of the Chamber.

17:09

[Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)]

I rise to speak on behalf of approximately 2,000 people in my constituency who are affected by this iniquitous and cruel bedroom tax. I have listened to the whole debate, and if anything shows the dividing line between Government and Opposition Members, surely it is this issue. My constituents watching this debate in the hope that the Government will be persuaded to change tack and admit that they have got this wrong will be horrified at just how out of touch Government Members appear to be: not only do they not understand their own policy, but they simply do not understand the impact it will have or how housing benefit works. The notion that people can simply go out and get extra hours of work to pay for the bedroom tax, or deal with the reduction in working tax credits or the fact that wages are not rising, shows just how out of touch the Government are.

The Government are also out of touch because they appear to have no idea of the circumstances in which ordinary people live. Listening to Government Members, one might think there was a swathe of empty rooms across the whole UK, but my constituents who have come to speak to me about the bedroom tax are the grannies who help with the child care and often have the kids at the weekend—[Interruption.] Someone says, “Pensioners.” It might have escaped the Government’s notice, but not all grannies are pensioners yet. My younger sister is a granny, but I am not at that stage quite yet.

There are also the kinship carers, who are not covered in the way foster carers are, particularly those who provide informal care in families that are having difficulties. There are also people trying to do the best they can to bring up their families after relationships break down. One of the cruellest things about this policy is the fact that the needs of children do not appear to have been taken into account at any level whatsoever. How can we say to a child who has been used to living with their mother but going to stay with their father at weekends or during the holidays, “You’re no longer entitled to sleep in a proper bed when you visit.” That is the result of this iniquitous bedroom tax. I wrote to Ministers about that and received a response that seemed completely out of touch with the way families make those arrangements. It is also unacceptable, in my view, simply to suggest that families should take in lodgers. Would Government Members be happy to do that in their family homes?

I do not have time to talk about all the issues, but I want to point out the problems for disabled people. Many disabled people in my constituency took the homes offered to them by the council, even if they were not ideal or in the areas they wanted, because they were on the ground floor and could be adapted for their needs. It makes no sense at all to take them out of a two or three-bedroom flat that has been perfectly well adapted and move them to an area where they will not necessarily have the same care and support systems in place simply because that is what this Government believe is the right way to go about things. It does not make economic sense, and it makes no sense with regard to communities or the provision of social care.

As I said at the outset, I think that there is a clear dividing line here. Some hon. Friends have said that there is no longer any compassionate conservatism, but I am not sure that there ever was. If anything, this debate shows that the Government are out of touch and have no ideas how to solve the problems, and this afternoon they have certainly shown that they simply do not care.

17:14

[John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)]

I feel slightly unhappy about being told that I am out of touch. Yes, I was a millionaire by the age of 27, but I was on benefits in 1981 and both of my parents were born in Birmingham council houses, so I understand the importance of social housing and that there is a value in security of tenure. I find it rather sad when, as has happened in Birmingham, people are evicted from their family houses for under-occupying, perhaps because their parents have died. That is sad. However, we find ourselves in a society with problems. A lot of families live in overcrowded conditions. Those people come to see me and I cannot just ignore them. It is not a bedroom tax; it is a bedroom rent. People are paying rent for the spare bedroom. If somebody buys a house and it has an extra bedroom, they pay for it. If somebody rents a property, they pay the rent for the property. If they have a property in the private sector and they are on housing benefit, the local housing allowance sets limits based on the number of bedrooms.

On 19 January 2004, a Labour Minister said:

“We hope to implement a flat rate housing benefit system in the social sector, similar to that anticipated in the private rented sector to enable people in that sector to benefit from the choice and flexibility that the reforms can provide. We aim to extend our reforms to the social rented sector as soon as rent restructuring and increased choice have created an improved market.”—[Official Report, 19 January 2004; Vol. 416, c. 1075W.]

That is in Hansard; anyone can get hold of it.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[John Hemming]

When I am down to two minutes, I will take interventions.

The Labour party in government recognised that there was a problem with pressure on housing. We cannot suddenly magic up 1 million more rooms overnight. The reason there was not a lot of pain when the local housing allowance was introduced is that it did not affect anyone who was already on housing benefit; it only affected new claims. The hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) was very good on that point. To be fair, if we applied the same approach now, or had done so back in April, so that this did not affect anyone until they got a new tenancy, nobody would really bother about it. The problem with that is that we have a deficit. [Interruption.] Labour Members seem to forget the deficit, but we need to deal with these issues. However, we have found £180 million of the £500 million savings, so for over a third of people this need have no effect. To get my support, the Government will have to deliver more on discretionary housing payments, because that is the area I am concerned about.

[Mrs McGuire]

Let me deal with the consultation document. I shall quote from Hansard:

“Yes, it was in the consultation document, but we listened to the consultation responses and recognised that it would be inappropriate to roll it into the social housing sector.”––[Official Report, Welfare Reform Public Bill Committee, 2 November 2006; c. 453.]

That was the response of the Minister in the debates on the Welfare Reform Bill to which the hon. Gentleman is referring. The reason I know it was said and can confirm it is that I said it.

[John Hemming]

It was an idea that the Opposition produced when in government because they recognised there was a problem. [Interruption.] I quoted precisely; I do not know what else was said in the debate.

Because of the situation with the bedroom rent, three tenants in my constituency have found a way in which they can all three exchange properties so that no bedroom rent is paid, an overcrowded family has found somewhere comfortable to live, and everybody is happy. The problem is that the council is saying that one of the doors in one of the properties is a bit distorted, so the transfer cannot happen. That is complete nonsense. It is like the nonsense of saying that someone cannot move if there are housing arrears. We had a case like that in Birmingham before the bedroom rent was introduced. People knew beforehand that it was coming in, so they planned for it and arranged transfers to avoid it. We had a case when someone was told they could not move because they were in arrears, and we managed to sort that out.

The hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson) asked about people with children in the house accepting lodgers. I have had children for many years, and we have had lodgers. We even had four refugees from Croatia as lodgers. There was a slight problem one day when one lodger used the milk and found that it had been expressed for the baby the previous night—that was a bit of a surprise for the lodger—but we got on with it.

Lodgers are not necessarily strangers. There are four options. The fact is that the Government have changed the rules so that people keep the first £20. If a single man who lives in a three-bedroom flat takes in two lodgers—I deal with such real cases—they can end up £40 a week better off and without any bedroom rent. That would be far better for them financially than their current position. Those arguments need to be put to people so that they can best decide whether they should move in order to get the discretionary housing payment. I emphasise again that I want to maintain the discretionary housing payment, which deals with the issues.

17:20

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

I am not sure how many lodgers the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming) keeps, but he certainly seems to be in favour of the principle. The lodgers in his house no doubt put him in a better financial position.

I do not plan to detain the House for long. When the bedroom tax is viewed in an island context, it can be seen for what it really is: an attack on the living standards of the poorest. On an island, the poorest can be almost anyone’s neighbours, friends or relatives. In the social rented sector in my constituency, fuel poverty is between 33% and 61%, depending on how it is measured and counted.

On the island perspective, I am grateful to John Maciver of the social housing landlords’ Hebridean Housing Partnership for supplying me with figures. In Na h-Eileanan an Iar, 188 people are affected by the bedroom tax and there are more than 2,000 properties. On one island, the Hebridean Housing Partnership took over the housing stock from the council a number of years ago, and of the 105 properties, 50% are occupied by single people, but only 20% of the stock is designed for single occupancy, so some people will always be penalised by the bedroom tax. There is no solution on the island to this policy from Westminster and this Government.

[Katy Clark]

Does the hon. Gentleman support Scottish Labour’s proposed Bill in the Scottish Parliament that says that there should be no evictions and that the Scottish Government should provide full funding to Scottish councils for the costs of the bedroom tax?

[Mr MacNeil]

The hon. Lady should know that the underlying problem is that Scotland has a Government whom it does not elect. If the hon. Lady joined me, we would not be in this situation in the first place.

[Fiona O'Donnell]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr MacNeil]

No. I have given way once, but I might give way again later.

Importantly, the number of those on the islands who are suffering from the bedroom tax can vary throughout the year as a result of seasonal work. Some people need to move house every six months due to the seasonal nature of employment. To those who say that they should move to other islands, I say that the reality in the Hebrides has always been difficult. Indeed, I was 17 years old before I first crossed the sound of Barra to South Uist. In fact, I spent two years in school in Lewis before I went to South Uist. Communities are distinct and far away from each other. Therefore, a move would be socially isolating for people initially, and of course they would lose whatever employment they had on the original island that they lived on.

To answer that bureaucratic problem by building houses would definitely be inefficient, because the needs and variations of people’s lives change all the time. In fact, the bigger the house, the better in many ways, except for the bureaucratic problem that is being created here.

I will give an example of the difficulties involved in moving from place to place on the islands. I once flew to Stornoway and beside me on the plane was Michael MacKinnon, an elderly gentleman from the island of Vatersay who has since sadly passed on. He was travelling to a hospital appointment and I asked him by way of conversation—in Gaelic, of course—when he had last been to Stornoway. He said it was his first time and, had it not been for his hospital appointment, he would have been very much looking forward to it. I was surprised. Michael was a well-travelled merchant seaman. I said to him, “I suppose you’ve been all over the world, Michael.” “Yes,” he said, “I’ve been to Pitcairn island in the middle of the Pacific 13 times, but not to the other end of the Hebrides.” One thing I can say for Pitcairn island is that it does not have the bedroom tax, although perhaps the Government might want some of my islanders to move there.

That is an illustration of how the bedroom tax can affect local people in the Hebrides. It does not and cannot work. It penalises the poorest and those in our society who circulate money the fastest. Some people have wealth, while others have the cash flow and they have it by necessity.

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that one solution to the problem would be to offer Scotland the same opportunity as Northern Ireland to exempt all existing tenants from the bedroom tax? I understand his unwillingness to accept the principle of the bedroom tax, but if parties in Northern Ireland can agree to that, surely those in Scotland could agree to provide such assistance to our constituents.

[Mr MacNeil]

The hon. Gentleman should know that welfare is devolved in Northern Ireland, but I am glad that he supports the principle of devolving welfare to Scotland. In fact, we can devolve everything to Scotland by voting yes on 18 September next year.

The chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, once said that the best form of quantitative easing for Japan about 10 or 20 years ago, when it was going through its economic travails, would be to pile cash in a helicopter and shovel it from above over any Japanese city, down on the citizens below. What is happening at the moment is the opposite of that because the Government are taking money from those who circulate it in the economy. The quickest way to stimulate demand in the economy is to put money into people’s hands; the Government are taking money out of their hands.

The money that people are losing would quickly end up in the hands of small businesses, yet in Scotland alone, £54.5 million has been taken out this year. Trickle-down economics never worked, but hoover-up economics certainly does work. Quantitative easing in this country has been a welfare subsidy of epic proportions to bankers and those who are already rich, yet this afternoon we are discussing how to take even more money from those who can ill afford it.

There are further complications with the bedroom tax. Discretionary housing payments have two important conditions. People cannot claim retrospectively and must apply for a housing transfer, but many people in my island constituency feel that is dishonest and do not want to do it for the simple reason that they do not want to move house. They also know that they might be moved to another island if the policy was to go through to its ultimate logical possibility. Of those 188 people in the Hebrides, only 80 or 90 have so far claimed discretionary housing payments. Hebridean Housing Partnership is in rent arrears, and more worryingly, 20 people have not engaged with, responded to or acknowledged the process at all. They are reckoned to have drink, drugs or mental health problems, and ultimately the tax could end up further destabilising their lives. At the very least—I make this plea to the Department for Work and Pensions —we should allow retrospective claims. Some people are currently trying their best to manage, but I feel that they may fail in their attempts and need support. That support should be retrospective.

Further complications are added by seasonal work, and the small amount that people earn from jobseeker’s allowance while having to pay for essentials such as food and big annual demands such as the TV licence. Losing £10 from 70-odd quid a week is quite a lot and a huge hindrance in life.

