Housing Benefit

Anne Begg Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)]

Let me begin by putting on record that I think that the bedroom tax should be abolished. This is a pernicious and vindictive measure that blames people and is causing a huge amount of distress. It blames, then punishes, people who very often have had little control or choice over the house in which they live. It punishes people whose crime is not to earn enough money to afford their rent. It punishes people who have lived in their council house for most of their lives but have temporarily lost their job and are now deemed as having an extra bedroom. It punishes the victims for a failure of housing supply, and punishes those who would like to move to a smaller property but cannot because none is available.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

The hon. Lady says that the bedroom tax should be abolished. Does she agree that it should be abolished for private sector tenants, too?

[Dame Anne Begg]

There is a fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of social housing. When my parents got their first council house, they thought that that was their home for life. That is not the same for people who rent in the private sector as a stepping stone to buying a house. My parents never had that expectation, and anyone who has lived in a council house would understand that.

The bedroom tax hits the most vulnerable, many of whom do not qualify, despite everything that has been said, for discretionary housing payments. In Aberdeen, I have been hearing the stories of people who have fallen on hard times and become victims of drug or alcohol abuse. They are now trying to get their lives back together but cannot, because they are being hit by the bedroom tax. For example, a 37-year-old merchant seaman sustained injuries in a car accident, and he therefore needed a ground-floor flat. He was allocated a two-bedroom flat because that was all there was, and he has now been hit by the bedroom tax. A 47-year-old disabled man, who, after his parents died, continued to live in the two-bedroom flat that he had been born in, has been hit by the bedroom tax.

[Caroline Lucas]

The hon. Lady is making a powerful case. Does she share my concern about the scale of debt being created by the Government’s brutal policy? Freedom of information figures show that one in three council house tenants are being pushed into rent arrears. Given that not enough smaller properties exist, how is that possibly fair or progressive?

[Dame Anne Begg]

And in many of my examples, people’s situations have been made worse, because they now have housing debts, so they cannot be re-housed and have to return to the very hostels that they thought they were escaping from.

Also hit by the bedroom tax is a 52-year-old woman who suffers from depression and chronic anxiety and who depends on her neighbour and so cannot contemplate a move. I know of many more examples. Some people would move but cannot, because suitable properties are not available, while others cannot move because they would lose the support that they depend on to lead independent lives.

Even if the Government do not accept Labour’s proposal to scrap the tax—I always live in hope—they must extend the exemptions. I shall propose just two very modest ones that they should accept, if only because, given how they have been shouting this afternoon, their Back Benchers obviously think these things are exempted already. The first exemption should apply to homes specifically adapted for disabled families, about which I really do not accept the Minister’s argument: this is a man who thinks that he will change the whole pensions system in Great Britain, yet he is not clever enough to come up with a definition of an adapted home. I don’t think so! The second exemption is for situations where it is unreasonable to expect a couple to share a bed or room because one or both have a disability.

On the first exemption, it is incredibly difficult and expensive for someone who needs adaptations to their house to move. Council tax regulations recognise that people who need extra room because of a disability pay council tax on a lower band, so it is ridiculous that this space requirement is not recognised in housing benefit regulations. I know from personal experience how difficult it is to find suitable housing and how long adaptations take to make, and this is an exemption that the Government could easily include.

On the second exemption, whoever in government thought it acceptable to expect a couple, one of whom is disabled, to share a bedroom clearly has no idea of the size of the average council house bedroom. It is certainly not big enough for a hospital bed, possibly some lifting equipment and a second bed for the other person, and such an arrangement would not give a good night’s sleep to someone who might also have an important caring role. Discretionary housing payment is not a solution. It is meant to be transitional—to get people from where they are now to where the Government want them to be —whereas the situations that I am describing are permanent.

I could talk about disabled children, but those two situations should certainly be exempted, and those people should not have to apply year on year either. No matter how much money is made available, it is wrong that they must apply for a discretionary payment, and the word “discretionary” is the key, because it means that they will not necessarily get the money. If Ministers do not accept the need to get rid of this measure, at least they could extend the exemptions; these modest measures would not cost more either, if what the Government say is right, because these people are already getting discretionary housing payments. The exemptions would alleviate a great deal of anxiety and make this appalling measure a bit more bearable for some of our constituents. But I stand by my original comment: it is time that this measure was abolished.