Housing Benefit (Amendment) Regulations 2012

Lord German Excerpts

Tuesday 6th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord German]

My Lords, I apologise to your Lordships’ House for missing the first few minutes of this debate. I was involved in another debate in the Moses Room at the time and it was difficult to shift sufficiently speedily between that Room and the Chamber.

I can well understand why many noble Lords want to reprise our lengthy debates on the Welfare Reform Bill. I also understand why people still have major concerns in this area. I do not think that any noble Lord present would say that these changes will be easy to accommodate. Difficult decisions will have to be made. As we all know, the changes are intended to relieve some of the strain on the housing benefit budget. However, the only fair element is that the benefit we are discussing will be brought into line with the local housing allowance.

Some noble Lords share my concern about the future of housebuilding. As the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Leigh, said, the previous Government did not meet housing demand. I only hope that the present Government will be able to build extremely quickly the number of houses that are needed to cope with society’s demand for them. We await action as regards achieving the number of houses that are needed.

There are two major concerns about the way these regulations will be implemented. The first is the ability of the housing stock to adapt and provide accommodation of the size needed in each area in order to allow those who wish to move to a different sized property to do so. The second issue relates to the changes affecting specific groups of people. I would like to ask some questions in relation to both those issues. I preface my remarks with mention of behavioural change. I have heard it said frequently in your Lordships’ House and in Committee that people’s behaviour in this area is of the worst kind. However, people do not always behave in a way that leads to the worst outcome for them. Some people behave differently.

There are two key issues I would like to ask questions about. My first question to my noble friend is: what assessment has the Department for Work and Pensions made, given the contact it now has had with people who will be affected by this measure, about the likely outcomes and the directions people will take as a result of what is happening? There undoubtedly will be, of course, some people who will wish to move. The issue then is the ability of the housing stock to be adapted very swiftly. Can my noble friend tell us what discussions there have been with housing associations, local authorities and private landlords to see whether adaptations can be made for people to move, probably into smaller properties, where house building has moved onto larger properties? Where are we in readiness for the sort of behavioural changes? I hope my noble friend the Minister can tell us.

I also wanted to ask about the £30 million of DHP—the £25 million for adapted properties and the £5 million for foster carers. This was an issue we pursued at some length during the course of the passage of the Welfare Reform Act. This was a very welcome area but I would like to really understand the Government’s dynamic on adapted properties. Will £25 million be provided over a longer period and what assessment has been made of the need for that length of time? Will £25 million be sufficient to cope with what it is thought will be the behavioural arrangements for people who live in adapted property where it would make no sense whatever for them to be moved on?

The second area I would like to investigate is rurality and rural housing, mentioned by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich. Having spent some considerable time as an elected Member trying to get more social housing into rural communities, I do not underestimate the difficulties there have been in building social housing in rural communities. It is very much more difficult if people want to move to have to move away from a rural community into a quite different environment altogether. What estimate has my noble friend the Minister made of the demand and the pressures there will be on rural housing? Has he taken into account the community shift that would have to take place given the shortage of accommodation in rural areas and often the very high price of private sector rented accommodation there?

I also want to examine the issue of redesignation of properties. This is also one of the approaches that some housing associations are looking at. For example is a bedroom really a study or is a partition wall not really a partition wall? Have there been any discussions with housing associations and social landlords about the role and about designation, and about who has the authority to redesignate housing in this area? There is undoubtedly some scope for action for here. There is no national register of what is a room size. It would very difficult and probably a bureaucratic nightmare to try to create such a reference document. However, is it possible to look at the way in which housing associations can define their property differently where the circumstances provide and who would have the authority to undertake the redesignation, which may take some of the pressure off the ability to find appropriate housing? I do not envy the job of the Government and my noble friend the Minister in undertaking this obviously difficult task and I would be grateful if he could give me some answers to those questions.

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, this has been a powerful debate and I will do my best to answer the questions. We dealt with an enormous number of questions in Grand Committee and so, rather than me going on for a very long time, I would like to suggest that I confine my responses to the new issues that I have not already dealt with and then leave my responses on the other matters that are on the record in Hansard.

The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, referred to the NAO report and to 2 million households receiving lower benefits. That assumes that claimants will not adjust their behaviour by doing the things that we are hoping they will do, such as taking on work, moving to more affordable or more appropriate accommodation, and so on. We are beginning to see evidence from local housing associations that with the change from 50% to 30% people are changing their behaviour.

As regards the point about the pressure on the supply of affordable housing, the early signs from the LHA are that there is no discernable impact on the levels of homelessness, which have remained steady. The housing benefit claims from people renting in the private rented sector are increasing, which suggests that people are able to find affordable accommodation.

The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, referred to the NAO report and to its observations on the monitoring of discretionary housing payments. We are currently considering the recommendations in the report and will look at how feasible it is to monitor the way that DHPs are used.

I have dealt with the point raised by the noble Lords, Lord McKenzie and Lord Smith, about movements. There are movements of people from underoccupied homes, presumably to smaller homes, which will allow larger families, if they are being supported in the private sector, to have cheaper accommodation and gain from making that exchange.

As regards the issue of room sizes, raised by the noble Lords, Lord McKenzie and Lord Best, and whether there should be an adjustment for single bedrooms, we wanted to keep the system simple and did not want to introduce something that might require landlords to go around measuring rooms. Indeed, the stakeholders, including the National Housing Federation, have welcomed that. It is therefore up to landlords and tenants to decide between them whether a property is appropriate for their needs.

When it comes to designation of what exactly constitutes a property, it is up to landlords to take that decision. They are unlikely to do that on a wholesale basis, but there will be individual properties where it makes sense for landlords to redesignate them as not being appropriate. There may be an individual property for which it is straightforward to do that. To be honest, we are not expecting there to be a massive effect, but there may be some instances of that.

The noble Baroness, Lady Turner, asked about temporary changes of circumstances. There are housing benefit rules to protect households from either temporary absence, such as going into hospital or being on remand, or where the death of a member of the household would result in the reduction of housing benefit. For example, housing benefit provides up to 12 months’ protection from rent restrictions if there is a bereavement in the family.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich asked about non-resident children. Where the tenant has non-resident children, housing benefit may already be paying for a room for the child or children in the place where they usually reside. It would be double provision potentially to fund an additional room in both parents’ properties.

The issue of rural impact was raised by the right reverend Prelate and my noble friend Lord German. The use of the percentage reduction, rather than a flat rate, means that the impact, because it is proportionate, is likely to be lower because rents are likely to be less in rural areas. On the specific question asked by my noble friend Lord German on the approximate amounts, roughly 10% of the impact is likely to be seen in rural areas.

As to my noble friend’s question on what evidence we have received so far, the responses by local authorities and housing associations indicate that there is a lot of activity—whether you are talking about the West Midlands making best use of a stock partnership that brings together seven local authorities and 11 housing associations in finding people the right number of bedrooms, speed dating in the London Borough of Southwark, or the Stockport homes initiative to look for joint tenancies. Indeed, Wigan Council, the council of the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Leigh, and Wigan CAB have developed Wigan Housing Solutions, which acts as a social lettings agency and is a natural progression from the existing bond-guarantee scheme. It is a bridge between the private and social sectors, with Wigan Housing Solutions helping to relieve pressure on the housing waiting list. There is a lot of activity.