Housing Benefit and Supported Housing

Baroness Keeley Excerpts

Wednesday 27th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

No, I will carry on for the moment.

Since then, we have had a series of half-baked statements from the Government. The first was, “This is unnecessary scaremongering.” Not true—we are giving voice to the warnings and evidence from those who have the facts and will have to manage the consequences. Those are organisations the British public trust and respect, including Age UK, Mencap and Women’s Aid. Secondly,

“nothing will change until 2018.”

Not true—the cut and the cap apply to new tenancies from April this year, so the problem is immediate. My local housing association, South Yorkshire Housing Association, has told me that

“it takes time to rehouse anyone, let alone the most vulnerable people. Consultation on scheme closures will need to begin within a matter of weeks”.

No one will sign contracts for supported housing when they do not know whether the basic costs can be covered. New investment has already been stopped in its tracks: one in five providers have frozen investment and new schemes, according to the Inside Housing survey. Golden Lane Housing, Mencap’s housing arm, had plans for £100 million of investment over the next five years in supported housing across England, but they have been scrapped.

Thirdly,

“Additional discretionary housing payment funding will be made available to local authorities, to protect the most vulnerable, including those in supported housing”.

Not true—the fund is run by councils to deal with emergency applications from people already coping with the bedroom tax, the benefits cap, and the cuts in the last Parliament to the local housing allowance. Awards often run for only a few months. The fund is currently £120 million a year, and it is a short-term and overstretched measure.

Policy costing in the autumn statement scores the cost of the Chancellor’s housing benefit cut at £515 million. The Government proposed to top up the discretionary housing payments fund by not £515 million but £70 million. Housing organisations rightly dismiss the idea that the fund is the solution, saying that that is “nonsense and unworkable”.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

The insufficiency of discretionary housing payments for the bedroom tax has been shown again and again. I am delighted that today at least one case involving a family of carers has been exempted. Does my right hon. Friend agree that facing this sort of situation preys on the minds of vulnerable people, as they know that they have to apply for a discretionary housing payment and may not get it?

[John Healey]

I think that my hon. Friend is discussing the case in the High Court, which found the Government to be in breach of equality legislation. We have always said that the bedroom tax is unfair, punishing people who often cannot afford to make up the difference, and that it should be scrapped. I hope that today’s High Court judgment will lead Ministers to think again about the bedroom tax and to act to stop the housing benefit cut damaging the prospects of many people.

The question for the Minister for Housing and Planning and for the Secretary of State—who was in the Chamber a moment ago, but then scarpered—is: did they discuss the cut with Treasury Ministers before the spending review? Was the Department even consulted? Either they did not spot it or they did not stop it. Either way, the Minister, the Secretary of State and the Department have been disregarded and overruled by the Chancellor.

The Housing and Planning Minister is in the Chamber to try to explain why housing schemes supporting more than 150,000 of the most vulnerable people, with nowhere else to turn, are set to close, while the real culprit keeps his head down in the Treasury. Forced to backtrack on tax credits when a tough stance on benefits backfired, the Chancellor turned to housing benefit cuts across the board to make his fiscal sums add up. With this, he has made the same errors of judgment. He has put politics above good policy and even basic humanity. He announces first, and asks questions later. He is failing many vulnerable people, and he is failing the taxpayer too.

This decision is a big test for the Conservative Government. The Prime Minister said just before the election:

“I don’t want to leave anyone behind. The test of a good society is you look after the elderly, the frail, the vulnerable, the poorest in our society.”

So will the Government act immediately and confirm that they will exempt in full from this crude, sweeping housing benefits cut those in supported and sheltered housing? Will they work with those who provide that housing to ensure that it is secure for the future? The only decision for Ministers to take on the motion before the House is to exempt that housing—a decision that would be based on evidence, compassion and care.

--- Later in debate ---

[Brandon Lewis]

As I have just outlined, this Government announced an extra £40 million for domestic abuse services.

Funding for supported housing is part of the Government’s wider financial settlement to councils, which includes £5.3 billion in the better care fund in 2015-16 to deliver faster and deeper integration of health and social care. That will result in councils being better able to work together and invest in early action to help people live safely in their own homes for longer.

[Barbara Keeley]

I am amazed. The Minister has started trotting out figures for the better care fund. That fund is back-loaded: the money will not reach councils until 2019-20, and is cancelled out by the new homes bonus being taken back at the same time. We have already lost an awful lot of support for older and vulnerable people.

Does the Minister believe, as he seems to have just said, that the most vulnerable will be supported by the welfare reforms? That is just not true, as we see from all the court cases that are going through. How will people in 2,300 units of housing for older people in Salford be protected? I advise the Minister not to talk about discretionary housing payments, as those have been shown to be insufficient.

--- Later in debate ---

[Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

In my part of the world, often the best thing that is said about the Conservative party is, “You know where you are with them: they may be cruel, but at least they’re competent.” Following today’s debate, however, and particularly after this week for the Department for Work and Pensions, one must wonder about at least the latter part of that sentence.

We began the week with the Government’s defeat in the other place on their ludicrous suggestion that incomes should be carved out of the meaningful measure of child poverty that the previous Labour Government introduced. The Government then had to acknowledge that they should exempt those in receipt of carer’s allowance from the punishment of the benefit cap, despite the fact that they spent £50,000 in the courts just a few weeks ago defending the inclusion of carers under the aegis of that cap.

This morning, we saw extraordinary events in the Court of Appeal as the Government found their bedroom tax ruled not only cruel, but unlawful, because it discriminates against disabled people—in particular my friend and fellow countryman, Paul Rutherford, his wife, Susan, and their profoundly disabled child, Warren. He was discriminated against by the bedroom tax for many years, but he had his day in court today. I can only hope that the Government reflect on the meaning of that ruling with a little more grace than the Prime Minister during today’s Question Time, and that they will come back to the House to give us satisfaction by getting rid of the bedroom tax.

[Barbara Keeley]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it was always unfair to include carers under the bedroom tax and the benefit cap because their caring role means that they cannot go out to work or increase the number of hours that they do? These 60,000 unpaid family carers already save the state billions, so is it not time for them to be exempted? We call on the Government to take action straight away.

[Owen Smith]

Is not that just shroud waving? We have heard for the past few years—not just months or today—that we are shroud waving about the bedroom tax and its effects on the vulnerable. Indeed, we have been told that it is shroud waving to suggest that the bedroom tax might be unlawful, but it turns out that it is illegal, so the Government must come back to the House to address the situation—[Interruption.] The Minister for Housing and Planning is chuntering, but this afternoon there was a welcome yet extraordinary turn of events in the House. Despite Labour Members and others interested in the social rented sector asking him on hundreds of occasions in recent months to make the change, the Minister has only now said that he agrees with us.

We should address the deeply unfair 1% cut to social housing rents which is but part of the problem that the social supported housing sector faces. I welcome the fact that the Minister, without much good grace, conceded that there should be a delay. It is extraordinary that his Government have been looking at the policy not, I have to tell my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), since 2014 but since 2011, which is when they first suggested that they ought to address the question of, in their view, high social rented costs versus local housing allowance. Five years later, they still have not reached a conclusion on what they are going to do. It is incompetence on a gross scale.

In the Welfare Reform and Work Bill Committee, we lost count of the number of occasions on which we were offered excuses as to why the change could not possibly be made, and why the moratorium—or, as we asked for, a full exemption—was not affordable or allowable. In Committee, I believe that the words, “shroud waving” were used on a number of occasions. We were accused of jumping the gun, and told that the measures would not be introduced for a while, so there was plenty of time for the Government to get their papers in order and get the policy right.