Housing Benefit (Transitional Provisions) (Amendment) Regulations 2014

Debate between Lord Touhig and Lord Taylor of Goss Moor

Thursday 3rd April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Touhig (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Sherlock for securing this debate. Of all the Government’s reforms to welfare, it is hard to find another more cruel, more callous and more mean-spirited than the bedroom tax. The policy was dreamt up by people who have no need for housing benefit themselves and probably do not even know anybody who depends on it. While it may make sense in theory, in practice it is having a devastating effect on the lives of vulnerable people. Additionally, the very ideas and theory behind the policy are, I believe, wicked and wrong. Ministers have stressed that the policy is designed to fix a broken system of housing benefit and encourage behavioural change among recipients of housing benefit. This is sheer nonsense. The system is broken, though not because of the behaviour of those who use it; the cause is the housing stock itself. In England, there are 180,000 tenants underoccupying two-bedroom homes but only 85,000 smaller homes available.

The Catholic charity Caritas Diocese of Salford has been working with Michelle. She has three children and lives in a three-bedroom home. Originally she cared for her brother, who has now moved into supported accommodation. Her 13 year-old daughter now uses the so-called spare room. Michelle is trying for a home swap, looking for a two-bedroom home, but nothing is available. The £12 she loses each week means that she now regularly resorts to food banks. This is the reality of the bedroom tax. The only economy left for families to make is on food. When that cannot be done, they have to resort to food banks. In Merseyside, social landlords have referred 553 tenants to food banks.

The cost of the bedroom tax is horrific, but the attitude that it displays towards social housing is also wrong. No longer can people regard where they live as their homes. Housing benefit and social housing appear to be something that the Government begrudgingly provide. My local newspaper, the South Wales Argus, recently reported the story of Kevin Reeve, who has occupied the family home for 50 years and cared for his mother and father, who have both now sadly passed away. He is now underoccupying, losing between £35 and £45 a month and has been forced into trying to move.

The local housing association, Bron Afon, has catalogued the effects of this tax on the local community. It discovered that one person affected is a former solider suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. He lives with his daughter, who is hoping to go to university. They already underoccupy by one room. They are already cutting down on heating their home and eating. His daughter is now questioning whether she should go to university. He is resigned to trying to move. His current home is the one in which he raised his children, the home that he shared with his wife, who, sadly, has now died. He is proud of that home, and we should be proud of him, a veteran who has served our country. Is this the way we repay our servicemen?

The bedroom tax is another example of the chaos, confusion and poor implementation of chronically ill conceived policies by the Department for Work and Pensions. It is clear that this policy is unjustly penalising vulnerable people for something beyond their control. It is causing immense hardship and devastating people’s lives. It shows complete callousness towards those who rely on housing benefit. Many good people who rely on housing benefit feel that they live not in prosperity Britain but in poverty Britain, thanks to this Conservative and Liberal Democrat Government. Those responsible for this policy should hang their heads in shame.

[Lord Taylor of Goss Moor (LD)]

My Lords, I should first declare my interest as chair of the National Housing Federation, which represents the housing associations across England.

I will speak briefly, on a personal basis, to say that I cannot support the Government’s policy on this. I believe it was misjudged in the first place and we are rapidly seeing the proof in the pudding. I cannot support something that deprives people of money that, by any standards, they need—the Government do not give people more in benefit than they need to live on—when they have no option to move somewhere else because of the shortage of smaller homes. That is quite apart from the fact that to describe these rooms as surplus to need is in many cases simply wrong, and even if they are surplus today, they are often not surplus tomorrow. Therefore, for example, a family with young children will have to have those children live in a room together, but after a year they might need to live apart.

This simply does not make sense. I very much regret that the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Best, on this, were not passed, because that would have secured the Government some of what they wished but given a much fairer deal to individuals; for example by not removing the money if a reasonable alternative has not been offered to them.

However, the most fundamental reason—the proof of the pudding—is that this is not a saving to government any more than it frees up rooms. That is because of the huge cost to housing associations of having to work with individuals to help them, and the cost of the work and the money that the Government have had to put in to support individuals. It has removed capacity from the social housing sector to provide more homes. All of the money lost—and, frankly, the arrears that are being built up—will never be gained back from people who have no ability to pay it. That simply undermines the capacity to solve the very housing problem which the policy was theoretically meant to address but has failed to do.

Although my instincts are those of a team player, and my track record over a substantial period of time shows that to be the case, this is not something on which I can support my noble friends.