Universal Credit

Debate between Lord Sharma and John Redwood

Monday 14th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for welcoming the changes that have been announced. She has referred to the Secretary of State. As the hon. Lady will know, the statement about the changes was made in my name, and the regulations were laid in my name. It is therefore entirely appropriate that I should come here and, quite rightly, answer questions asked by colleagues.

The hon. Lady talked about the non-consensual conception clause. Of course I agree with her that women who find themselves in such utterly awful circumstances must be given the help that they need, and that that must be done in the most compassionate way possible. We have discussed the point before, and she knows that it is purely a question of whether the circumstances that are described are consistent with those of someone who has met the criteria for the exception. The individuals who are dealing with this are third-party professionals who already have experience of supporting vulnerable women.

As I have said, we will consider Friday’s court judgment and respond to it.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I welcome the emphasis on helping people into work, and the idea that the implementation of the policy should be compassionate. With that in mind, may I ask whether there will be changes in the timing of benefit so that those who are most in need of it receive it earlier, and whether there will be a review of the housing element, which has sometimes caused trouble as well?

[Alok Sharma]

My right hon. Friend is, of course, right: throughout this process, we must provide support for the vulnerable in particular. As he will know, once universal credit is fully rolled out, there will be over £2 billion more in the welfare system than there is under the current legacy benefits. One of the changes made in the Budget was the uplifting of work allowances, which will help young parents and also the disabled.

Regulation of Property Agents

Debate between Lord Sharma and John Redwood

1st reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 18th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

I have not said this before, but I have enormous respect for the right hon. Gentleman. However, I am extremely sorry that he started his response to the statement with such rancour. There are 4.5 million households renting in the private sector. For them, this absolutely matters—it really does—so I hope he will reflect on how he started his contribution and on the fact that perhaps what we ought to be doing is working together on making this happen. He says we should do it. Of course, and that is precisely what we are doing, but I say respectfully that he was the Housing Minister—why did he not do it?

Let me talk about fixing the broken housing market. The right hon. Gentleman said that we are tinkering. We are not tinkering. He will have seen the work that has been done since the White Paper was published and he knows the announcements that have been made. I recommend to him that, instead of talking to his colleagues in the Labour party, he talks to the social housing sector to ask what it makes of the announcements made at the Conservative party conference—the £2 billion extra and CPI plus 1%. It will tell him that those announcements were a sea change.

I also say to the right hon. Gentleman that, in the work that we are doing, there is finally some joined-up thinking in Government. We have already announced—I am pleased he welcomes this—the ban on tenant fees from letting agents. We will publish the draft Bill very shortly, together with the consultation. He knows that, when it comes to rogue landlords, it has been possible since April to levy civil penalties of up to £30,000, and we are also looking at banning orders. A range of work is ongoing.

The right hon. Gentleman will also know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made an announcement a few weeks ago on measures to help the private rented sector with landlords being required to be part of a redress scheme and housing courts being consulted on incentives to landlords for longer tenancies. We are doing a huge amount of work.

The right hon. Gentleman raised a couple of other points. He asked by how much leaseholders will benefit. He has seen the figures I talked about: £3.5 billion is charged, and some experts say £1.4 billion is overcharging, so if he does the maths he might be able to work it out for himself.

The right hon. Gentleman knows that we have just concluded a consultation on leasehold. I pay tribute to the all-party parliamentary group on leasehold and commonhold reform for all the fantastic work it has done. We have had 6,000 responses—a record—to this consultation, and we agree with him that this is an area that needs fixing, but I hope he will reflect and welcome what we are doing with this call for evidence.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that competition and choice are the best ways to drive standards up and prices down? Will they inform his work to empower tenants and to make the market function better?

[Alok Sharma]

My right hon. Friend is right. Of course competition is important, but we also need to ensure that there is the appropriate regulation in place to give fairness in the system for those who are renting privately. That is precisely what we are doing with a raft of measures, which I have already outlined, and this call for evidence.