Some people watching this debate probably begrudge what other people have, but they should look to countries such as Norway and Denmark where the unemployed do far better, society is far healthier and unemployment is far lower. To those who are still begrudgers I say, “Look at the wealth disparity in the United Kingdom, the fourth most unequal country in the OECD, where sadly the super-rich are getting richer.” That is where the real societal flaws are.

I have known the father of the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Mr Di Alexander, for 10 or 15 years, and he has worked in social housing. He is, of course, very proud of his son, but he has stuck to his principles. I strongly admire what he has said about the bedroom tax, which was absolutely spot-on. If we listen to anybody on or connected to the Government Benches, it should be Mr Di Alexander.

17:28

[Ian Swales (Redcar) (LD)]

I previously opposed this policy not because I think we should necessarily pay money for spare bedrooms, but because the consequences that we have heard about today were highly predictable, and I shall speak about some of them. It is no wonder that we have a crisis in rents and social housing availability when 421,000 social houses were lost under the Labour Government—a truly shameful record.

We have also heard about the different effects of the policy in different parts of the country, and I find myself identifying most with the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), given the characteristics of my constituency. Social housing is in reasonably plentiful supply and regeneration is required in many areas, but we are now getting housing blight because of the availability of three-bedroom houses that people do not want to take. Previously, smaller family units were put into those houses, but people will not take them now.

As most hon. Members have said, there is a suitability of stock problem. My constituency made the front page of the newspapers after a calculation that said it would take 37 years to make available one-bedroom accommodation to all those who need it.

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making some interesting points. I recognise that situation in Newcastle. Given that Government policy is punishing people for a problem—the stock available—not of their making, will he vote with the Opposition?

[Ian Swales]

I worry that housing policy tends to be dictated from inside the M25. It becomes less appropriate the further away from the M25 that we go.

My constituency has a discretionary housing payments problem. The last figures that I have seen show that there were 1,307 applications, but that only 358 awards were made. That happened because the money ran out, not because the applications were inappropriate.

We also have a one-size-fits-all penalty in the calculation for the amount of the spare room subsidy. In my constituency, the cost of an extra bedroom is about £7, but people are penalised by about £11. Therefore, people who should move from a three-bedroom property to a two-bedroom property get less housing benefit than they would get if they were in a two-bedroom house, which is deeply immoral.

Like many hon. Members, I have campaigned on various issues. I am pleased to welcome the Government’s concessions on foster parents, serving military personnel and disabled children. I also welcome the trebling of discretionary housing payments, but there is a lot of unfinished business. The hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg), the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, made some good points. I would make a plea for the exemption of disabled adults. Children are exempt when they need separate bedrooms for medical reasons. Let us do that for adults, instead of making people go through the demeaning process of applying. In my local council, people have to apply every quarter, and the application form is deeply intrusive.

As the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Heather Wheeler) has said, many people are perfectly willing to move to right-size accommodation, but it simply does not exist anywhere in their area. In the north of England, we have a shortage of one-bedroom accommodation. In fact, some one-bedroom accommodation is being demolished in my constituency.

[Steve Webb]

My hon. Friend is making a thoughtful speech. I assume that he has a Labour-run local authority. If it has told him that the money for discretionary housing payments has run out, will he ask it why it has not applied for our additional funding? It appears not to have done so.

[Ian Swales]

I thank the Minister for that response. His announcement of that extra funding is the first I have heard of it. I will ask my local authority why it has not applied.

We need to recognise that some people simply cannot afford right-size accommodation and that it does not exist in their area. The Government should seriously consider a policy of treating those people as willing but unable to move and give them concessions in the system.

In my area, there have been some helpful consequences. I have been thanked by a number of families who have managed, owing to the policy, to get a bigger house in the area where they want to live. One social housing provider I met was surprised by the number of large families moving into their houses from overcrowded private rented accommodation. I do not know why that provider was surprised; surely, we ought to have expected that. Only the week before last, I was in an excellent hostel run by Coatham House, a charity in my constituency for homeless young people. It has said that it has seen a dramatic fall in the number of homeless young people. It put that down to the policy. Hon. Members might think there are bad reasons for that—I can think of those, too—but there might also be good reasons.

Many points have been made in the debate. The hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) mentioned the financial stability of some of the stock transfer social housing providers. Some of them are highly leveraged and threatened by arrears, which will increase when direct payments begin. They could find themselves financially unstable.

I welcome the Government’s efforts to free up the system. One of the first cases that I dealt with as an MP was that of a single man living in a three-bedroom house. He wanted to downsize, but the system was so rigid that he was told that he would be moved to the bottom of the waiting list, with no guarantee of how and when he would get his next social house. Guess what? He did not move. I welcome that the system has, to an extent, been freed up and that exchanges are happening more often.

I welcome the continued commitment to review the policy, as it does need continual review. Despite the views that I have expressed in my speech, it is hard to welcome the hypocrisy evident from the Labour party on this issue. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am sorry to disappoint the House, but speeches have tended to be at the limit, with lots of interventions taken. I have to reduce the time limit with immediate effect to four minutes, otherwise colleagues will not get in. People do not have to take the full time, but they can.

17:35

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

Dumfries and Galloway council does not have any housing, so in my constituency we depend on three or four registered social landlords. The two biggest social landlords are Dumfries and Galloway Housing Partnership and Loreburn Housing Association. Opposition Members have been good enough to explain the human consequences of this measure: its impact on disabled people and their carers, and on the access fathers from broken relationships have to their children. While foster carers have been supported, kinship carers have not. For single homeless people in my area, the situation has become very difficult indeed, as no one-bedroom properties are available. I also have to say, in case it has passed people by, that the cost of moving home for the poorest in society comes at a price that many cannot afford to pay.

I have two or three points I would like to raise with the Minister. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg), who laid out how the local housing allowance came into being. The big difference between what has gone before and what we are faced with is the simple fact that when this legislation came into effect people were trapped—they had nowhere to turn. The idea that 1 million empty bedrooms and 250,000 overcrowded households could all of a sudden be put right is totally wrong. Last year, my Tory-run council wrote to the coalition Government to tell them to rethink the bedroom tax, because one-bedroom properties simply were not available. I have to ask: why do the Government not listen to their own?

The Minister of State, who opened the debate, is consistent—he always comes out with the usual nonsense about it being everyone else’s fault. On the complaint about the inherited position, not once did I hear anyone on the Government Benches talk about a school that we built that they did not want, a hospital that was built that they did not want, or infrastructure we put in that they did not want. Investment was not the problem for this nation—it was the banks. Government Members want to forget that.

I am amazed that we still have this legislation. Whatever lies behind it, there must have been Government targets. Was it about saving money? Seven months in, how much money have the Government saved? Was it about swapping people around in the system to make sure that those who were under-occupying moved out and that those who needed larger homes got them? Has that succeeded? Will the Minister tell us how many families have been able to downsize? How many social tenants have moved into the private sector because no social housing was available? I say: bring forward that review. As we have heard time and again from Government Members, the Bill was introduced because it was populist, and for no other reason. It is about kicking people in society when they are down. That is the true face of compassionate Conservatism.

17:39

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

Much of my speech will be about facts, figures and statistics, but contributions thus far, certainly from the Opposition, have focused on the real impact of this policy on people’s lives. Be they people with disabilities, people with access to children at weekends that they cannot maintain or others—there are many more—these are real people, and this has real consequences for their lives, so this debate is about not just facts, figures and statistics, but how this policy affects people’s lives.

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

For precisely that reason and because Northern Ireland will be worse affected than any other region of the UK, does the right hon. Gentleman welcome the fact that the Northern Ireland Executive and political parties there are joining together to prevent this from hurting the vulnerable people of Northern Ireland?

[Mr Howarth]

Absolutely, I applaud what is happening in Northern Ireland.

Since the introduction of the bedroom tax, rent arrears in Merseyside have increased by £2.2 million—not to £2.2 million, but by £2.2 million—representing a loss of income that could have built 125 houses in the region, creating jobs and bringing all the other consequences. Some 60% of those in the Liverpool city region in arrears because of the bedroom tax are in arrears for the first time. It is not a habit of theirs, but a direct consequence of the bedroom tax.

[Barbara Keeley]

We have some frightening statistics in Salford, too, but those are very large numbers, particularly the loss of spending power. Do those figures cover the Minister’s constituency and will she be explaining to people in the region how these things came about?

[Mr Howarth]

They do indeed. I hope the Minister will respond to these statistics, because her own constituents will be interested to hear.

We have experienced a 30% increase in void—empty—properties, including a 130% increase in three-bedroom houses. This is not, therefore, just a matter of releasing unused bedroom space for those on the waiting list; there is no demand for three-bedroom properties, which is why they become void properties. Staggeringly, the result has been a loss of rent to local landlords of £616,622 per month, compared with £397,000 in the same period last year. Those are the direct consequences, in one city region, of the bedroom tax.

Where are our people supposed to go? In my city region, we have an excess of three-bedroom properties and a shortage of two and one-bedroom properties. We can debate all day who is responsible for that, but it is a fact, so where are people to go? There is a shortage of social housing for them to scale down to. Interestingly, York university’s centre for housing policy report, which has been referred to frequently in this debate, concludes that 41.5% of people losing money because of the bedroom tax and having to move will enter the private rented sector. That is the conclusion of an unbiased, peer-reviewed report.

Now, here is the rub. This measure is supposed to be saving some money. The average rent for a three-bedroom housing association property in Knowsley is £74 a week, compared with £132 for a three-bedroom house in the private rented sector. If someone were to scale down from the three-bedroom housing association property to a two-bedroom house in the private sector, they would be paying £115 a week, compared with the £74 they were paying before.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) said earlier, this policy is morally bankrupt. It is also incompetent. It presumes that people can just move around at will, and that a property that is right for their circumstances exists somewhere in their area. That is not the case. There is growing evidence that, rather than saving money, this policy is costing more.

17:45

[Kwasi Kwarteng (Spelthorne) (Con)]

I apologise for not having sat through the whole debate; I was in the Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Bill Committee. However, I have to say of those speeches that I have heard from the Labour Benches: I have heard it all before. Initially, Labour Members dubbed the measure the “bedroom tax”—

[Chris Ruane]

Initially? It still is.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

They still persist in calling it that. We have to remember why the legislation was brought in, and the serious nature of the economic position in which we found ourselves. One of the great things that this Government have achieved is a measure of welfare reform. Labour Members vigorously opposed the housing benefit cap, but it has proved to be an incredibly popular and well-regarded policy. There were prophecies of ethnic cleansing in London and absolute devastation, but the policy has largely worked and welfare reform is on course.

It is a misrepresentation to talk about the spare room subsidy as a tax. It is not a tax, by any definition. There is also a serious problem of overcrowding. About 1.8 million people are living in overcrowded conditions, yet there are literally millions of spare rooms. What are we, as a country, going to do about that? Are we going to continue to subsidise people living in larger accommodation that they do not necessarily need, or are we going to try to achieve a fairer distribution of accommodation?

[Barbara Keeley]

The hon. Gentleman has mentioned millions of extra rooms and the benefit cap. To many disabled people and their carers, those are not spare rooms. They are needed by people who need to sleep apart, or who have hospital beds or medical equipment. Five thousand carers are being hit by the benefit cap, and a large number will also be hit by this measure. The hon. Gentleman needs to reflect on that fact, if he thinks the measure is working.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

If that were indeed true, why is there a discrepancy between privately rented accommodation and social housing in this context? I hope that the Opposition will enlighten me on this. The last Labour Government might have wrecked the economy, but they at least had some sense of responsibility—unlike the current Opposition. Why did that Labour Government believe that there was a perfectly good reason to equalise the treatment of the private and social sectors?

[Sheila Gilmore]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I will not; I have only a short time in which to speak.

Labour Members talk about fairness, but is it fair that someone on a low income who is in privately rented accommodation should pay taxes in order to subsidise someone else’s spare room? Is it fair to raise taxation from low-paid workers to subsidise other people’s accommodation?

[Ian Mearns]

The hon. Gentleman has not recognised that people with disabilities often get priority when it comes to public housing. That is why there is a predominance of people with disabilities and greater levels of ill health in publicly provided housing.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

It is an issue of principle—equality between socially provided housing and private sector rents. At the moment, there is a discrepancy that the Government—perfectly fairly and perfectly wisely—are trying to equalise.

