Housing Benefit

Baroness Pitkeathley Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I said that people will make a range of responses. Some will decide that the best thing they can do is to downsize and they will be supported in that. Clearly, in areas where there is no appropriate social housing, there is the option of moving into private rented housing. However, the essential point is that there is a limit to what the state can afford. We have had quite a lot of changes in the private rented sector, and this brings the social rented sector into line.

[Baroness Pitkeathley]

The Minister is concerned about the problems of caring families. Has he considered the issue of a carer who looks, say, after her severely disabled husband? The spare bedroom—the surplus bedroom as he puts it—is necessary to keep all the equipment, such as hoists and so on; and sometimes the carer needs to sleep there to have an adequate night’s sleep. What arrangements can be made in that situation?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, that is exactly the kind of case that the discretionary housing payments are intended for. Where there are genuine problems of that nature, we would expect those payments to be made to support that particular family in its accommodation.