Housing: Underoccupancy Charge

Baroness Eaton Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

We are actually sympathetic to that point about rural communities, and we ramped up the amount of discretionary housing payments which were particularly targeted at the most remote rural areas, so that the policy could be dealt with by that route.

[Baroness Eaton (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, can I come back to the Question—

[Baroness Eaton]

Could my noble friend the Minister say what Her Majesty’s Government have done to support local authorities in mitigating the effects of this policy?

[Lord Freud]

The key route is through the discretionary housing payments, on which we have now spent £470 million in total—£175 million on this particular policy. We have had a range of initiatives to support people, including those living in social housing, into sustained employment. The figure for those in social housing who are workless has now dropped to an all-time low of 39%.