It is, I think, very irresponsible of Labour to persist in peddling these half-truths about the nature of what the Government are trying to do, and many people in this country think so, too. It is apparent that this Government measure enjoys a wide body of support. It is exactly on this issue where the Labour party is on the wrong side of public opinion. On welfare, the public are consistently behind the coalition parties in the polls—and this debate shows why.

Labour Members who are sitting rather lemming-like in their places have absolutely no idea about fiscal responsibility and no idea about trying to reform a system that cannot be sustained. The notion that Labour would be tough on welfare has been shown to be untrue. It is not the case that Labour is tough on welfare. On the basis of the bits of the debate that I have had the pleasure—or, rather, misfortune—to listen to, I felt I was back in 1974. We have gone back to an early-70s, socialist-style model, in which there is no sense of responsibility, no sense of any fiscal constraints under which Governments have to operate and not even any sense of fairness when, as I mentioned, the taxes of people on lower income are being used to subsidise the spare room.

What is particularly frustrating for Government Members is to have to listen to the same old debates, the same old primary-school name calling of “the bedroom tax” and all the rest of it, which are completely lacking any grounding in reality. We have said that we want fairness. Councils are able to use discretionary payments, and we hear anecdotally that councils are refraining from using them. These are the anecdotes that we hear. It is now time for the Labour party to wise up and get realistic about the nature of the challenges we face and the overcrowded nature of much of this country’s social housing.

17:52

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

As dawn broke on a May morning, a 53-year-old grandmother, Stephanie Bottrill, went to the table in her house—a house she had lived in for 18 years—and wrote notes to her son, her daughter, her mother, her friends and the grandson on whom she doted. She locked up, left the cat behind, went across the street to her neighbour, put the keys in the neighbour’s door and then walked through a silent estate three miles to the M6, threw herself under a lorry and committed suicide. The note that this lady, driven to desperation, left for her son Steven, 27, said:

“Don’t blame yourself for me ending my life. The only people to blame are the Government.”

Days earlier, faced with having to find £20 extra a week, she had said to her neighbours, “I just can’t go on.” Mr Speaker, what kind of country do we live in, and what kind of Government do we have that drives a decent woman like her to suicide? Once in a generation, there is a tax that is so bad that the next generation looks back and asks. “Why did they do it?” Such was the poll tax; now the bedroom tax.

The bedroom tax is an iniquitous, immoral and unjust measure—cruel in its impact on the one hand, and presenting cruel dilemmas on the other. As for cruel in its impact, three years ago, I helped David O’Reilley, his partner Nikky Cunningham and their daughter to get into a council home. It had three bedrooms—a box room for the daughter and two other bedrooms, one of which Nikky cannot sleep in because, tragically as a result of an operation that went wrong, her loving husband David is a paraplegic. With the special bed and special equipment in the room, it is impossible for her to sleep in it too, so she sleeps in another room—but they have to pay the bedroom tax.

[Chris Ruane]

To what extent does my hon. Friend think that the Government’s policies are being pursued out of political spite rather than in the pursuit of efficiency?

[Jack Dromey]

I shall come to that very point shortly.

This tax is presenting cruel dilemmas. “Move,” they are told—but who are they? Two thirds of them are disabled. Move where, in Birmingham? There are 13,736 people who are affected by the bedroom tax, and there are 130 one-bedroom properties available to accommodate them. If they stay, they sink into debt. The Government say “Ah, but we have the discretionary housing payments.” The Government gave £3.77 million to Birmingham and the council topped it up by £2 million, but there are 350 new claimants every week. If the current trajectory continues, the fund will run out by Christmas, and thousands of desperate people in Birmingham will face an unhappy Christmas and a bleak new year.

Not only is this an unjust, iniquitous and immoral tax; it is also the economics of the madhouse. If a disabled man or woman is moved from a house that has been adapted to a house that has not been adapted, the adaptations must be paid for. If someone is moved from a two-bedroom council home to a one-bedroom home in the private rented sector, housing benefit will typically cost £1,500 more a year. There is also the impact of bad debt and administrative costs on house building. Housing associations throughout the country are saying, “Just when we need more social homes, fewer of them will be built.”

I know that there are some honourable Members on the Government Benches, and I pay particular tribute to the excellent contribution made by the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George), but let me say this to Government Members more generally. Have they no sense of shame about the pain that they are causing to war veterans, children, the disabled and carers, three quarters of whom have said that they are having to cut back on heating and eating as a result of the bedroom tax? Have they no sense of shame when they hear about Nicky Cunningham, the wonderful wife of David, her paraplegic husband? She said to me yesterday, “Jack, they treat us as if we are good for nothing and contribute nothing to society. Us a burden? We are already living with a burden. Why do they do this to us?” There is no answer to that question, other than to do what a Labour Government will ultimately do, and confine the bedroom tax to where it richly deserves to be: in the dustbin of history.

17:57

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

I must draw the House’s attention to my indirect interests in the interests declared by my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford).

This policy was obviously introduced with no clear idea of whether the people affected could be moved or could downsize, and certainly no consideration was given to their ability to pay if no other option was available. Coming on top of the wider cost-of-living crisis, it is causing untold misery. As the impact assessment showed and as my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) rightly emphasised, it does not make sense, it will not work, and it will not save money. Government Members have been well schooled and tell us that it is all to do with the deficit, but this is not a policy that will save the Government money.

There are 1,200 people affected by the tax in Plymouth Community Homes, which is in my constituency, and which was working for months before the tax was introduced to try to educate people and help them to think about how they would cope with it. However, it has been able to move only 118 households, and almost half of those were mutual exchanges. That is the tip of the iceberg. Plymouth Community Homes has personal contact with every one of those people every week. The cost of that is enormous, and it is now worried about the impact of the maximum benefit cap, which it thinks could be even more devastating for some families.

People in my constituency are borrowing money from relatives, from payday lenders and from loan sharks, but now they are finding that the money has run out. Mum and dad cannot afford to sub them any more, the payday lenders want their money back plus 100%, and the loan sharks want their pound of flesh. This simply is a diabolical policy and the impact on my constituents is devastating.

My local authority has stepped in in exceptional cases, but arrears are mounting, and it will not be long before we start to see evictions. One of my housing associations has already issued 144 possession notices, despite it doing everything it can to keep those people in those properties.

On specific cases, the Government must act to ensure that safe rooms for victims of domestic violence are exempted. The numbers are not high, but for victims of domestic violence to lose that room—that safe space—would be devastating, and the result could be tragic. We have to remember that the housing provider will have spent a lot of money putting that room in place, as they will have done for those who need specific and major adaptations because of disability.

One of my constituents e-mailed me at 2.30 in the morning in a suicidal state. I opened the e-mail when I woke at 7 am and feared the worst. This disabled lady with two disabled children had been moved into a three-bedroom house because her needs required it. She could not pay and she was terrified.

There is another family. The husband and wife separated years ago, but she continues to live in the house because she is his carer. He has severe mental illness; she is disabled. It would cost the council a disproportionate amount to give them both separate properties and provide a carer for him.

I echo the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey): this is a pernicious and divisive measure. My constituents are saying to me, “Why am I being treated like this? What have they got against us?” I am proud that the Labour party has taken a strong stand and made the decision to abolish it.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. In recognition of the fact that the hon. Member for Braintree (Mr Newmark) was not here for the bulk of the debate, he has generously volunteered to address the House extremely briefly, and I know he will expect to be held to that standard.

18:01

[Mr Brooks Newmark (Braintree) (Con)]

I was not expecting such generosity so early on, Mr Speaker, and I apologise for not being present at the beginning of the debate; unfortunately, I had a ministerial meeting. I have been listening to much of the debate, however, and, notwithstanding some of the emotional hyperbole from Opposition Members, at its core the Opposition motion is in effect saying that the Government spare room subsidy is somehow not fair. Well, what is not fair is that 2 million households are on the social housing waiting list. What is not fair is that 250,000 tenants are living in overcrowded conditions. What is not fair is that every family in this country is somehow paying £900 a year to subsidise the benefits bill of £23 billion. That is what is not fair.

What is fair, however, is that if a taxpayer-subsidised council house has a spare room, the occupier of that house should pay an extra £14 per week or, effectively, the equivalent of three hours’ work. That is not a big ask. That is not beyond the reach of most tenants. What is fair is that we exempt disabled tenants and partners in need of overnight carers. What is fair is that we exempt those in supported “exempt” accommodation. What is fair is that we exempt disabled children who are unable to share a bedroom. What is fair is that we exempt approved foster carers. What is fair is that we exempt armed forces personnel who are living with parents. All this the Government do because that is, indeed, fair.

Further, the Government are doing all they can to address a number of the issues raised by Opposition Members, including providing discretionary housing payment to give a safety net to help to support vulnerable residents, as well as making the welfare reform changes that have been introduced. In particular, in the 2013 Budget the Government announced that £35 million extra a year would be allocated to help councils provide support for vulnerable tenants, especially those living in isolated rural areas.

The Government have a responsibility to deliver both fairness and value for money for taxpayers. The spare room subsidy does just that by addressing the mismatch between overcrowded housing and those living in houses with empty bedrooms, subject to the exemptions I outlined. Therefore, I support the Government’s amendment.

18:04

[Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

I have been sitting here for several hours stewing about the opening statement by the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Thornbury and Yate (Steve Webb). He said that the Government identified their largest area of spend—the Department for Work and Pensions—and decided that pensions were not going to be touched and so looked at the welfare budget, where they saw that people on housing benefit were the most expensive and so that was the area they were going to target. That says that the Government have deliberately targeted people in the greatest need of support and help. The Government may call it welfare, but I still call it social security, because that is what it is: it provides social security for people who need it. The Government have identified the people who most need that social security and they are going to take it away from them.

That is a big admission of the big differences between Government Members and Labour Members—the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) called them “philosophical differences”, but we call them ideological differences. As many Opposition Members have said, those differences relate to the fact that the only crime these people have committed is to be too poor to afford to buy a house. That is the crime for which the Government are going to be punishing them. In my constituency, 60% of the people affected by the bedroom tax since April—only half a year ago—are now in housing arrears. The Minister, in his opening statement, admitted that the cost of the discretionary housing payment has trebled. What I want to hear from the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey), who is responding to the debate, is if the cost of the discretionary housing payment has trebled, is this not also taxpayers’ money? It is, indeed, also money that the Government are spending, not saving, and they are giving it to the people we have already identified as being in the greatest need. As many Opposition Members have said, this policy neither saves money nor does anything about overcrowding.

I have read the opening pages of the Government’s impact assessment to consider the savings that are going to be made, and the best estimate is £930 million. It says that figures will be gathered to make sure that there can be a policy review, and I would like to know when it will take place. I would also like to see the breakdown of the amount of money spent as against the amount saved. One saving that the Government are making relates to people who will “float off Housing Benefit”: the assessment estimates this to be £5 million. That is so to misunderstand this area of the housing market as to be cruel and incompetent, as Opposition Members have said. Not only is it cruel and incompetent, but it has been especially designed to be so.

18:08

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

North Lincolnshire Homes is a social housing provider for my constituency, and I wish to share some of its observations about this tax, which is bad in principle and bad in practice. First, it told me that the worst aspect of the tax is that it is retrospective and that 95% of the problem flows from its retrospective nature. There are not enough smaller properties for affected households to downsize to in our area. North Lincolnshire Homes has about 10,000 homes, with 1,500 households affected by the tax. If it were to move them to properties that became available, it would take six years to move all the households affected.

Some people are already moving into more expensive private rented properties to escape the bedroom tax. Oddly, a two-bedroom property in north Lincolnshire can rent for £92.41 and rent on a typical three-bedroom property is £78.35, so the £92.41 will be paid by housing benefit when people have moved into the private sector, rather than the other way round. The impact of this tax on the public purse is thus absurd. People are falling into arrears. Rent arrears among the 1,500 affected households have increased by about £150,000 since April. The policy is not working financially and it is not working for the people in my constituency who are suffering as a result.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Barnardo’s today expressed grave concern about the effect that the bedroom tax is having on families and, in particular, on children. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that families and children are experiencing worse times because of the tax?

