Universal Credit
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe Excerpts(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, for securing this important debate. I too pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Freud, soon to retire from his ministerial role. He has been instrumental in developing and delivering universal credit. I also want to offer my condolences to the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, on the sad loss of her father-in-law, whom I worked with years ago and whom we all respected in this House. Of course, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson of Earl’s Court, on a very witty maiden speech.
I declare an interest as chair of the National Housing Federation, the trade body of England’s housing associations. Although I share some of the concerns expressed by other noble Lords, particularly my noble friend Lord McKenzie and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, I want to focus on the role of housing associations in universal credit. Thousands of association tenants are eligible for universal credit and, over the past three years, the federation and sector have worked with the DWP and the noble Lord, Lord Freud, on the design and implementation of the pilot and then the rollout. We all support its principles of simplifying the benefits system and incentivising work. Housing associations have worked with the department to ensure that these principles are achieved and that unintended consequences are, I hope, avoided.
Our joint working has resulted in the setting up of a specialist team to tackle the challenges that housing claims entail. It has also improved the alternative payment arrangements system whereby the housing element of universal credit is paid directly to the landlord. These arrangements are vital for those who currently lack budgeting skills and would be at risk of going into arrears and losing their home. The sector is keen to help ensure that new claimants are protected by reducing the risk of arrears as much as possible. We know from the pilot that sharing information between the DWP and social landlords is vital. It helps landlords take pre-emptive action to prevent arrears and gives the DWP valuable claimant information. I understand that the DWP is currently looking into an online portal to make this information sharing easy and free from bureaucracy. Associations would certainly welcome this, along with further information on timescales, and I wonder whether the Minister can give the House an update on progress. Similarly, associations would be keen for the DWP’s “trusted status” pilot to be extended, allowing it to grant alternative payment arrangements before arrears build up. Again, that would reduce the risk of eviction and keep vulnerable tenants in their homes.
Finally, I want to emphasise the role that associations can play in helping to reduce the benefits bill and boost affordable homes. As I said in the debate on the Autumn Statement, associations could do more if given the freedom to set their own rents. I believe that both tenants and the Government would benefit from that. It would allow associations to better meet the needs of the communities they serve, improve affordability and therefore prevent upward pressure on housing-related benefits. Housing associations have proved to be helpful and trusted partners in the design and implementation of universal credit. Is the Minister prepared to build on this trust and support discussions to support freedom for the sector to set its own rents?
Poverty
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe Excerpts(9 years, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bird, for providing this timely opportunity to grapple with this huge and complex issue. The political events of the last few weeks have led to much soul searching about the growing gulf between the haves and the have-nots in our society. I want to focus my remarks on education and housing. Getting these right is key to avoiding further misery, saves greater costs in the long term and strikes at the heart of the social inequalities that were given voice, I believe, in the outcome of last month’s referendum. I should declare an interest as chair of the National Housing Federation.
I believe passionately in the redeeming, transformative power of education. It is key to social mobility. Because of my interest in higher education, I am encouraged to see the most recent figures from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service, which show that the least advantaged young people in England are now 65% more likely to go to university or college than they were in 2006. This is vital for social mobility and social justice. Can the Minister tell us what is being done to continue the investment in getting those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds into higher education?
However, in tackling the causes of poverty, we have to start with early education. Evidence shows that high-quality early education is one of the most important determinants of a child’s life chances. It is key to tackling the attainment gap that emerges early among disadvantaged children, and is fundamental if we are to transform the economic and social potential of future generations.
Graham Allen MP, whose work in this area I admire greatly, has made persuasive arguments for meeting the cost of early intervention, to avoid the greater costs later when things go wrong. Can the Minister tell us whether any progress has been made in simplifying childcare funding to make it easier for parents to understand and access it?
For children to thrive from their earliest years, they need a secure home environment. We know that families in persistent poverty are often struggling with high living costs, with low-quality and insecure housing the only option available to them. The Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission notes that 1.5 million children are in poverty because their working parents do not earn enough to secure a basic standard of living.
The problem is that we are not building enough houses. As the pressure on our limited housing stock grows, so rent and house prices rise. Insecure or bad-quality housing has a direct impact on all other areas of people’s lives, including on the ability to get and keep a job, and on health. Poor-quality housing and overcrowding damages health. Pressure on local authority housing lists means families are stuck in temporary accommodation, often unsuitable for children, and tensions rise over housing allocations.
