Welfare Reform Bill

Baroness Clark of Kilwinning Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Percy]

I will not give way at the moment, as I want to say a little something about under-occupancy, and a lot of people want to speak in the debate.

I listened to the debate about under-occupancy, and I am sorry that it turned into such a knockabout. There is significant under-occupancy in parts of the area that I represent. In my time as a councillor in the city of Hull, I represented a big council estate on which there was a huge amount of under-occupancy, which was largely, but not entirely, due to older people. Dealing with the matter is not as simple as just talking about housing swaps. I have tried to arrange housing swaps for constituents within the local authority, never mind outside it, and it is incredibly difficult. One party often gets cold feet and pulls out of the arrangement, for example. It is not easy to achieve at all.

That does not mean that we should do nothing about the problem, however. The point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb) was interesting in this regard. We talk about under-occupancy figures, but we must also consider the figures for over-occupancy.

[Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)]

rose—

[Sheila Gilmore]

rose—