[Nic Dakin]

Many people have given examples of how families are being affected. Carers, people with disabilities and people who have access to their children overnight for short periods are all being affected. All Members on the Opposition Benches have had those people coming to our surgeries, so while listening to the contributions from many Government Members, I wondered whether they live in the same country as us. I really do not know the answer.

North Lincolnshire Homes is having to spend £200,000 a year on providing additional help to try to get people to move. That is an additional cost, and the money would be better spent on building new houses better to address the problem. North Lincolnshire Homes has seen a 150% increase in the number of properties that it is struggling to let, with many larger properties lying empty. These are the economics of the madhouse—it does not make any sense at all.

Let me highlight the case of one constituent to illustrate again, through a story, how the tax impacts on individuals. Richard lives in a three-bedroom house and has suffered a severe stroke. He is completely wheelchair-bound, has lost the use of the left side of his body and is without speech. His only means of communication are his laptop and text messages. In late 2012, £30,000 of public money was spent on converting his house to meet his needs, including a full wet room and a downstairs living area. Since the introduction of the bedroom tax in April 2013, he no longer receives full housing benefits to meet his rent and is struggling to make payments. He, like many others, has fallen into arrears. Adapting another property to meet his needs would involve a substantial cost. The situation is causing him massive stress and worry and contributing to his poor health.

I hope that the Minister is listening, as she appears to be. The sadness is that there are many Richards up and down this land who are suffering in the same way. I do not think it is proper for the situation to continue. Today has given people the opportunity to listen to the strength of the debate in this Chamber, which echoes the strength of feeling outside it, and for us to do something about the issue before it is too late.

18:12

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

Let me begin by informing Ministers here that Islington borough council used all its discretionary housing payment last year and will certainly use all its discretionary housing payment this year. People are under attack not only from the bedroom tax but from the limits on housing benefit, and a large number of those in private accommodation can simply no longer afford to live where they live at the moment. While we try to find them somewhere else to live, they need assistance with their rent, which is paid through the discretionary housing payment. I know that that was a point of debate earlier and I want to ensure that if there is any discretionary housing payment going for a song it is given to us, because in Islington we could certainly use it.

I ask the Minister to imagine living as part of a family of four in a three-bedroom flat. She is unemployed and living on about £240 a week. Her benefits went up 1% this year, and she is now paying council tax for the first time because of changes to the rules. The prices of food, heating, fares and clothing have gone up, and she has the disadvantage of a son who is nine and a daughter who is seven. She had been in a three-bedroom flat, but now she has to downsize; if she does not, she will lose £18 a week out of her £240 benefit. Such people exist: they come to my surgery and ask how they can economise. I would be grateful to hear from the Minister whether she has any ideas.

The bedroom tax affects 3,100 families in Islington. In 2012-13, despite the frenetic building attempts by the borough council, only 609 two-bedroom flats were let through the waiting list, which is already under huge pressure with 19,000 families looking for accommodation through it. Now, many more people need to be moved very quickly as they are being attacked by the bedroom tax. Islington tenants with an additional room, as the Government would say, pay £14 to £20 a week because of the high rents, which causes great hardship, and they face the disruption of moving, which is expensive and stressful.

A fifth of those 3,100 social housing tenants are sufficiently disabled to receive disability living allowance—not the higher-rate DLA awarded for overnight care but the lower-rate DLA. They have special equipment such as hoists and wheelchairs, or they are couples who cannot sleep together because one of them has a condition such as anxiety or some form of disability—it is difficult to sleep with that partner—or perhaps one of them wets the bed.

[Barbara Keeley]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the most invidious things about this tax is that couples have to declare whether they sleep together? How invasive is that?

[Emily Thornberry]

In Islington, given how small the flats are, people simply cannot put two single beds in one room, which makes it difficult in those circumstances for couples to be able to cope. One of the unintended consequences of the bedroom tax is additional pressure on the tribunal service. People who appeal their benefits have to wait a year, and another 30 tenants from Islington are appealing the bedroom tax. Our housing system is under huge pressure, and we can do without this.

Of course, people under-occupy—I fully acknowledge that. I was brought up in a council house. When we all moved out, my mum was under-occupying, and she had the great benefit, frankly, of having a professional daughter who bought her a flat. That house was given back to the stock. Many elderly people are under-occupying, and, as I have said throughout the debate, I do not understand why the Government have not augmented the plans of many local authorities. In my local authority, people about to go into retirement are interviewed and are asked whether they would like to move somewhere else, like a flat that is available to them for the rest of their life and that would be appropriate for them. Even though, strictly speaking, they are entitled only to a one-bedroom flat, the council will give them a two-bedroom flat so that they can move out of a house and a family can move in. Indeed, they might be given compensation if they wish to move.

Why not work it that way? If this is really about under-occupancy and over-occupancy and getting people into the right flat, we should work with them. We should not just punish them, which is what the Government are doing. Why does the nation need to wait? We need to build more. Why should the nation wait for my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband)? Why should the nation wait for a Labour Government in 2015, because when we are elected we will build 200,000 homes every year, and we will really begin to address this problem?

18:17

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

I have a very simple message for the Government in today’s debate. Six months after its introduction, their bedroom tax is driving up rent arrears across Scotland; it has caused immeasurable distress to low-income families; and it has created financial problems for local authorities and housing associations. What it has manifestly not done is meet its objectives: it has not tackled overcrowding; it has not delivered better use of housing stock; and it has not saved taxpayers any money at all. In Scotland, 82,500 households are affected by this policy, and 80% of them are the home of a disabled adult.

The Government seem to think that it is okay to take money out of the pockets of some of the most disadvantaged people in our communities—but it is not okay. It symbolises just how out of touch the Government are with the values of decent people in Scotland and elsewhere who recognise that this is a profoundly unfair and iniquitous measure.

Most social housing tenants have a lot less choice about where they live than the rest of us, and they are already living in the cheapest housing available to them. Across Scotland, 60% of tenants need a one-bedroom house, but only 27% of the social housing stock is one-bedroom accommodation, so there is a fundamental structural mismatch that cannot be fixed by crude social engineering. There are simply not enough smaller houses to go round, and I do not believe that it is right to punish the poorest tenants for the structural problems of our housing stock supply.

We have seen significant hikes in arrears over the past six months. According to the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, all but one of Scotland’s local authorities have reported increases in arrears that are attributable to the introduction of the bedroom tax, yet relatively few tenants have moved house. Given that eight out of 10 households are affected by disability, that really should not surprise us, because people do not want to move away from their family and their support networks. More than that, they do not want to leave their home, as my hon. Friend the Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) eloquently put it.

We have heard that the Government’s idea of fairness is to bring housing benefit in line with the local housing allowance available to private sector tenants. I put it to the Government that that is a flawed premise and a false comparison. Social housing is allocated not on a market basis, but is prioritised on the basis of need. Most social landlords operate systems that take account of a range of factors when allocating tenancies, so that the most vulnerable, disadvantaged and low-paid people in our society have a stable place to live. I understand that the Government want to cut the housing benefit bill, but squeezing half a billion pounds out of disabled tenants is the wrong way to achieve that.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend, as usual, is making a powerful speech. Does she agree that Scotland has been hit particularly hard because of the sheer quantity of socially rented housing that we have in Scotland?

[Dr Whiteford]

That is true, and we also have a disproportionate number of disabled people in social housing. That suggests to me that social housing is going to the people who need it. Those are the people who find it hardest to access the labour market.

When we look closely at the increase in the housing benefit bill over the past decade, we see that 31% of it—almost a third of the whole UK increase—is attributable to the city of London alone. By contrast, in Scotland, the total housing benefit bill has increased by 22% in inflation-adjusted terms over the past 10 years, while in the social rented sector, the increase has been only 6%. A 6% increase in 10 years is hardly out of control, but we know that rents in London are out of control. Why should disabled tenants in Scotland pay for a rental system in the private sector here that is completely out of control and eye-watering for anybody who has to rent a home?

To illustrate the point, although Scotland and London are estimated to have about the same number of people affected by the bedroom tax—around 80,000 each—this year Scotland has received only £15.25 million in funding for discretionary housing payments. That includes the extra rural funding. I am glad that the Scottish Government have topped that up to the very peak of their allowance under the current terms of the Scotland Act 1998, by putting in £20 million this year and next year to mitigate some of the worst impacts; but fundamentally, we need to scrap the policy.

People in Scotland did not vote for the bedroom tax. It is a nasty policy from a nasty party that they did not elect. It has been propped up by Liberals, who should know better. The Scottish Government have made it clear that, with independence, the bedroom tax would be confined to history. I commend them not just for their efforts to mitigate this policy, but for the other aspects of welfare reform—the protection that they have given to my constituents and others from the effects of council tax benefit increases and the welfare fund that people can access to deal with the impact of the loss of crisis loans.

I urge the Government this evening to admit that they got it wrong, accept that this policy is not working and is not doing what they intended and do the decent thing by repealing this toxic piece of legislation.

18:22

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

The debate this afternoon has alarmed me. I listened to the huge divide between the two sides here in the Palace of Westminster. I am amazed at some of the contributions. As a Labour representative and as a member of the public, I resent Members of Parliament saying that I am foolish and my colleagues are foolish because we disagree with them, when all we are doing is looking to support the most vulnerable people in society.

The hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) was outrageous in his comments. He attacked people in council houses because, he said, they lack ambition. That is so untrue. It is unbelievable. Some of the people in my constituency who live in council houses have lived there all their lives and for generations, and they have been working all their lives as well. So to think that people in council houses do not count, and that the council or anybody else can just come and move them on when they think there is a crisis, is outrageous.

This pernicious tax impacts on 600,000 people, of whom 400,000 are disabled. Some 375,000 children will suffer as a consequence of the tax. This is not about under-occupancy. It is not even about saving money, because the Government have admitted that they will not save as much as they had hoped. This is solely about Conservative ideology. It is about dogma. It is about throwing red meat to Back Benchers. It is about flexing powerful financial muscles. It is a class issue between those who have and those who have not. It is about people letting other people know where they are in the pecking order. That is what we have seen today.

[David T. C. Davies]

rose—

[Ian Lavery]

The hon. Gentleman seeks to intervene. I have never heard such outrageous comments as we heard in his contribution today in my three and half years in the House.

The bedroom tax will mean more child poverty and more people looking to pay off payday loans. There will be spiralling debt and people made homeless because of the bedroom tax. This is not simply about the bedroom tax. That is just a single part of the wider welfare reform, which the Government have seen falling down around their ears. The personal independence payment has huge problems. Universal credit has hit the buffers. There are problems with employment and support allowance, and hon. Members should look at the situation that Atos is causing, with, in the main, the same sort of people.

The people we are talking about today live in homes where they have lived all their lives in many cases. It is about time that people understood that. These are homes where people and children were brought up, where families lost their loved ones and where tears of joy and sadness have been shed.

[David T. C. Davies]

Crocodile tears.

[Hon. Members]

Withdraw!

[Ian Lavery]

That is what this is about: moving people from their houses. It is outrageous, but at the end of the day, I would like to think that the Government will—

[Mr Speaker]

Order.

18:26

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow the passionate speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery), who took on some of the outrageous and absolutely extraordinary comments that we have heard.

As we have heard today, the policy is iniquitous, unfair and economically illiterate. We have heard fantasy claims about the savings that will be made and the transfer of liability—the financial consequences for councils and registered social landlords. We have also heard some quite extraordinary boasts from the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Thornbury and Yate (Steve Webb). He talked about the wonderful rise in discretionary housing payments. Such claims are like telling someone that both their arms will be broken, but they will be given a sling for one of them. The policy is not working, but they will have some crumbs off the table to sort it out afterwards. That is extraordinary, and it reflects the local story of pressure and pain that I have seen with the rise in food banks. The Trussell Trust says that 45% of that increase is due to policies such as the bedroom tax and the cost pressures that come with energy bills, leading people into the embrace of loan sharks.

There is also the mental strain. We have heard some tragic tales today, in particular from my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) about suicide. I similarly have had constituents come to me. One in particular handed me a letter that he could not bear to read to me, which literally said, “I would rather kill myself, then there would be one less mouth to feed.” Those are the real stories and Ministers would do well to listen to them.