The statistics speak for themselves. According to the Government’s own figures, with housing costs excluded, 15% of people in this country are living in poverty. Once housing is added, the figure rises to 20%. That is 12.9 million people. In the first quarter of this year, some 71,540 households were in temporary accommodation arranged by local authorities—a rise of about 11% on the same period last year. In the same quarter, around 14,780 households in England were accepted as homeless—an increase of about 9%. Housebuilding starts in England for the first quarter of the year were 9% lower than the same time last year, and completions are also down.
We can do something about this. I contend that to tackle poverty we need to solve the housing crisis. To do that we must significantly increase the number of new homes we build each year. The right housing and support enables vulnerable families to break chaotic patterns of living and gain the benefits of settled accommodation in the longer term. When this happens across communities, it has a multiplier effect, creating safer neighbourhoods, boosting social capital and reducing demands on acute health and care services. Providing affordable, secure and good-quality rented accommodation can have a positive impact on people’s lives and help lift them out of poverty.
The case for investing in affordable housing is overwhelming. The housing associations I represent are ready and willing to work with the Government to deliver the homes this country needs. In 2014-15, they built 50,000 homes. That is more than one in three of the new homes in England. Their declared aim is to build 120,000 homes each year across all tenures by 2033.
Our new Prime Minister has recognised this need, acknowledging that we must do far more to get more houses built. Will the Minister urge the Prime Minister to look to housing associations as the sector which has both the desire and the capability to build our homes—the homes we need to tackle poverty across the country? What is being done to meet the targets for increasing our housing stock?
Two-thirds of poor children are in working families, and it is these same families who will be hit by the cuts to universal credit announced in last year’s summer Budget. Given that the latest figures show that there are 200,000 more children in poverty than in the previous year, I am deeply concerned that we seem to have lost track of the Government’s proposed life chances strategy. Can the Minister shed any light on its current status? Now, more than ever, we need in place a clear and adequately funded commitment to tackle the causes of poverty, reduce social inequality and heal the divisions in our society.
Finally, I congratulate my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp of Guildford, on her heroic championing of higher and further education during her hugely successful parliamentary career, and wish her all the best in her retirement from this House.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe Excerpts(10 years ago)
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Lord Young of Cookham
My Lords, from these Benches I join other noble Lords in commending the negotiating skills of the noble Lord, Lord Best. As a former Housing Minister, I know what a plausible advocate he can be on behalf of those in social housing. I also commend my noble friend the Minister for listening to the case made by both sides in this House a few weeks ago.
The only clarification I seek from my noble friend is in relation to Amendment 51, which says:
“Section 21 does not apply to social housing which meets the definition of supported housing”.
I wonder if my noble friend can confirm that it will be absolutely clear, if we go ahead with this amendment or something similar to it, exactly which housing schemes will benefit from the exemption and which will fall outside, and, related to that, how the good news he is about to announce will be communicated to those associations or organisations which run operations that will qualify under Amendment 51 and indeed some of the other related amendments.
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I declare an interest as the chair of the National Housing Federation. I speak in favour of Amendment 51, which seeks to protect schemes that house some of the most vulnerable people in the country from a damaging cut to their rents.
In answer to a question from me on Monday on the associated issue of the local housing allowance cap, the noble Lord, Lord Freud, referred to a review of the supported housing sector. That review was referred to again today in another place. Indeed, much has been said today in another place on both rent cuts and the LHA cap. It is only right that we fairly consider what has been said in another place and factor that into our discussions here. Referring to the review, the Government said that it would report urgently by the end of March. In addition, we have heard of a one-year delay in the implementation of the 1% rent cut for supported housing. This extra year’s delay is welcome, since it means that incomes will not be reduced as much as feared. Unfortunately, that is only at the margins when measured against the impact of the LHA cap on supported housing as announced in the spending review. This will have a much more significant and lasting impact, and is a threat to the very existence of much supported housing.
