Housing Benefit (Abolition of Social Sector Size Criteria)

Baroness Primarolo Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

Before I call Rachel Reeves to move the motion, I can inform the House that the Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.

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[Several hon. Members]

rose—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

Have you got something to say, Mr de Bois? [Interruption.] No, you have not.

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

I will have plenty to say later.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

In that case, you should stand up and indicate at the normal time, rather than shouting from a sedentary position.

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[Mr Harper]

If one is going to lay out a case for the House, one should share all of it. Trading individual cases and trying to politicise them is not the right thing to do; we should discuss the policy. I could cite a number of cases where the spare room subsidy has led to a positive position for someone’s housing, but that is not a very sensible way of proceeding. If one is going to lay out a case, one should lay it out in full and not mislead the House. [Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. The rest of the House might not want to listen to the Minister, but I do. If he is going to give way to a Member, he will indicate that to them. Members on both sides of the House should just chill out a little bit. Let us hear what the Minister has to say.

[Mr Harper]

I am very keen to give way during the debate, but I am also conscious of the fact that quite a number of Members wish to speak.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. I have just been prompted about something that I did not hear because of the row. Apparently the Minister said something about misleading the House. Did he accuse the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) of misleading the House? Will he confirm that he did not say that?

[Mr Harper]

I am very happy to confirm that I do not think that I said it, but if I did, then it is not what I meant to say. I was very clear that the hon. Lady was telling half a story and was not giving the House all the facts on which to make a balanced judgment.

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[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. Nineteen hon. Members wish to take part in the debate, and we have to reach the wind-ups by 4 o’clock. I am going to start with a time limit of five minutes for each Back Bencher, but if there are a lot of interventions it will be necessary for that to be reduced.

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[Kwasi Kwarteng]

We have established that there is a supply problem, but what we must agree on—and the general public agree—is that reform in this crucial area was needed. Neither of the interventions that I have taken addressed the fact that there is massive overcrowding, and that a quarter of a million families are living in accommodation that is physically too small for them.

In such a situation, surely it is common sense to try to equalise and rationalise the supply. [Interruption.] It is all very well for Labour Members to shake their heads and deny there is a problem, but at least the Government have had the courage to try to address the issue. They are doing so not by applying radical new ideas, but by doing what Labour did in government when they introduced a change to private sector rental agreements. It is time for the Labour party to wise up and get real—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. This afternoon’s debate is following a sort of pattern where the Opposition shout at the Government, the Government shout at the Opposition, and then both sides complain that there has not been a proper debate. I hope that Members who continue to shout across the Chamber will resist the urge to do so and listen to the debate.

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[Andrew George]

I think that is slightly outwith the focus of the debate. Nevertheless, I of course acknowledge the merit of what the hon. Gentleman suggests.

The Conservatives have form when it comes to spending public money on the under-occupancy of residential property. After all, the last time they were in government on their own they introduced a council tax discount for second homes. Hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money was spent every year subsidising the wealthy to have their second homes, when there were thousands of local families who could not afford their first home. That defines the Conservatives’ approach: they reward the wealthy when they under-occupy their second home and they penalise the poor when they under-occupy their council home.

The Conservatives claim that the purpose of the under- occupancy penalty is to save money by cutting benefit where the recipient occupies a property that is larger than they need, and to ensure the efficient use of a scarce public resource—social housing. Those two objectives, however, contradict each other. If the second objective—the effective use of public resource—were achieved and every last cubic centimetre of every council house was fully occupied, it would fail to meet their first objective of saving money.

I have a problem with the Labour party’s motion, partly because it deals only with the social sector, which is odd. If Labour had applied it to the private rented sector, I might have considered voting for it. Above all, I am concerned to deal with this issue seriously. We can either play party politics and come up with the kind of motion the Labour party has come up with today, or we can use the vehicle that is available, the Affordable Homes Bill. Although my amendment has not been accepted for debate, we should still be working together to seek political consensus to help the victims of this policy, instead of using them to score party political points, and that could be done with the money resolution necessary to advance my Bill. The Minister asked how we would pay for it. We could pay for it by driving down rents, rather than driving people out on to the streets. On the money resolution, I am afraid—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. Will the hon. Gentleman stop talking about the money resolution and get on with it?

[Andrew George]

The money resolution concerns my Affordable Homes Bill, which would address this issue, were we to solve the problem with the money resolution.

In conclusion, we should be seeking consensus, rather than scoring party political points.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. I am now reducing the time limit to four minutes, and there is a serious danger that some Members will not get to speak even with a four-minute time limit if we do not start making better progress.