One family in Llanrumney in my constituency lives in a four-bedroom council home with two severely autistic sons. They moved in 15 years ago and had important adaptations made on medical grounds. Their daughter then moved out, and they are now considered to have a spare room and have been hit by the bedroom tax. The council is doing everything that it can to help, but there will be a massive cost in moving to another house and adapting that, let alone the additional strain put on two autistic children. Changing their lives will mean significant damage to them. The suggestion of some Government Members that such circumstances are lifestyle choices is frankly offensive.

Ministers would do well to listen to some of the financial facts. I have spoken to both my local authorities this week. Cardiff has told me that it is now dealing with more than £1 million-worth of arrears. That is up £360,000 since the same period last year, largely due to the bedroom tax. It has five times more tenants looking to move to one-bedroom properties than exist in the city, and in the Vale of Glamorgan, my neighbouring authority, there are more than 16 times more people looking for one-bedroom properties than exist. Again, 41% of their accounts are seeing increasing arrears.

It was a shame today to hear the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies) refer to feckless fathers and putting them in chains and other things, because he and I have had some sensible and reasonable discussions on these issues, most notably in preparing a report that was agreed by the Welsh Affairs Committee. I urge Ministers to look at that because it shows the disproportionate impact of this policy on people in Wales, where it has hit 40,000 people, more than anywhere else in Britain, 25,000 of whom are disabled.

We also heard some real gems in that inquiry, most notably Lord Freud’s suggestion that people should buy sofa beds or go out and get some work. He did not recognise that most of those people are in work and claiming housing benefit because they are on such low incomes. Also, extraordinarily, given the stories about suicide and mental health issues that we have heard today, neither he nor the Department had even considered the mental health impacts.

It is therefore really galling to have a Liberal Democrat candidate wandering around my area of Cardiff, where many hundreds of people are affected by the bedroom tax, and sticking leaflets through the doors stating that the Lib Dems are on the side of a fairer society. I am sorry, but I find that absolutely extraordinary. I hope that the voters of Cardiff South and Penarth show them exactly what we think of them in a few weeks’ time.

18:29

[Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)]

I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

I last spoke about the bedroom tax in another Opposition day debate in which we called on the Government to look at the overall impact of their policies on people with disabilities. I remember macho Government Members asking me what Labour’s position on the bedroom tax was. I told them that I would push our leadership to abolish it. I am proud to stand here today and say that that is Labour’s position in opposition and that it will be our position in government.

We have had more luck in getting our leadership to listen than have the poor Lib Dems, who today have not managed to secure from the Minister any reassurances on future support for some of the most vulnerable people in society. I urge them to find the necessary anatomical attachments and vote against the Government’s amendment. The Government have not only a mean policy, but a mean amendment. It talks about “exaggeration and misrepresentation”. I would like the Minister to tell us which of the stories we have heard today has been a misrepresentation, or about “crocodile tears”, as the Prime Minister’s own Parliamentary Private Secretary chuntered earlier from a sedentary position.

I have never been more disgusted by the language used by Government Members in a debate. They showed a complete lack of understanding of what poverty is. Daily in my constituency office I hear from people in real poverty, poverty of a kind we have not seen in this country since the 1930s. They are unable to heat their homes, unable to put food on the table and unable to clothe their children. If they were in prison it would be a breach of their human rights. It is a disgrace that this Government are adding to that poverty by imposing a bedroom tax.

Government Members are keen on calling on the Opposition to apologise for our mistakes in the past. I hope that the Minister will apologise to the parents of severely disabled children who had to go to the highest courts in the land to get justice. Let us not forget that Government Members voted for the bedroom tax in its original form. They, too, owe an apology. They talk about people who take too much out of the system, but the carers of this country give more than they will ever take out.

This morning we said bon voyage to the Secretary of State. Roll on 2015. Vive la différence between those on the Government side and those on the Opposition side. Let us say au revoir to the adulterous and mean coalition Government. Let us say au revoir to the Secretary of State. Let us say au revoir to the bedroom tax.

18:33

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

Homeless people are refusing to accept a home and get their families off the street as a direct result of the Government’s bedroom tax. If they take a house with an extra room—they might not have any other choice—they believe that they cannot stretch their food budget, their energy budget or any other budget to pay the bedroom tax, so they and their children remain homeless, and it is the coalition Government who are to blame. Working families will not take on larger properties in case their circumstances change. We have examples of both councils and housing associations with houses standing empty, so we have empty houses and homeless families. It is incredible that the Government could get this policy so drastically wrong.

Let us consider the high-rise Prior and Melsonby Court in my constituency. Some £4 million was spent on improving properties there, yet 10% of them currently remain empty. The reason is that young single people cannot take on two-bedroom properties because they cannot afford to pay the bedroom tax and the properties are no use for families.

It is often said that a Prime Minister can be defined by his policies, so it is telling that at the same time as this Prime Minister gave a tax cut worth £100,000 to 13,000 millionaires, his Government introduced a measure that unfairly hit 660,000 people. It is unfair because it targets the most vulnerable, unfair because the charge is arbitrary and does not allow for consideration of the ability to pay, and unfair because it is incurred despite no smaller properties being available in the vast majority of cases. In case we are in any doubt, the Government’s own impact assessment was based on families being unable to move to avoid the bedroom tax, identifying mismatches in many areas that would result in insufficient properties being available. Put simply, the Government knew from the outset that the bedroom tax would result in families having no alternative but to pay up or face eventual eviction.

How are people advised to cope? They are told to work extra hours or take in a lodger: absurd indeed. Our people are groaning under the cosh of part-time, low-paid jobs that leave them dependent on housing benefits—if they are in work at all—and how many housing associations or local councils allow sub-letting to lodgers? I challenge Government Members to come and be a lodger in one of the council houses in my constituency for a week and find out all about the reality they need to find out about.

The largest housing association that serves my constituency, Tristar Homes, currently has 1,725 tenants classed as under-occupying their property. Almost two thirds have accrued rent arrears, with 85% being subject to increasing amounts. This means that since the introduction of the bedroom tax, tenants with Tristar Homes have amassed arrears of £100,000. However, even that is not reflective of the true cost of this Government’s policy, because it is on top of the additional costs borne by Tristar Homes in dealing with the increased levels of debt and efforts to help tenants back into work, and £50,000 that it has invested in its own money advice service. This still does not take into account the £265,000 discretionary fund established to provide some support to tenants impacted by the loss of housing benefit. In total, the cost to Tristar Homes of dealing with the bedroom tax and its effects has surpassed £500,000.

This expensive failure to address the many symptoms of the housing crisis is the reason we must repeal the bedroom tax without hesitation. We have already pledged to do so. The Prime Minister should beat us to it and end this misery for countless families.

18:37

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

In my two minutes on this policy it is very hard to decide where to start because there is so much wrong with it. There is the terrible situation of separated parents sharing child care while children are expected to sleep on camp beds or sofas or to share with their parents. There are people who are not choosing between heating and eating because they are having to go cold and hungry, disabled people whose health is deteriorating because of stress and distress, and people who have committed or are contemplating suicide.

Government Members have made the frankly ridiculous and desperate claim that this is Labour policy, but the local housing allowance was not applied retrospectively. Indeed, in Bolton there are still 1,000 tenants on the old scheme because their circumstances have not changed—the trigger for local housing allowance to be applied. This Government decided to introduce carnage, with no account taken of the nature of housing stock in each area, no account taken of the needs of disabled people or separated families, and no trialling, unlike the four years of trialling done before the local housing allowance was introduced. Instead, they have created chaos and heartache.

Like everybody, I have surgeries full of desperate people. I would like to talk about their cases, but unfortunately time is so limited because so many people are so angered by this Government’s policy that I cannot. I will finish by asking a few questions. Who in this place thinks it appropriate for a 15-year-old to share a bedroom with a toddler? Who thinks it right that boys and girls approaching puberty should have to share a room? Who thinks it right that two adults should be forced to share a bedroom irrespective of their health needs? Who thinks it makes sense to force families to move from a three-bedroom house with an eight-year-old and a nine-year-old and then force them to move back to a three-bedroom house a year later? It is a disgraceful policy that shows that this Government do not have a clue about the lives of ordinary people. They are out of touch and heartless. It is a cruel, senseless and stupid policy, and it should be repealed now.

17:37

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

The Opposition are proud to have called this debate. The testimony we have heard from right hon. and hon. Members from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland has shown again why this policy is both a moral and a practical failure. It is cruel, unworkable and perverse. It is not reducing overcrowding and it is not saving money as intended. It is causing fear and misery, and it is time it was scrapped.

I want to respond to as many of the points that have been raised as possible. I appreciate that many of my right hon. and hon. Friends who wanted to participate this afternoon have not been able to do so. One or two of them have notified me of their concerns and I hope to be able to raise them.

Let me start with an issue that was raised repeatedly by Government Members, who made comparisons with the private rented sector and said that the situation there is appropriate for the social sector. A whole raft of arguments against that position were made by my Opposition colleagues. My hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg) pointed out that the social market is a very different market with very different rental structures from those in the private sector. The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) pointed out that we allocate social housing predominantly on the basis of need, not market forces.

My hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) pointed out that there is a significant difference between this Government’s implementation of the bedroom tax and Labour’s implementation of the local housing allowance. The local housing allowance was not implemented retrospectively and people were not trapped. My right hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Mrs McGuire), who was a Minister at the time so she ought to know, pointed out that it never became our policy in the social rented sector.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Katy Clark) was right to say—this was also highlighted by Government Members—that our aspiration for social housing is very different from theirs. We see it as fulfilling a role of offering high-quality, stable accommodation to strengthen families and communities. We cannot understand why a Government who proclaim their commitment to a big society would not agree with us on that.

The hon. Members for Meon Valley (George Hollingbery) and for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) suggested that the policy is popular with the public and pointed to the recently published Ipsos MORI poll. I suggest that hon. Members look a little more closely at the poll, because it shows that the public become more sceptical about the policy the more they know about it. The public are not in favour of the policy if there is no alternative home for people to move to or if it means that people cannot meet basic living costs, which they cannot. As the Real Life Reform research is beginning to show, the policy is causing human misery and leading to arrears and debt, to mental health problems and stress, and to families cutting back on fuel and food.

[George Hollingbery]

Having looked at the poll this afternoon, I think I am right in saying that the hon. Lady may have a point on the issue of requiring people to move out of the area in which they live, but that there was an approval of more than 45%—I think it was 48%—for expecting people to move within the area in which they live. Is that correct?

[Kate Green]

That may be the case, but as my Opposition colleagues have repeatedly shown, in many areas there is a mismatch of suitable properties for people to move into. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to acknowledge, as we have said, that expecting people to move up and down the country would not command the same popular support.

As many of my colleagues have pointed out, the policy is especially cruel towards those affected, including 220,000 families with children, lone parents and separated families and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck) has said, those fleeing domestic violence. As my hon. Friend the Member for Halton has said, some pensioner couples will be affected under universal credit if they are not both over state pension age. Most crucially, two thirds of those affected are disabled—420,000 disabled people are affected by the bedroom tax.

Contrary to what Government Members appeared to believe at the beginning of the debate, not all disabled people are protected from this policy. Adults with an overnight carer are protected, but children who need an overnight carer are not. Children with medium and high-level care needs will now be protected—following the Government conceding that they need to take action in light of the Burnip and Gorry cases—but children with higher rate mobility needs are not protected, contrary to the advice of the Social Security Advisory Committee, let alone there being protection for all disabled children.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg) pointed out, and many colleagues reinforced, there is no protection for a couple if they are unable as a result of health or disability to share a bed or bedroom. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) highlighted to me the case of her constituents, Mr and Mrs Wilkes, who have been particularly harshly hit by this measure.

There is no protection if someone needs extra space for equipment or because they have had their home adapted, as was the case for the Rutherford family who were required to install a hoist, wider doors and a wet room for their 13-year-old son, Warren, yet are not protected from the bedroom tax. Mr Randall from Basildon has been told by his council that it will not move him to a smaller property as it has not been and cannot be adapted, yet he is being hit by the bedroom tax in his current property on which adaptations have been made.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a very good case. As I understand it, the Government have two arguments, the first of which is that the policy will relieve overcrowding. When larger properties are freed up in my constituency, they are sold on the open market. If families move into private rented accommodation, that costs five times as much as social housing. Neither argument works.

