Housing: Discretionary Housing Payment

Baroness Taylor of Bolton Excerpts

Wednesday 9th April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

The savings that we are looking at—which are running on the Budget scoring at £490 million—are both observable and unobservable; in other words, from people moving or from people taking up jobs and coming off benefits. There are various figures around. The BBC last week talked of 6% of people moving in 11 months; the JRF report, which the noble Lord has just cited, talked about 6% in six months; a report a couple of months ago from Harry Phibbs, doing a similar job, found that 11% had come off benefits because they had gone into work. We will have proper returns on discretionary housing payments in May, and are working on getting a proper report on all of this.

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Lab)]

Will the Minister answer the question posed by my noble friend about the number of evictions? Does he know the number, and does he care?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I am not sure of the exact number of evictions, but I do not think that there are very many at all, if any. Clearly it is a matter of great concern. I can let the noble Baroness know that the data from the Homes and Communities Agency, which are based on the 266 largest housing associations with more than 1,000 homes, show that the average arrears in the final quarter of last year—the third quarter of the financial year—fell to 3.9% from 4.1% in the previous quarter and that rent collection rates for the year stood at 99%.