Housing Benefit

Alison Seabeck Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

I must draw the House’s attention to my indirect interests in the interests declared by my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford).

This policy was obviously introduced with no clear idea of whether the people affected could be moved or could downsize, and certainly no consideration was given to their ability to pay if no other option was available. Coming on top of the wider cost-of-living crisis, it is causing untold misery. As the impact assessment showed and as my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) rightly emphasised, it does not make sense, it will not work, and it will not save money. Government Members have been well schooled and tell us that it is all to do with the deficit, but this is not a policy that will save the Government money.

There are 1,200 people affected by the tax in Plymouth Community Homes, which is in my constituency, and which was working for months before the tax was introduced to try to educate people and help them to think about how they would cope with it. However, it has been able to move only 118 households, and almost half of those were mutual exchanges. That is the tip of the iceberg. Plymouth Community Homes has personal contact with every one of those people every week. The cost of that is enormous, and it is now worried about the impact of the maximum benefit cap, which it thinks could be even more devastating for some families.

People in my constituency are borrowing money from relatives, from payday lenders and from loan sharks, but now they are finding that the money has run out. Mum and dad cannot afford to sub them any more, the payday lenders want their money back plus 100%, and the loan sharks want their pound of flesh. This simply is a diabolical policy and the impact on my constituents is devastating.

My local authority has stepped in in exceptional cases, but arrears are mounting, and it will not be long before we start to see evictions. One of my housing associations has already issued 144 possession notices, despite it doing everything it can to keep those people in those properties.

On specific cases, the Government must act to ensure that safe rooms for victims of domestic violence are exempted. The numbers are not high, but for victims of domestic violence to lose that room—that safe space—would be devastating, and the result could be tragic. We have to remember that the housing provider will have spent a lot of money putting that room in place, as they will have done for those who need specific and major adaptations because of disability.

One of my constituents e-mailed me at 2.30 in the morning in a suicidal state. I opened the e-mail when I woke at 7 am and feared the worst. This disabled lady with two disabled children had been moved into a three-bedroom house because her needs required it. She could not pay and she was terrified.

There is another family. The husband and wife separated years ago, but she continues to live in the house because she is his carer. He has severe mental illness; she is disabled. It would cost the council a disproportionate amount to give them both separate properties and provide a carer for him.

I echo the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey): this is a pernicious and divisive measure. My constituents are saying to me, “Why am I being treated like this? What have they got against us?” I am proud that the Labour party has taken a strong stand and made the decision to abolish it.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—