[Kate Green]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Let us remember that disabled people’s options are more limited. A number of hon. Members have said that people should work, or work a few more hours a week. Often for disabled people it is particularly difficult to work or to do extra hours, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) pointed out, that is a particular challenge for carers. One point that I do not think has been made, but which is extremely concerning for disabled people, is that many local authorities are treating disability living allowance as income when calculating someone’s entitlement to discretionary housing payment. That is a disgrace. I have challenged the Minister on that before, but he has declined to take action to ensure that all local authorities of whatever political colour have clear guidance on how they should treat the DLA.

As colleagues have pointed out, the policy will not achieve the savings that have been expected and scored by the Government because of the extra cost of having to adapt, readapt or undo adaptations to homes and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) pointed out, because of the extra high cost of rent and therefore housing benefit in the private rented sector. There are the implications of higher levels of arrears and the extra cost of advising people in arrears, and of collecting and managing arrears. There is also, of course, the impact on the financial standing of housing associations. The policy is damaging their credit rating and cash flows, and makes it more difficult for them to undertake the new builds we desperately need.

As colleagues have said, we will see extra costs for local authorities, children’s services, the health service and so on, and we also highlighted the utter perversity of the fact that being in arrears means someone will not get another tenancy in a small property unless and until those arrears have been cleared. That is simply not possible for many families.

We were pleased—surprised, I think—to hear the Minister of State say at the beginning of the debate that if it turned out that the discretionary housing pot in a local authority was fully committed, more money would be made available. That was encouraging, and we would welcome his colleague repeating that commitment. Let us remember, however, that the discretionary housing payment is temporary, transitional and—as its name suggests—discretionary. In many cases, we have instances of local authorities denying people access to that pot of funding, and actively discouraging people from going to appeal.

The most cruel part of the policy is the lack of suitable alternative homes for people to move to. There is a lack of one-bedroom properties in certain parts of the country and, increasingly, three-bedroom properties are left lying empty. How can that be sensible? People are being forced to leave sheltered accommodation that, by definition, cannot be taken up by families who do not have the special needs or meet the criteria to live in those homes.

Hon. Members on both sides of the House have rightly said that the answer to the problem is to build more housing. I am proud that Labour has committed to building 1 million new homes—[Interruption.] Let me address Labour’s record on housing. Between 2000 and 2007, the Labour Government increased the number of additional net new homes in every single year. The Department for Communities and Local Government figures from last week prove that. The number of net new homes has declined in every year since 2007, including under this Government.

[Ian Swales]

rose—

[Kate Green]

I will not give way.

In 1997, when Labour returned to power, the Labour Government inherited an urgent priority to deal with the appalling quality of the housing stock. Our priority was to bring it up to decent standards. Of course, it would have been good to build more homes, but we had to bring existing homes up to a decent standard.

It is time to call a halt on the Government’s policy. A review in 2015 is too late. Labour will act as soon as it comes to power to abolish the policy, but I hope the Government commit to abolishing it now.

18:51

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Esther McVey)]

I welcome the opportunity to speak in this lively and, at times, loud debate. We have heard many speeches in the past five and a half hours and many issues have been raised. Labour Members have passed much speculation as certainty. They all called for the spare room subsidy to remain. There has been much passion—[Interruption]—and much shouting out like that. However, unfortunately, Labour Members have given us no answers—they have given not one single answer to the problems left by the previous Labour Government. Not one Labour Member confronted the nub of the problem or tackled the issues at hand, or addressed the many interdependent issues that have made the removal of the spare room subsidy necessary.

Let us therefore remind hon. Members of the complex mix and the delicate balance that we must get right, which we are doing. Some 400,000 people are in overcrowded accommodation, and nearly 2 million people—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There is too much noise in the Chamber. Members must not shout at the Minister. The Minister’s response to the debate must be heard.

[Esther McVey]

Just like I am being shouted down now, the voices of nearly 2 million people on waiting lists have been shouted down and, unfortunately, the 400,000 people in overcrowded accommodation are not being listened to.

We have two different legal systems within one—it does different things for people in the private rented sector and for people in the social rented sector. Opposition Members want to remove the reversal of the spare room subsidy, but I want to throw a question out there. If they retain the spare room subsidy, I believe a legal challenge is on the way from people in the private sector, who want the same policy to apply to them. If Labour reverses our policy, that is not tough on fiscal responsibility. Instead, Labour will spend yet more, which is typical Labour: spend more and increase benefits, and ignore the problem altogether.

Hon. Members have asked whether the policy was about saving money, getting the housing stock right or getting the right people into social houses. Actually, we must do all those things. That is why, as we are solving those problems, £4.5 billion will be put into new building, so we will have 170,000 new houses by 2015. A further £3.3 billion will mean we have another 65,000 houses by 2018.

The hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson) said that Members on each side of the House are different and she is quite right: those on the Opposition Benches deliver problems and those on the coalition Government Benches have to solve them. The hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) asked what the difference is between the Government side and the Opposition side of the House. The Opposition drove us into recession, never thinking about what they were spending and never living within their means. We are digging them out of that recession.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

What would the hon. Lady say to my constituents, Mr and Mrs Wilkes? Mrs Wilkes has a back problem and is disabled. Her husband cannot share a bed with her, much as he would like to, and has to stay in the second room. They are having to pay the bedroom tax. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Interventions must be brief. I think we got the gist and we are grateful to the hon. Lady.

[Esther McVey]

We have listened to all of those issues and trebled the discretionary housing payment. That is why people have a responsibility to help those people.

The Opposition’s figures—surprisingly—do not always stack up. We talked about how we are going to find new homes for different people and how we are going to support them to move into accommodation—all the things we should be doing. Yes, 660,000 people are affected by these changes, but only earlier today I spoke to one of the biggest online home swap companies. It has 320,000 accommodations for people to move to. By the way, it has only 6.7% market share, so we are easily able, should we be working in this way, to find houses for people to swap. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There is simply too much noise in the Chamber. It is not possible to hear what the Minister is saying. [Interruption.] Order. The Minister must and will be heard.

[Esther McVey]

I would like to raise the example of Susannah from south Yorkshire. She had had four children and did not necessarily want to move. In the end, she looked around for six months and moved. She said, “Actually, I wished I’d had that support earlier, because now I am in an area I prefer. I have downsized. I have a smaller house, which means that my cost of living is less. I am paying less on cleaning and less on heating, and I can live within my means.” I have a list of people like that. I ask Opposition Members to work with their local authorities and their constituents to help them downsize so they can live within their means. I know that living within one’s means is not something Opposition Members understand, but that is what we all have to do as a country.

[Sheila Gilmore]

At what point, when the costs of this policy outweigh the savings, will the Government admit that they have simply got it wrong?

[Esther McVey]

We are planning to save money and move people into the right houses, something the Labour Government failed to do. They left people in the wrong houses and never supported them, and lived beyond their means.

[Mr Alan Campbell (Tynemouth) (Lab)]

claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).

Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.

Question agreed to.

Question put accordingly (Standing Order No. 31(2)), That the original words stand part of the Question.

18:59

Division 126

Ayes: 226

---

Labour: 209
Scottish National Party: 6
Plaid Cymru: 3
Democratic Unionist Party: 2
Liberal Democrat: 2
Green Party: 1
Social Democratic & Labour Party: 1
Conservative: 1

Noes: 252

---

Conservative: 219
Liberal Democrat: 31
Independent: 1

Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 31(2), That the proposed words be there added.

19:14

Division 127

Ayes: 253

---

Conservative: 219
Liberal Democrat: 32
Independent: 1

Noes: 222

---

Labour: 206
Scottish National Party: 6
Plaid Cymru: 3
Democratic Unionist Party: 2
Liberal Democrat: 2
Green Party: 1
Social Democratic & Labour Party: 1

Madam Deputy Speaker declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to (Standing Order No. 31(2).

Resolved,

That this House notes the substantial structural deficit which was inherited from the previous Government and the need to get the nation’s finances back into shape; further notes the need to bring expenditure on housing benefit under control; further notes that the proposed reversal of this policy would cost the Exchequer around half a billion pounds a year; regrets any exaggeration and misrepresentation of the effects of the policy; recognises the inequality of allowing social tenants to receive benefit for a spare bedroom whilst denying this opportunity to private tenants; supports the Government’s action to deal with this unfairness whilst protecting vulnerable groups such as pensioners and providing substantial funding through Discretionary Housing Payments to local authorities to support other tenants who would otherwise be adversely affected; further notes the Government’s continuing commitment to monitor the effects of the policy and the use of Discretionary Housing Payments; and welcomes the potential beneficial impact of this policy on those living in overcrowded accommodation and the 2.1 million families on waiting lists.

[Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. This afternoon in the High Court, there has been a ruling that the charter of fundamental rights is part of domestic law, irrespective of the European Union (Amendment) Act 2008 and despite what was said at the time. What can be done to stop this coach and horses going through Acts of Parliament, invading our supremacy, and what can you and Mr Speaker do to defend this Parliament?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

The hon. Gentleman makes his point very well, as ever. However, as he knows, that is not a matter for the Chair.

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Is it not a matter for the Chair if the fundamental rights and liberties of this great House of Commons are damaged by a foreign court and we can do nothing about it?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I have just said that it is not a matter for the Chair. It may be a matter for debate at some other time, but it is not a matter for the Chair and that was therefore not further to the point of order.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Given that it was described by the judge in the case as a ruling of constitutional significance which cannot be underestimated, has a Minister offered any indication that they will come to make a statement about this very grave matter?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I have ruled that this is not a matter for the Chair. The hon. Gentleman knows that it is not a matter for the Chair. The point will undoubtedly be brought to this Chamber at another time.

Deferred Divisions

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 41A(3)),

That, at this day’s sitting, Standing Order No. 41A (Deferred divisions) shall not apply to the Motion in the name of Mr David Lidington relating to the EU and Ukraine.—(Mark Lancaster.)

Question agreed to.

Business without Debate

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

European Union Documents

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 119(11)),

The EU and Ukraine

That this House takes note of Unnumbered Explanatory Memorandum submitted by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, dated 9 October 2013, on a draft Council Decision on the signing, on behalf of the European Union, and provisional application of the Association Agreement between the European Union and its Member States and Ukraine, with the exception of the provisions relating to the treatment of third-country nationals legally employed as workers in the territory of the other party, a draft Council Decision on the signing, on behalf of the European Union, of the Association Agreement between the European Union and its Member States and Ukraine as regards the provisions relating to the treatment of third-country nationals legally employed as workers in the territory of the other party, a draft Council Decision on the conclusion of the Association Agreement between the European Union and its Member States and Ukraine, with the exception of the provisions relating to the treatment of third-country nationals legally employed as workers in the territory of the other party, and a draft Council Decision on the conclusion, on behalf of the European Union, of the Association Agreement between the European Union and its Member States and Ukraine as regards the provisions relating to the treatment of third-country nationals legally employed as workers in the territory of the other party; and supports the Government’s aim of using the Association Agreement between the EU, its Member States and Ukraine to embed sustainable reform, security and prosperity in Ukraine and the eastern neighbourhood.—(Mark Lancaster.)

Question agreed to.

Petitions

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

19:26

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, and on behalf of my constituents Sam Morris and Mr T. Murugadas and 357 other residents of Ealing North, I wish to present a petition concerning the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting due to be held next week in Sri Lanka.

The petition states:

The Humble Petition of residents of the Ealing North Constituency,

Sheweth,

That the island of Sri Lanka is still experiencing the after effects of the recent war.

Wherefore your Petitioners pray that your Honourable House formally state their opinion that this country should not be represented at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting while so many issues are unresolved and so many people are still displaced as a result of this conflict.

And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, &c.

[P001284]

19:28

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

I have a petition signed by 1,000 or so constituents who are concerned that land given to Stoke-on-Trent city council by the Highways Agency to compensate for public open space taken by the A50 when it was built is now under threat. The land, near Astro grove and Power grove in Longton, has become a wildlife sanctuary but, sadly, the local authority is unwilling to rule it out for possible future development.