The National Housing Federation has been pressing the Government to urgently clarify that the LHA will apply only to working-age tenants in general needs accommodation. The Government have not done so. A survey of NHF members showed that this lack of certainty will result in 156,000 homes becoming unviable and being forced to close—41% of the sector—while 2,400 homes planned for development will now not be built. I find it hard to believe that it can be even remotely possible that it is the Government’s intention to put all this supported housing at risk. The impact on vulnerable people will be acute: on the elderly, people with disabilities, those fleeing domestic violence and those who served our country in the Armed Forces. The knock-on impact on public services in trying to pick up the pieces will be immense. These services desperately need a long-term commitment to safeguard their future.
The Government had the opportunity today in another place to set this right and clarify their intentions. They did not do it. The Government will carry out a review of how supported housing is funded—excellent. But surely the purpose of a review is to think first and only then act. Why create this level of uncertainty leaving housing association boards, which have to take decisions about future provision now, completely blind-sided about whether or when the cap may now be introduced? A one-year delay on the rent cut, welcome though it is, may not make much difference at all on this issue. The uncertainty is having a damaging and dangerous effect now. Tough decisions are being taken already: to close supported housing schemes; not to renew contracts; and to halt development of new schemes because there is not the certainty that they will be affordable in the near future, whether that be in two years or three. Protective redundancy notices are being prepared now. No provider can risk the cost of new building unless they are confident that the rent will cover that cost.
The announcement made by the Government today will do nothing to allay the fears on this issue of housing associations or the people living in these homes. I urge the Minister to think again and announce now that the LHA cap does not apply to supported and sheltered housing. I also urge the Government, through him, to work with the sector to develop a long-term sustainable funding model for supported housing.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, we support each of the amendments set down in this group and have added our names to some of them. On Amendments 50, 51 and 52, we join other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Best, on his negotiating skills—doubtless assisted in that endeavour by the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake—and the Minister for listening and helping with at least a partial solution.
The deferral of the rent reduction programme is clearly welcome. The clarification on the comfort in respect of LHA caps is clearly important as well. The more that the Minister can say on that, the better. My noble friend Lady Warwick has outlined some of the problems because of the known existence of that aspiration. The Minister could, I hope, therefore go further. It is always the way that Ministers come forward with concessions, and then everybody piles in and wants just that little bit more, but this is a very important issue.
That raises the question of where that leaves the amendments, as the Minister’s proposition in his correspondence effectively covers co-operatives, almshouses and community land trusts, as well as housing associations. Are the Government going to accept the amendments, substitute something for them or simply rely on what is on the record of this debate?
The noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, spoke to Amendments 53, 61 and 63, each of which we can support. He stressed the importance of an independent evaluation of what has gone on, in good time for rent policy for the subsequent period to be settled. In respect of Amendments 61 and 63, the noble Lord explained the importance of flexibility in respect of new-build, particularly for schemes of marginal feasibility. We had a very helpful meeting with members of the Bill team and the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, on this. Hopefully, embedded in this long list of government amendments is one that addresses that issue specifically. It may not necessarily have the breadth or flexibility the noble Lord is seeking, but I think it at least seeks to address the principle.
Amendment 59A, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Manzoor, proposes a report on local housing allowance rates. We debated this in Committee, but the Minister probably still owes us a reply. The purpose of that discussion was to recognise that, with the moratorium following the 1% limitation, LHA rates are increasingly going to move away from the reality of what renting in the private sector actually entails.
The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, was clearly pleased with the outcome for almshouses. All in all, we should be grateful to the Minister for responding as he has—or hopefully will—at the Dispatch Box in confirming this. This is a real issue of substance which was worrying many people.
The noble Lord, Lord Best, is probably happy with the definition of supported housing that we have here, which is the broadest possible. I know there have been issues with specified support—what is in and what is out—but I take it from the correspondence and what has gone before that the moratorium is in respect of the widest definition of supported accommodation.
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe
Might I press the Minister for a moment on the LHA cap issue? I am not quite clear about what he means. He said that he could not be specific, and I understand that, but I am very conscious of the uncertainties that boards now face as regards the decisions they have to take in the next few weeks. Do we take it from what he said that the slate is clean as far as they are concerned, there is no assumption that the LHA cap will be applied and that the outcome of the review will look at this afresh?
