Income Equality and Sustainability

Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe Excerpts

Wednesday 6th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I join others in wishing the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York a happy and very well-deserved retirement. I declare an interest as chair of the National Housing Federation, the voice of affordable housing in England.

People need good, affordable homes to sustain greater income equality. The ONS has shown that income inequality is increasing. A significant factor is the cost of living, along with income instability and insecurity. Housing costs are a substantial proportion of living costs, sometimes more than 50% of monthly income if you rent in the private sector.

Even prior to the crisis, many individuals and families across the UK had always struggled to meet everyday living costs. With thousands of people losing their jobs as a result of the pandemic, this situation will get worse. The Government have introduced a job retention scheme and increases to universal credit to provide much-needed support, and I welcome these, but some gaps remain in helping people meet their housing costs. The uplift in universal credit or the local housing allowance will have no effect on some families already claiming benefits, because they are caught by the house- hold benefit cap. It is an arbitrary cap that further undermines families who are already struggling, with schools closed and no childcare to allow them to start work. Parents—particularly single parents—are struggling to get jobs. Will the Minister consider the need to suspend the housing benefit cap? Can he tell us what monitoring the Government are doing and how families affected by the cap are coping during this crisis?

As we rebuild from this pandemic, investment in affordable and social housing would not only reduce the cost of living for many more families in low-paid and unstable work but enable the Government to move away from subsidising unaffordable rents with the welfare system.

The ability of many families to bounce back quickly from this crisis will depend on the changes we make now to reduce the amount people spend on one of life’s basic necessities: somewhere safe and secure to live. Can the Government say whether they will take the first step by significantly investing in affordable housing?