The petition states:

The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons ensures that this land is not to be sold for any development, and is only to be kept and maintained for leisure purposes, in line with the requirements of the Public Open Space order.

Following is the full text of the petition;

[The Petition of residents of Stoke-on-Trent,

Declares that land transferred to Stoke-on-Trent City Council by the Highways Agency in 1997, to compensate for the loss of public space from the construction of the A50 road, should retain its intended usage and function as a public space. The land in question, near to Astro Grove, in Longton, Stoke-on-Trent, exists as a Public Open Space (POS) and thus restrictions are in place to limit its usage and to prevent development on the site. Stoke-on-Trent City Council has also received funding to carry out appropriate landscape treatment on this site in order to retain its function.

The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons ensures that this land is not to be sold for any development, and is only to be kept and maintained for leisure purposes, in line with the requirements of the Public Open Space order.

And the Petitioners remain, etc.]

[P001285]

19:30

[Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)]

I want to present to the House of Commons a petition from the residents of Barrowford, Lancashire.

The petition states:

The Petition of residents of Barrowford, Lancashire,

Declares that the petitioners believe the A682 next to Barrowford Primary School presents a danger to the safety of the children that attend the school and others who live nearby, as the road gets busy during the times that children are picked up and dropped off to go to school.

The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge Lancashire County Council to place a zebra crossing on the A682 near to Barrowford Primary School, perpendicular to Rushton Street and opposite the nearby Spar shop.

And the Petitioners remain, etc.

[P001288]

19:30

[Mr Brooks Newmark (Braintree) (Con)]

Solar photovoltaic farms are a blight on the English countryside, never more so than in the northern part of my constituency, where up to 300 acres of solar PV farms are being considered. I therefore present this petition on behalf of the residents of Foxearth and Liston, Belchamp Saint Paul and Belchamp Otten, and Pentlow parishes in the great and beautiful county of Essex.

The petition states:

The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Department of Energy and Climate Change to refuse all planning applications to build on sites where Solar PV farms will be developed.

Following is the full text of the petition:

[The Petition of residents of Foxearth and Liston, Belchamp Saint Pauls and Belchamp Otten, and Pentlow Parishes, Essex,

Declares that the Petitioners object to the siting of Solar PV farms because they will exceed the 50 megawatt limitation as set out in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 thus requiring consideration by the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change; further that these sites involve Grade II agricultural land which is within the top 21 per cent of agricultural land in the country and protected as such under the National Planning Policy Framework; further that the Department of Communities and Local Government issued in July 2013 planning guidance which referred to the requirements to consider technology and potential impacts on the local environment; further that there is an absence of locational need and a site search has not been fully carried out; further that the impact of the developments will be extensive and will include a two metre security fence on Greenfield land with significant consequences on the surrounding countryside; further that on two of the proposed sites a Grade I listed church and several Grade II listed houses will be overlooked; and further that the proposals are intended to last for 25 years but during that time they will effectively preclude agricultural use and will degrade the land and will impact upon the sites and surrounding areas.

The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Department of Energy and Climate Change to refuse all planning applications to build on sites where Solar PV farms will be developed.

And the Petitioners remain, etc.]

[P001290]

19:31

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

The petition calls on Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service to drop proposals to close our criminal courts, which would leave Dudley the largest town in the UK without a criminal court. The fact that 2,000 people have signed our petition in just a few weeks shows how strongly local people feel. I record my thanks to magistrates and former magistrates, including Colin Knipe, Chris Smith and Barbara Sykes, for their help and advice. Magistrates, victims, witnesses and others directly involved with the court tell me that closure would make it harder for local victims to testify, harder for local people to volunteer in court and harder for the press to deter crime by reporting on local cases. Local people want to see criminals held to account for the crimes they commit in Dudley.

The petition states:

The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons to urge the Ministry of Justice to stop criminal cases moving from Dudley Magistrates Court to criminal courts in Wolverhampton, Sandwell and Walsall.

Following is the full text of the petition:

[The Petition of residents of Dudley,

Declares that there are plans to move all criminal cases from Dudley Magistrates Court to courts in Wolverhampton, Sandwell and Walsall; further that the Petitioners believe justice should be seen to be done locally as it will be harder for local victims to testify, harder for local people to volunteer in court and harder for the press to deter crime by reporting on local cases; and further that moving the work of Dudley Magistrates Court may lead to current employees being made redundant or forced to move.

The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons to urge the Ministry of Justice to stop criminal cases moving from Dudley Magistrates Court to criminal courts in Wolverhampton, Sandwell and Walsall.

And the Petitioners remain, etc.]

[P001291]

19:33

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

May I say, Madam Deputy Speaker, what a pleasure it is to present my first petition under your watchful eye?

Last Friday, in the company of Councillor Baljit Singh and Councillor Deepak Bajaj, I met Linden primary school and nearby residents who were concerned about traffic calming measures outside the school. They presented me with a petition with 414 signatures urging the Department for Communities and Local Government, with Leicester city council, to implement a 20 mph speed limit.

The petition states:

The Petition of residents of the UK,

Declares that the proposed traffic calming measures on Headland Road in Leicester are vital in ensuring the safety of local school children at Linden Primary School.

The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Department for Communities and Local Government and Leicester City Council to implement the proposed measures, including the 20 mile per hour speed limit without delay and before the next designated review of traffic calming measures.

And the Petitioners remain, etc.

[P001292]

Hearing Loss in Adulthood

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Mark Lancaster.)

19:34

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

I am glad that we are debating an issue that affects all our constituencies, and I know that it is a matter of real concern to many Members in this House and in the other place.

I would like to begin by paying tribute to the work of the Ear Foundation, a cochlear implant support charity in my constituency. I was glad to secure the debate, and I hope that it will draw attention to the vital work it does to support adults and children with hearing loss.

One in six people in the UK experience hearing loss, and seven in 10 can expect to be affected by the time they reach their 70th birthday. That means that 10 million people live with hearing loss, and an ageing population means that that number will rise in the years ahead. To communicate is to be part of society. Losing one’s hearing is not just about the absence of sound—if not addressed, hearing loss can result in the loss of our social life, cutting us off from family, friends and work.

Deafness in adulthood is linked to depression, unemployment, poor mental and physical health and an increased risk of other conditions, including dementia. Hearing loss is a constant condition, and in most cases there is no cure. It is no exaggeration to say that it can destroy lives. People with hearing loss can find it difficult to negotiate everyday challenges in the workplace, on the bus, at the supermarket, or in the local doctor’s surgery, leading to isolation, exclusion and frustration.

Research carried out by Action on Hearing Loss has found that adults who lose their hearing are likely to withdraw from social activities. When they do take part, communication difficulties can result in feelings of loneliness. Hearing loss can also damage personal relationships. Many deaf people find it difficult to join in with family conversations and jokes. Couples say that they feel more distant from their friends, and partners of people with a hearing problem describe feelings of loneliness and frustration. Travelling on public transport becomes a challenge, and a platform alteration or a delayed connection can be a major problem if someone misses the announcement. That can leave deaf people feeling anxious and vulnerable when travelling, and worried about being stranded or lost. The debate among policy makers focuses mainly on quality-of-life issues, but failure to address hearing problems has implications for society as a whole.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I have sought the hon. Lady’s permission to intervene in the debate. In Northern Ireland, 300,000 adults experience deafness or tinnitus—a sixth of the population, which is similar to the rest of the United Kingdom. Does she agree that a UK-wide strategy—and perhaps the Minister would respond to this—would benefit the core of the community across the United Kingdom, especially people with deafness?

[Lilian Greenwood]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He is quite right: these are issues that affect the whole of society, and I hope that the Minister will respond positively to his suggestion.

A 2006 study estimated that unemployment resulting from hearing loss cost the UK economy £13 billion a year. Too many people are forced to resign, retire or face redundancy as a result of their disability. People with hearing impairment report that their employers often have a passive attitude, providing adjustments and support only when prompted, and a significant number face outright discrimination.

Of the 300,000 people of working age with severe hearing impairment, 20% report that they are unemployed and are seeking work. Another 10% report that they cannot seek work as a result of their condition. As the state pension age rises and more jobs depend on communication skills than was the case 20 or 30 years ago, that vulnerability to unemployment is a growing problem. It represents a worrying underuse of the economic capacity of the nation.

Despite the scale and impact of hearing loss in the UK, adults with profound and severe hearing problems face major challenges when accessing health services. For many people, even seeing their GP can be a challenge, especially when surgeries rely on telephone booking systems and do not use visual display screens. One in seven respondents to an Action on Hearing Loss survey reported missing the call for their appointment while sitting in the waiting room. Poor deaf awareness among health professionals, such as not looking directly at a patient to allow for lip-reading, can lead to patients with hearing loss feeling unclear about the medical advice or information provided. According to the same survey, 28% of people with hearing loss have been unclear about a medical diagnosis and 19% have been unclear about their medication.

Diagnosis of hearing loss among adults is too often down to chance. Many are reluctant to seek help, and evidence suggests that people wait an average of 10 years before doing so. Stigma is a key factor in this delay in taking up hearing aids, which makes some people unwilling to tell others about their hearing loss. An Action on Hearing Loss report found that one element of stigma is the fear that deaf people are seen as less capable. A 2005 MORI poll of more than 20,000 people showed that one in five expressed concern about being treated differently.

Earlier diagnosis is essential to ensuring that people with hearing loss can access the support and services that can help them best manage their condition. A hearing screening programme for people aged 65 would help to overcome some of the barriers that prevent people from addressing their hearing loss. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd), who has led the Hearing Screening for Life campaign. Research by the consultancy London Economics suggests that such a programme would represent good value for money, so will the Minister consider establishing a pilot hearing screening programme?

There are approximately 4 million people with undiagnosed hearing loss in the UK who could benefit from hearing aids or, in a smaller number of cases, a cochlear implant. However, research suggests that GPs are often reluctant to refer patients for assessment or lack the knowledge to do so. Forty-five per cent. of patients presenting hearing loss symptoms are not referred, so something is clearly amiss. GPs’ lack of awareness of the impacts of deafness in general and a lack of knowledge of the benefits of cochlear implantation in particular give rise to concern. Greater education of GPs and audiologists on hearing technologies and the potential benefits of cochlear implantation for adult patients is therefore vital. I would be grateful if the Minister updated the House on the Government’s plans to ensure that training and updating on hearing technologies is provided consistently across the country.

Despite the obvious need, there is relatively little recognition of the impact of hearing loss or of the latest technologies that can improve hearing. We know that hearing aids improve adults’ health-related quality of life by reducing the psychological, social and emotional effects of hearing loss. For those who are severely or profoundly deaf, and for whom hearing aids offer little benefit, cochlear implants offer the chance of useful hearing.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way; she is being very gracious. One of the issues that have come to my attention as an elected representative is that hearing aids are sometimes thought of as a big thing attached to the ear, but thanks to the advance of technology hearing aids are very small now. Perhaps that means that cosmetically they are less noticeable, and people can have the implant and lead a normal life. Is that one of the things that the hon. Lady feels should happen?

[Lilian Greenwood]

My hon. Friend is right. There is a need to increase awareness of what a cochlear implant is, how it operates and even what it looks like.

Despite the digital revolution in the NHS, in which high-quality hearing aids are now routinely fitted, there remains an under-utilisation of implants for adults, notwithstanding comparable advances in implant technology. One person who has benefited is Abigail from Nottingham, who found her implant an enormous benefit to her life. She was born deaf and grew up wearing two hearing aids until her hearing deteriorated, and doctors told her that hearing aids were no longer of benefit to her. Following detailed and intensive assessment she was approved for an implant, and when this was switched on it gave her new-found confidence. It rebuilt her self-esteem, enabling her to communicate more comfortably with her husband, family, friends and colleagues. Having a cochlear implant has given her a new lease of life, without having to rely on others to help her with communication, such as by telephone. It has also helped her immensely at work, where she can now communicate with colleagues on an easier level. It has helped her gain promotion and do a job that she enjoys. The cochlear implant has enabled her to get on with life at home, at work and socially, and with her hobbies, including music. She also does volunteering work in the community.

