Housing: Underoccupancy Charge

Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, that is exactly what the discretionary housing payment is for. It is for local authorities to take decisions, based on their local knowledge, so that they get the funds to the right people. The emerging signs are that we will not spend all the discretionary housing payments this year. I am, however, making sure that a substantial amount of discretionary housing payment goes out next year, for which the total figure will be £165 million.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, some households with a disabled family member who were allocated a larger property which had been adapted using a disabled facilities grant, are now required to move due to the size criteria changes. Does the Minister think that this is a good use of scarce resources?

[Lord Freud]

One of the fundamental objectives of providing discretionary housing payments is to make sure that where there are significant adaptations in homes for disabled people there will be discretionary housing payments for those people.