Lord Freud
There will be a review, which will look at how we fund. We have given ourselves a year to come up with that, so clearly they can look to that in the medium term. However, I have already said that we accept that it is urgent to make sure that their immediate concerns are taken off the table, and we are working to make sure, as we look forward to a more fundamental review, that those protections in that short-term period are in place.
Housing Benefit: Social Housing Units
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe Excerpts(10 years ago)
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Lord Freud
We inherited a system under the local housing allowance which was based at 50% of the average rate. Clearly, that was too high and encouraged some landlords to move up to that central rate, even though their houses were not worth that amount. We have now put a series of controls on how the LHA works.
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)
My Lords, can the Minister comment on the changes in housing benefit in respect of supported housing for the most vulnerable people? Can he confirm that the Government’s plan to limit housing benefit in the social housing sector to the local housing allowance will only apply to tenants of working age in general needs housing and not to the homes of the most vulnerable?
Lord Freud
We are having a very substantial study done on the supported housing sector. That will come out later this year and we are looking at what our policies should be to support that sector.
Social Housing Sector
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe Excerpts(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether their plan to limit housing benefit in the social housing sector to the Local Housing Allowance rate will apply to those living in supported housing.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud) (Con)
My Lords, the introduction of local housing allowance limits to the social sector will apply to both housing benefit tenants and recipients of the housing element of universal credit from April 2018, but only where new tenancies have been taken out or renewed after April 2016. The department has jointly commissioned an evidence review with DCLG to look at the size and scope of the supported housing sector. The research results will guide our consideration for future policy development.
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I welcome what the Minister has said, but it is really not enough. Only the inclusion of specified accommodation will solve the problem and protect the most vulnerable from an unintended consequence of the proposed legislation. I cannot stress enough the need for urgency. Supported housing providers have to decide in the next few weeks whether or not to continue to support those developments, so there is a real urgency on this issue. I remind the Minister that the LHA cap was announced in the Autumn Statement without either consultation or an impact assessment. It may be an unintended consequence but, now that it has been highlighted, can the Minister please assure the House that it will be addressed quickly and before the Report stage of the Welfare Reform and Work Bill?
Lord Freud
The measure will come in in 2018 and there will be regulations within that timescale. As I said, we have this major review—the first really substantial review—and we have been working on that for more than a year now. That will inform our whole policy approach to what is a very important sector, and I hope it will put it on a much sounder footing than it has been.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe Excerpts(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I support these two amendments, and I declare an interest as chair of the National Housing Federation.
I support so many of the arguments that have been made throughout the debates this evening. I am extremely concerned about the impact of the 1% rent reduction on housing associations and their tenants. The federation estimates that the 1% cut year on year will mean a loss of £3.85 billion in rental income over the proposed four-year period. As has already been said, the Office for Budget Responsibility has warned the Government that the result will be 43,000 fewer homes than housing associations would otherwise have been expected to build.
The irony of this is that associations want to build homes, and they will be doing their utmost to manage the cuts and to strive for the efficiencies that the Minister has already referred to, but this is presenting them with an absolutely huge hurdle. It is also ironic—and others have made this point—that the Government, too, are ambitious. Given their ambition, and the urgency of that ambition, to build 1 million more homes over exactly that same four-year period, I agree with others that this policy seems somewhat perverse.
Even more perverse is the impact of the 1% cut on the provision of social housing for the most vulnerable people referred to in these amendments, including those escaping domestic abuse, veterans, people with disabilities and the homeless. All fall under the heading, which the Minister referred to, of specified accommodation. In speaking to these amendments, I want strongly to urge the Government, even if they change nothing else, to change their mind on this issue and to exclude this highly specialised, challenging and much more cost-intensive provision from the rent reduction requirement.
The Government will know that the purpose behind these amendments has support from all corners of the House. Indeed, the letter to the Times, which many of us signed and has already been mentioned, urged just such a reprieve for supported housing. I also believe that the Government did not intend to harm vulnerable people or to increase homelessness, yet that is exactly what this policy will do, and indeed it is already doing it.
Make no mistake: if the Government are to avoid what is likely to be a catastrophe for these very vulnerable people, they need to act now. I cannot overstate the urgency because, in the next few weeks, associations will be sending out thousands of letters about rent levels from 1 April. They will need to know what the position is for supported housing. Indeed, many of them have already discussed plans for closing down these facilities—these homes—because the financial risk would be too great to sustain them. They are making these plans with heavy hearts. These homes are a fundamental part of their social mission and charitable purpose. These are the very people associations were set up to house.