A cochlear implant stimulates the hearing nerve by means of rapid electrical impulses, which bypass the non-functional inner ear in people who are severely or profoundly deaf. Sounds heard with a cochlear implant are not the same as those heard with a human ear, but with the right support a person with a cochlear implant can adapt to the novel signal and use their implant to understand speech and other sounds, much like normal listening. One cochlear implant recipient said:

“I feel that so much of my previous life and true self has been restored, regaining my pride and ability to contribute actively in society on an equal basis.”

The late Lord Ashley, who is remembered and was rightly held in extremely high regard by many in this place, was known to call his cochlear implant a miracle. Surely it is time that everyone who needs a cochlear implant had access to their own miracle. There are an estimated 100,000 people with profound hearing loss, and 360,000 with severe loss. Although it is difficult to determine the exact number of adults who need an implant, on any of the current measures of profound deafness the current level of provision for cochlear implantation would appear to be significantly below any predictions of need.

The Ear Foundation suggests that as few as 5% of adults who might be able to benefit from an implant are currently getting one, and the UK is fitting only half the number of implants in adults as Germany and Austria. Speaking at last month’s Westminster launch of the Ear Foundation report “Adult Cochlear Implantation”, Dr Andrew Dunlop, a GP who suffered sudden hearing loss himself, described his own experience of deafness, undergoing assessment and receiving a cochlear implant. He said:

“I was fortunate, that as a healthcare professional, I knew my way around the system and was not overwhelmed when dealing with fellow doctors, audiologists and consultants. Sadly, the story for less informed individuals is not quite the same. My return to Practice emphasized to me just how much of an iceberg of unmet need is within the community at large, with many very able individuals assuming wrongly that they have no options after optimal provision of hearing aids and seem reduced to a second class life of social isolation, loss of self-esteem and frequently unemployment.”

Today’s debate is my attempt to chip away at that iceberg.

The criteria for implants are set by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, with guidance last reviewed in 2011. However, the criteria are based on evidence from patients who were predominantly wearing technology from the late 1990s, and since then there have been significant advances in cochlear implant technology. Many clinicians would argue that the criteria do not reflect real world listening, and that more realistic tests should be deployed instead.

Since the last review, there have been supportive studies on the effectiveness of bilateral implants—one implant for each ear—which NICE believes provide too little benefit for adults to justify NHS funding. One patient who was refused implantation described the process as follows:

“The conditions they did the testing in were ideal. It was perfect but they made no allowance for the difficulties you get if somebody is talking from the side, or if there is any background noise…and of course under those circumstances you do very well and it makes no allowances for the problems you run into in real life.”

In addition, the use of sentence tests, rather than monosyllabic words, enables deafened adults to use their previous linguistic knowledge to complete the test, thus appearing to have hearing that is too good for cochlear implantation. Brian Lam and Sue Archbold, authors of the Ear Foundation report, conclude that there is an urgent need to look at the deployment of a wider range of tests. They also argue that testing in noise and assessment of performance with monosyllabic words would be more appropriate. This would reflect current practice in Germany, where criteria are more flexible.

A growing body of evidence indicates that bilateral implants provide added improvements in speech perception in noisy environments over unilateral implantation, and better sound localisation, leading to improved quality of life. The Ear Foundation has recommended that NICE review its current guidance on cochlear implantation, and in particular on the criteria for unilateral and bilateral implants for adults. Will the Minister look into this matter and consider asking NICE to conduct such a review? Does he agree that where a clinician believes that it is in the best interests of an individual patient, there should be some discretion in applying these guidelines?

Charities in the field have welcomed the Department of Health’s development of a national hearing loss action plan, but they are disappointed that it has been delayed by a year. I join those charities in urging the Government to prioritise its publication. Last month the noble Baroness Jolly stated in the other place that the Government aim to publish the action plan as soon as possible. I would be grateful if the Minister updated the House on when it will be published and how its implementation will be monitored. Has he assessed the suggestion of establishing a lead commissioner for audiology so that there is greater focus on good commissioning across all clinical commissioning groups?

The right hon. Member for Gordon (Sir Malcolm Bruce), who chairs the all-party group on deafness, last month challenged the Government, and any Government who come after them, no longer to leave deaf people behind. Today I echo those words. I hope that the Government can help move this issue, which affects all our constituencies, beyond debate and ensure that action is taken to address it.

19:50

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Norman Lamb)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Madam Deputy Speaker. I congratulate the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) on securing the debate and championing this cause. I will state at the start that I am very happy to maintain a dialogue with her on this, because she has made a powerful case and clearly a lot of progress could be made not only by the Government, but across the health and care system. I am happy to assist in that regard. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd), who has done a lot of work in championing this cause, as the hon. Lady mentioned, and the Ear Foundation for its work on this important issue.

The hon. Lady made a good case for why this is so important. She talked about the importance of basic communication and the fact that hearing loss can affect mental health as well as physical health and lead to withdrawal from social activities. She talked about the cost to society, the impact on employment and the fact that there is poor deaf awareness among health professionals and that better training is needed. I absolutely agree with her on all those points.

Over 10 million adults in England are living with hearing loss. Some of them will have been among the one in 700 babies in England born with hearing loss, but many will be among the growing number who develop a hearing impairment during their lifetimes. For some people that will be the sort of age-related hearing loss that many of us will experience as we grow older and that will become increasingly common because of our ageing population, but for many others hearing loss is acquired and should therefore be avoidable.

The World Health Organisation considers half of all cases of hearing loss to be preventable—for example, by immunisation, early treatment or reducing exposure to noise. In fact, it identifies exposure to excessive noise as the major avoidable cause of permanent hearing impairment worldwide. In developed countries, it is at least partially responsible for more than a third of all hearing impairments. As a result of the UK’s ageing population, the impact of working with noisy machinery and exposure to loud music and other loud noises, the World Health Organisation predicts that by 2030 there will be an estimated 14.5 million people in the UK with hearing loss, and adult-onset hearing loss will be among the UK’s top 10 disease burdens. That demonstrates the scale of the concern.

We have to take hearing loss seriously, which is why we are currently looking to develop the action plan on hearing loss, which the hon. Lady mentioned, so that we can achieve better outcomes for all those with hearing loss and related conditions. The action plan will identify key actions that will make a real difference in improving health and social care outcomes for children, young people and adults with hearing loss and generally improving the hearing health of the population.

The Department of Health is engaging with a range of organisations in developing this action plan, and as Baroness Jolly mentioned, we aim to publish it as soon as possible. I will get back to the hon. Lady with an indication of the likely publication day. It is time that we set a target date and then focused minds on getting it published.

[Jim Shannon]

We have a UK-wide diabetes strategy, and in my intervention on the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) I suggested a UK-wide strategy on deafness as well. Will the Minister consider that?

[Norman Lamb]

My responsibilities stretch only to England, but clear co-ordination and joint working with the devolved Administrations absolutely make sense on an issue that transcends borders, so I agree with the ambition that the hon. Gentleman sets.

This cannot just be about prevention because that is not always possible; it is also about dealing with the consequences of hearing loss. The Government are committed to delivering health outcomes that are among the best in the world for people with hearing loss. We are developing measures to identify those with hearing loss as early as possible, including the roll-out of a national hearing screening programme for newborn babies that enables the early identification of deafness, providing a clear care pathway for services and allowing parents to make informed choices on communication needs.

Today, however, we are focusing on adults with hearing loss. I realise that there is currently considerable interest on hearing loss screening for adults, which the hon. Lady mentioned. The UK National Screening Committee advises Ministers and the NHS in all four countries on all aspects of screening policy. Using research evidence, pilot programmes and economic evaluation, it assesses the evidence for programmes against a set of internationally recognised criteria. In 2009, the committee recommended that routine screening for adults’ hearing loss should not be offered because of a lack of evidence to warrant such a screening programme. However, as part of its three-year review policy cycle, the committee is reviewing the evidence for a national adult hearing screening programme. A public consultation will be held shortly and details will be available on the committee’s website. I encourage the Ear Foundation and many others to contribute to that consultation.

We welcome the recent report by the Ear Foundation, which clearly sets out the benefits of cochlear implants for children and adults. Abigail’s story, as told by the hon. Lady, demonstrates what a massive impact that can have on an individual’s life. It completely transformed her life, and no doubt that experience is repeated very many times around the country. The report will be of enormous use to NICE if it decides to update the technology appraisal that it published in 2009. I encourage the Ear Foundation to engage with NICE. I am sure that it is already in touch, but it is very important for it to provide any emerging evidence to NICE to help it to update, if necessary, the guidance provided on implants.

A large number of services are already commissioned for people with hearing loss, and a number of specialist centres in England provide implants for children and adults. It is important that GPs understand the criteria for referral, as well as the obvious benefits of this technology for people with hearing loss. That touches on the hon. Lady’s point about the importance of health professionals, whether GPs or anyone else in the health system, gaining a better understanding of the potential for this technology. There have been considerable improvements to services for people with hearing loss in recent years, including reduced waits for assessment and treatment to within 18 weeks—a significant advance.

[Lilian Greenwood]

I thank the Minister for his positive response to the questions that I posed. What will he personally do to ensure that such training and updating on hearing technologies by health professionals and GPs takes place?

[Norman Lamb]

I do not want to give a bland answer, but I take this issue very seriously. I have noted what the hon. Lady has said. Health Education England is responsible for the training of health professionals. I will pursue the hon. Lady’s point and would be very happy to report back to her.

There is now a greater choice of hearing aid services through independent high street providers—which are easily accessible for members of the public—and the new any-qualified-provider commissioning model offers even greater choice and convenience.

We have also asked NICE to produce clinical guidelines and related quality standards for the assessment and management of adult-onset hearing loss and guidelines for the assessment and management of tinnitus, which the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) has referred to in the context of Northern Ireland. Those guidelines will be scheduled into NICE’s development programme over the coming months.

Enabling those with hearing loss to have the same opportunities and to live as independently as everyone else is essential. It is therefore vital that public services are geared up to help and support them. Public authorities, including health and social care bodies, are required by the Equality Act 2010 to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people, to ensure that they can use a service as close as is reasonably possible to the standard usually offered to everyone else. The Department of Health has agreed to explore with its partners what more can be done to accommodate the communication needs of disabled service users.

Work is going on across the Government to support the needs of people with hearing loss. The Department for Transport’s Access for All programme has delivered access improvements at 1,100 stations since 2006, including induction loops at ticket offices and help points on platforms. The hon. Member for Nottingham South mentioned the specific problems that people face when travelling and the anxiety caused by worrying about not hearing an announcement. There will be facilities on platforms for deaf users and systems that show train information on LED display screens. Last year, a further £100 million was announced to extend the programme until 2019.

Courthouses have been provided with hearing loops since December 2012. In policing, police link officers for deaf or hard-of-hearing people use and are qualified in British sign language and work with the community to raise awareness of how to access the police. Staff in Derbyshire have passed level 1 of their training with Action on Hearing Loss, and they accepted an Action on Hearing Loss charter mark, “Louder than Words”, recognising the efforts they have made to communicate more effectively with deaf people. I pay tribute to those parts of the public sector that have made the effort to improve the way in which they communicate. Far more needs to be done, but they are the exemplars that others should follow. For those who do not use BSL, text relay, which enables deaf and hard-of-hearing people to text the police, is in place in most emergency call centres.

I hope that those examples give a flavour of some of the work that is being done across the public sector and confirm the Government’s continued commitment not only to preventing, but to treating hearing loss and promoting and protecting those affected.

[Lilian Greenwood]

Will the Minister give way?

[Norman Lamb]

The hon. Lady is just in time.

[Lilian Greenwood]

Before the Minister concludes his speech, will he address my specific suggestion to establish a lead commissioner for audiology, to ensure that there is a focus on good commissioning across the health service?

[Norman Lamb]

I will discuss that suggestion with NHS England, because that is its responsibility under the new design of the health system.

Let me end by congratulating the hon. Lady again on raising this really important issue, and I repeat that I am happy to engage with her to try to make progress.

Question put and agreed to.

20:03

House adjourned.