Welfare Reform Bill

Baroness Turner of Camden Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord McAvoy]

My Lords, I want to put a couple of points to the Minister on a particular aspect of the availability of suitable accommodation. I will describe the city of Glasgow because it is the biggest city I know. I stay adjacent to it and I know quite a bit about the different types of housing there. Some is council accommodation. My noble friend Lady Hollis of Heigham has indicated that size is important and that people can be in a small room that is classed as a room. Glasgow has what are called three-stairs-up tenements, which are usually in red or grey sandstone tenement blocks. The rooms are smaller in the likes of Dennistoun, Townhead and some older parts of the city centre, but massive in the likes of Shawlands, King’s Park and Langside. If someone was “forced” to move from a small two-bedroom flat in Dennistoun to King’s Park or Shawlands, they would be dancing up the stairs, because it would be a vast improvement on the living space that they had had. They would soon get a sofa bed in the living room.

I am leading up to the fact that this is a very difficult situation and I really do not know how this can be done. Has any assessment been made to address the main thrust of my noble friend’s amendment, which deals with the fact that the size of rooms is just as important as the number of rooms? As I say, it would baffle me, but there are highly paid people working for the Government who should at least be able to test this. My question is therefore: has some consideration been given to assessing the size of rooms compared with the number of rooms in individual cases?

[Baroness Turner of Camden]

My Lords, I support the amendment, which was so comprehensively moved by my noble friend Lady Hollis. One of the concerns of the organisations that have written about the Government’s proposals relates to the plan to reduce housing benefit for working-age tenants who are allegedly underoccupying social homes. From 2013, some 670,000 social housing tenants receiving housing benefit could lose an average of £676 a year, because under the new rules their homes could be deemed too large for their needs. The cuts could force them to choose between moving away, and thus leaving any local support networks or supportive neighbours, or going into debt. This could be particularly difficult for disabled claimants, many of whom could have had their homes adapted to deal with their disability. A spare bedroom may be necessary should family members visit or if the aid of a carer is required. There may well be no similar accommodation available in the locality. Some of the amendments before the Committee attempt to deal with these problems.