The sector has spoken with one voice on this issue and the message delivered to government could not be clearer. Providers of supported housing are united in their commitment to care and support for these vulnerable groups and equally united in their concern about the impact the rent reduction will have on their ability to develop and provide housing and services for these people in the future. It is worth emphasising that, unless the Government commit to this change, there will inevitably be much greater pressure on the NHS and a rise in homelessness.
On any count, this policy does not make financial sense. If it were excluded from the rent reduction measure, as we urge, it would reduce savings on that policy overall by £93.5 million, but the Homes and Communities Agency has estimated that the provision of specialised housing for vulnerable and older people saves the public purse £640 million—more than six times more. That is real value for money.
The Government have acknowledged that the rent reduction may cause a reduction in service provision, but their proposed solution is no solution at all—neither an organisational waiver, which the Minister referred to in her response to the previous amendment, nor a partial waiver, also mooted, offers a viable solution to a sector-wide problem. Indeed, one of the issues has again been referred to: since these schemes are higher and the margins much tighter, the rent reduction may sometimes push supported housing into deficit while not pushing the whole organisation into financial deficit. They may be abandoned to sustain financial viability. That is an important point that the Government need to take into account. It would certainly be extremely expensive and time-consuming to establish. I do not see how either of these would offer providers the certainty that they need to take the financial risks involved in continuing this provision.
I have had the opportunity to talk to the Minister and I am most grateful to her for engaging with me on this issue. I, like others, very much hope that she can today commit to bringing forward an amendment to address these concerns on Report. Providers stand ready to help the Government find the right way forward, but above all we expect to see the Government commit to what they have promised: to ensure that the provisions in the Bill do not have unintended harmful, even disastrous, consequences for the care and housing of some of the most vulnerable people in our society.
Baroness Manzoor
I rise just briefly, because I am an optimist and I do not want to delay the Committee further, to say that I totally concur with Amendments 107 and 109—they are one and the same—and the issues surrounding them relating to supported housing. I commend the Government on keeping supported housing out of universal credit and other benefits when they did their calculations. To my mind this is very similar. There needs to be clarity. As I said, I am an optimist; I do not for one minute think that the Government intended for these negative consequences to occur for supported housing where it is particularly needed for young people and people who may be homeless, and where crisis housing and services are needed.
I concur with everything that has been said and will add just one last point: if an organisation is totally on its knees, it will not think about investing for the future or how to improve. If an organisation has to come cap in hand back to the Government to say, “We need to be exempted now”, that will be too late because those services will have been lost for the future. That will invariably have an adverse effect on service standards. People may well end up being homeless. We must not forget that these organisations are there because we need crisis management for these people, whether they are drug users, young people on benefits, women fleeing domestic violence and so forth. I ask the Minister to answer the questions that were put so well by the noble Lord, Lord Best, to clarify whether specific accommodation and supported accommodation will be exempt from the measures in the Bill.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe Excerpts(10 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)
My Lords, last week in my capacity as chair of the National Housing Federation, I hosted a briefing on this Bill. One of the speakers was the chief executive of an NHF member organisation, St Mungo’s Broadway. St Mungo’s provides supported housing for about 3,600 people a year. On any one night, about 2,500 people are in its hostels, semi-independent housing or care homes. St Mungo’s provides vital support to help people to gain the skills and confidence to recover from homelessness and to live as independently as possible. The CEO was enormously concerned that, under the Government’s plan to reduce social housing rents as set out in this Bill, it will not be able to deliver for homeless and vulnerable people on anything like the same scale. Taking into account the rental income that it had anticipated over this period, it expects to lose £4 million, and local authority cuts over the same four-year period will mean further falls in income. These cuts will mean that St Mungo’s will have to stop running some of its vital supported housing schemes. Their residents have slept rough, been in prison, have a mental health problem or a significant physical health condition; more than half have a substance-use problem, and their problems often overlap. They need skilled and intensive housing management and support. Who else will provide it if schemes like these are forced to close?
