Local Housing Allowance: Freeze

Baroness Teather Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, the starting point is that my department spends £38 billion a year on housing support. No other OECD country spends a greater proportion of its GDP on housing help. Around one-third of households in the private rented sector now get housing support from DWP. That costs over £13 billion a year; it went up by over £3.5 billion in the last decade and keeps rising. In the end, we have to address the root cause of this issue, and the only way to do that is to secure an adequate number of decent affordable homes. That is why the Government have recently announced an extra £1.5 billion to deliver around 10,000 homes in England, prioritising social rent, especially council homes, and we will keep building up the resources to do that. Discretionary support for housing costs is available from local authorities for those receiving housing support who have a shortfall in meeting their housing costs.

[Baroness Teather (LD)]

My Lords, LHA levels have now fallen so far behind market rent levels that fewer than 2% of properties are affordable, leaving hundreds of thousands of families stuck—stuck on social housing waiting lists with no chance of housing; stuck in temporary accommodation, unable to move on; and stuck while other homeless families wait for that space to be freed for them. Can the Minister not see that solving the homelessness crisis requires us first to unstick LHA levels?

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, the starting point is that it needs to be the other way around. The noble Baroness mentions 2%; she will know that that is not a figure the Government recognise, but we do recognise the affordability pressures faced by those living in the private rented sector. That is why we have taken a whole series of actions: the Renters’ Rights Act in May, powers to challenge excessive rent hikes, giving greater security through the abolition of no-fault Section 21 evictions, and taking practical steps through that Act to help renters tackling rental discrimination. In the end, the only way to drive down rents in the sector is for there to be enough supply of housing, which is why the Government have prioritised that. We are also investing significantly in supporting councils, in addressing problems in temporary accommodation and, crucially, in addressing the root causes of homelessness. That must be the priority.