Housing Benefit (Amendment) Regulations 2012

Debate between Lord Best and Baroness Turner of Camden

Monday 15th October 2012 Grand Committee

[Baroness Turner of Camden]

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s analysis of these regulations. As the Minister said, we have already debated this issue in detail when we discussed the Welfare Reform Bill and many of us voiced our objections at that time. Nevertheless, I still oppose what is proposed in the regulations because it seems to me that, when they are implemented, very vulnerable people may be placed at an enormous disadvantage.

There are particular problems in certain areas. I am particularly concerned about the area of London in which I live. At one time there was a fair amount of reasonably priced property available in that area. However, that is no longer the case. As soon as a large house becomes available, developers move in and turn it into flats. Houses that once housed two or three families are now filled with masses of people living in the same block. It is all enormously charged for. A number of people are making an enormous amount of money. I am told that a small two-bedroom flat in the area in which I now live would cost £500 a week. When you remember that the median rate for employment in London is £26,000 a year, how do people on those rates afford that kind of rent?

I know that the regulations will not take account of the local rents only. On the other hand, the fact that these kinds of development are going on in large parts of London and people are making quite a lot of money out of them means that the amount of housing available at reasonable rents has decreased because the developers move in and make a lot of money. As a result, there is a shortage of the kind of housing that would normally be available for people on much lower incomes.

The problem is that people now in receipt of benefit may find that they are underoccupying—that they do not need two bedrooms and so on—and they may have to move. If people have to move, that is a great disadvantage for them. In particular, it is a disadvantage for disabled people, who usually have some support mechanisms in the area in which they live—they may belong to groups that look after their needs and so on. To have to move is a great disadvantage to them. It is a great disadvantage to them if they want to work, and some of them do want to work. The Government are already closing the Remploy factories in which some of them could work. If they have to move, there is nowhere for them to obtain suitable employment. That is a great disadvantage.

For all these reasons, I believe that the regulations before us this afternoon are to the disadvantage of numbers of people whom we ought to protect. My noble friend has already indicated that in some detail and I do not want to repeat it, but I emphasise that I am not at all happy about these regulations. I am not the only one—so are many people and so are the organisations particularly concerned with disabled people, which have already made representations to us on these grounds.

[Lord Best]

My Lords, the Minister is well aware of my disquiet, and I am unlikely to be satisfied in relation, in particular, to underoccupancy—the bedroom tax. I know that he has made some important efforts and I think that he is going to be able to be reassuring on one or two points that noble Lords have raised. I am sure that we will hear that full-time students will not have to lose their bedroom and regain it by a convoluted process while they are away at university. Also, I think that we now have a date when it will be the case that taking in a lodger will not mean that benefit will be cut by the amount received in rent, which will be helpful to some people. These measures are not going to change the world, but they are good things to do and I am grateful to the Minister for putting them in place. There may be more.

I want to talk about discretionary housing payments, which are the way out when you can see that a situation is quite untenable and any reasonable person would say, “Of course, in that particular case, this whole business is a complete nonsense and we must allow those people to stay where they are”. I am now getting the kind of letters that hundreds of MPs are going to get when this really big change gradually dawns on the world outside. I shall read to the Committee from a letter and will give the kind of reply that I would like to be able to give and explain the difficulties I have in giving it.

There is a woman in a relatively rural area of Norfolk who lives with her husband. They are not of pension age. He is a bit disabled. She looks after him, and she also looks after her elderly mother in the village. She sees her mother in the morning, at lunchtime and in the evening. She does a great job with her 81 year-old mother. She is in a three-bedroom council house. They have been there for 23 years and have brought up their children, who have gone. She uses two bedrooms because she and her husband do not sleep in the same bedroom. She will be paying another £25 a week because she is deemed to have two empty bedrooms.

The council has said that it has some one-bedroom flats in the nearest town, which is 16 miles away, that it may be able to move her into, but not now because the one-bedroom flats in the town are rather precious. Later, it might be able to move her in, but in the mean time, she will have to stay where she is. She says, “I can’t afford the extra £25 a week bedroom tax. What am I to do?”. In my letter back to her, I should like to say that there are things called discretionary housing payments. I am hinting at it but what hope can one give to people in such circumstances? It would clearly be completely foolish to move her out, although she cannot afford to stay; she cannot afford the extra £25 a week. However, moving her 16 miles away would mean that her mother had to be looked after by social services at considerable cost and her husband will not be properly housed—it is a nonsense. I should like to be able to say that the local authority should have the opportunity, where anyone can see that it would be sensible, to fill that gap and pay the bedroom tax, enabling her to stay where she is.

We know about discretionary housing payments that take care of some of the local housing allowance and the private rented sector. We know about the sums that relate to the total benefit that people can get from the universal credit—the £500 limit. We know about these other aspects of using discretionary housing payments. However, I cannot find anywhere any money for discretionary housing payments to pay the bedroom tax, except in respect of two special categories. These are thoroughly commendable, although I was startled to hear that the money was taken from the rest of the bedroom tax payers.

There are two kinds of special case. One covers adapted properties that have been physically changed for the people who live there. It would be a nonsense to move them out because there is a spare bedroom. It would cost everyone an arm and a leg. The other exception is a case where there are foster children. They do not count as part of the family but, obviously, they must have a bedroom. There is £30 million a year, which will continue indefinitely, for those two exceptions. That is great but they are very restricted categories. My middle-aged couple in Norfolk would not fall into either group.

I am afraid that noble Lords and, in particular, Members of the other place will all get such e-mails and letters, so they should be prepared. I had another letter from someone with two daughters, one aged 11 and one aged 13. One daughter is severely disabled. She needs a very large bed and, therefore, her own bedroom. However, the two girls are expected to share because they are aged under 15 and are therefore underoccupying by having two bedrooms. That will cost the family £14 a week from their disability allowance. They do not have £14 a week; they have great difficulty in getting by on what they do have. Everyone says that they must stay where they are. This is where a discretionary housing payment could come in. However, as I read the numbers I can see nothing. What does the Member of Parliament say in replying to his constituent?

I hope that the Minister has up his sleeve the opportunity to put in place more discretionary housing payments to get us through what I suspect will be rather a large number of cases in which anyone would agree that it would be best to let people stay put. I do not think it requires more legislation. We will not get the results of the very important, thoroughgoing research—I have congratulated the Minister on it—until some way down the line. Then we will see how things are working out. If it is not already the case, I advise the Minister to talk to his Treasury colleagues and provide a bit more discretion for local authorities to pick up cases that otherwise will just be hopeless. I have no idea how we and the people concerned will be able to cope.