Housing associations up and down the country will face the same dilemma. They are committed to building the homes the country needs and will do all they can to continue with this vital work, but we underestimate at our peril the impact of the 1% rent reduction over the next four years. The result is an estimated loss of more than £3.85 billion in rental income. This will have a significant impact on all associations; it will have a particularly severe impact on the provision of supported housing for vulnerable people, including domestic abuse refuges, homelessness hostels and homes for veterans and people with disabilities. Like the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans—I thought he set out the issues extremely well—and many other noble Lords in this debate today, I am deeply concerned that the rent reduction will result in a serious lack of provision for people with complex problems and high support needs.
I have had numerous examples from all over the country. I will mention just two: Framework in Nottingham estimates losing 240 high support units over the next four years, and Riverside based in Liverpool says that 32 of its 102 supported housing schemes will become loss-making as a result of the rent reduction. As well as this, the policy will add greater cost to the public purse. The Homes and Communities Agency recently estimated that the net financial benefit of specialist housing was about £640 million overall. Excluding specified accommodation from the rent reduction measure would result in a reduction in the overall savings delivered by this policy of around £93.5 million in year 4—over six times less than the savings that specialist housing offers the public.
As others have said, the Government have acknowledged that,
“the rent reduction measures may disproportionately impact on supported housing and may cause a reduction in service provision”.
The Bill was amended in another place to allow the possibility for organisational waivers. But the cost structures used by health, care and support providers are complex, and vary across the sector. The development of a waiver formula that is consistent and fair would be extremely challenging. As my noble friend Lady Andrews and other Members of this House have done already in this debate, I urge the Minister to agree that specified housing—in other words, housing for vulnerable people—should be excluded from the rent reduction requirement. I hope that the House will support this.
There are two other issues I want to touch on: the impact of the rent reduction on stock transfer organisations, and the impact of the benefit cap on housing affordability and temporary accommodation. Stock transfer organisations inherit from local authorities housing stock that needs improvement. They generally start out with a business plan that involves increasing rents in accordance with guidelines set by the regulator, and they use this anticipated revenue to underpin borrowings to undertake the much-needed improvements.
This means that the organisation’s finances are extremely tight in its early years of operation. The rent reduction will cause many of these organisations to struggle to deliver improvements promised to tenants at the time of the transfer. In some cases their financial viability will be put at risk. In regard to the benefit cap, a secure and decent home is often the starting point to help people back into work. The Bill’s proposal to lower the benefit cap to £23,000 in Greater London and £20,000 elsewhere will make housing unaffordable for thousands of families. This affordability challenge is not restricted to families renting in the private rented sector. The NHF’s modelling shows that a couple with three children would not be able to afford the average housing association rent on a three-bed property in any region. In London, families would face a shortfall between benefit and rent of £27.79 per week. The weekly shortfall under a £20,000 cap ranges from £37.40 in Yorkshire and Humberside to £67.35 in the south-east, based on the current rent agreement.
A lower benefit cap will have a particularly significant impact on families living in temporary accommodation. Temporary accommodation is a vital part of the homelessness safety net and is used by local authorities to house people who otherwise would need to be placed in more costly emergency interventions such as bed-and-breakfast accommodation. People placed in temporary accommodation by local authorities have little scope to move to reduce their housing costs, and are likely to be further from the job market. If they are no longer able to keep up with rent payments in temporary housing due to the cap, they may find themselves homeless again, and it is likely that local authorities will struggle to rehouse them. I hope the Minister will agree that people living in temporary accommodation should be treated in a similar way to tenants in supported exempt accommodation and have their housing costs omitted from the calculation of the cap.
The current system for regulating social rents is overly rigid and confusing. Currently rents are fixed by the Government, at either a percentage of the local private rent or the lower social rent level. Because private rents vary hugely across the country and do not rise and fall in proportion to local wages, housing association homes are much less affordable for customers in some places than in others. Surely it makes much more sense for housing associations to be able to set rents that reflect local market conditions and customer circumstances, within an overall envelope set by the Secretary of State. I urge the Government to give housing associations that flexibility.
The Bill will have some significant unintended consequences for the housing of some of the most vulnerable people in society. I hope that the Minister will be prepared to look carefully at exempting specified housing from the rent reduction. Will he agree to meet some of the providers of these schemes to hear their concerns first hand?