Housing Benefit (Abolition of Social Sector Size Criteria)

Debate between Andrew George and David Rutley

Wednesday 17th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Andrew George]

It is already on record as 14% and 25%, depending on the number of rooms. I am concerned about the trading of statistics in the debate so far. I have to say that they are far away, and wildly so, from many of the statistics I have scrutinised when looking at the impact of the policy. They need to be traded in a calmer environment.

[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

rose—

[Andrew George]

There is a division between Liberal Democrats and Conservatives on this issue, and I think it will be amplified now.

[David Rutley]

I want to make a separate and important point. We have a very creative local housing association in our area, Peaks & Plains, which has established pop-up business schools to enable more people to set up their own businesses and become established on their own two feet. Does the hon. Gentleman believe that that, and other policies from the Government Benches such as the new enterprise allowance, is helping more people to get established and be better able to take care of their housing costs?

[Andrew George]

I think that is slightly outwith the focus of the debate. Nevertheless, I of course acknowledge the merit of what the hon. Gentleman suggests.

The Conservatives have form when it comes to spending public money on the under-occupancy of residential property. After all, the last time they were in government on their own they introduced a council tax discount for second homes. Hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money was spent every year subsidising the wealthy to have their second homes, when there were thousands of local families who could not afford their first home. That defines the Conservatives’ approach: they reward the wealthy when they under-occupy their second home and they penalise the poor when they under-occupy their council home.

The Conservatives claim that the purpose of the under- occupancy penalty is to save money by cutting benefit where the recipient occupies a property that is larger than they need, and to ensure the efficient use of a scarce public resource—social housing. Those two objectives, however, contradict each other. If the second objective—the effective use of public resource—were achieved and every last cubic centimetre of every council house was fully occupied, it would fail to meet their first objective of saving money.

I have a problem with the Labour party’s motion, partly because it deals only with the social sector, which is odd. If Labour had applied it to the private rented sector, I might have considered voting for it. Above all, I am concerned to deal with this issue seriously. We can either play party politics and come up with the kind of motion the Labour party has come up with today, or we can use the vehicle that is available, the Affordable Homes Bill. Although my amendment has not been accepted for debate, we should still be working together to seek political consensus to help the victims of this policy, instead of using them to score party political points, and that could be done with the money resolution necessary to advance my Bill. The Minister asked how we would pay for it. We could pay for it by driving down rents, rather than driving people out on to the streets. On the money resolution, I am afraid—

NHS Risk Register

Debate between Andrew George and David Rutley

Wednesday 22nd February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Andrew George]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman and I have signed the early-day motion supporting the release of the register. The biggest ever reorganisation of the NHS is being undertaken and it is best not to do that in the dark. It is best to have as much information available as possible. I am not suggesting that we are completely in the dark—[Interruption.] I am just saying that it is best to cast as much light as possible upon the information, so that we can have an informed debate, rather than a semi-informed one. He makes a good point about that.

I guess that publication will eventually result from this process, and I do not think it will help the Secretary of State or the Government if it is dragged out rather than conceded. If and when that happens, the Opposition and people who oppose the Bill will inevitably highlight worst-case scenarios and throw them at the Government, and the Government will inevitably look at the best-case scenarios. The nature of political debate will not be improved by this process, but I hope that debate will be better informed.

Much of the debate throughout the course of the Bill’s progress, a process in which I have been involved through the Select Committee and elsewhere, has been about trying to anticipate the effects of the reforms. It would be far better to try to anticipate these things on the basis of the best information given by people who are inside the service and providing that advice. That is why I believe the risk register should be published. The impact assessment perhaps represents the selected highlights of that process. [Interruption.] The Secretary of State may intervene on me, if he wishes to do so.

The underlying core concern—this is in the nature of how we examine these issues—is about whether publishing the risk register will negatively affect the technical delivery of Government policy and services or whether it will affect the political prospects of a party or those in government. The nature of this debate means that we assume that if publication is being resisted, it will have political rather than technical consequences. Obviously, if we thought that the risk register’s publication would have technical consequences for the effective delivery of government—that is the primary point that the Secretary of State is advancing—we would clearly need to think carefully about the release of such information.

[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman remind the House of the criteria the former Secretary of State used when he rejected publishing the register in 2009?

[Andrew George]

I am grateful for that intervention, because it plays into my next point, which is on my general concern about the nature of Opposition day debates. It is not that I think that Opposition parties should not have the opportunity to debate issues, but such debates tend to over-dramatise the political tribalism of this House. It is in the nature of government that when in government people tend to have to face up to and take unpopular decisions, whereas in opposition they tend to avoid them. Equally, on this issue, those in opposition tend to say that they would be more open, because they look at the matter from a different perspective and take the view that they would have more open government. When people come into government, they tend to err on the side of seeing good technical reasons for why they cannot engage in the process of open government.