Property: Under-occupancy Charge

Baroness Hollis of Heigham Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, the purpose of DHPs specifically for the disabled in heavily adapted houses and homes is to make sure that they can stay there indefinitely. Clearly, it would not make sense for people to move when there would be a high cost of adapting a new premise. As I have said, it is too early to know what is happening in different local authorities. The information I have up to now from our intensive interrelationship with local authorities on this matter is that there is a great deal of variation in outcomes.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

My Lords, the Minister assumes that the Government will make £490-odd million of savings from the bedroom tax on the assumption that most tenants will stay put and take the hit. That is where the saving is coming from. However, all the evidence from housing associations, including my own, and local authorities shows that something like 30% of tenants will move, largely into the private rented sector, where rents, and therefore housing benefit, will be higher. Does the Minister accept that to send 660,000 families into misery for the sake of something like £50 million of net savings in the public sector is not only cruel but profoundly indecent?