Chi Onwurah
Main Page: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Kris Hopkins
There are currently lots of data about arrears, and lots of rhetoric. We have not yet completed a full year, but the Homes and Communities Agency has looked at larger providers, 92% of which say that 95% of the rent they should have collected has been collected.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
23. Two thirds of households in England affected by the bedroom tax have fallen into rent arrears, and Newcastle is having to set aside money to pay for bad debt that should go on building houses. At the same time, many of my most vulnerable constituents live in fear of falling into arrears. Why will the Government not have a heart, see sense, and repeal this terrible tax?
Kris Hopkins
I, too, am concerned about those vulnerable people, so I asked about what was happening in Newcastle. Rough sleeping is down by a third, and homeless acceptances are down 26%. The number of families in bed and breakfasts for longer than six weeks has remained static: latest figures state that there are no people in B and Bs for more than six weeks.
Kris Hopkins
I will take on board what my hon. Friend says, but may I just reassure him that this Government have allocated £4.1 million to tackling rogue landlords, and human trafficking is one area in which the authorities are intervening, so work is being done on that?
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
T7. Residents, constituents and firefighters from across Newcastle are writing to me shocked and angered by the proposed closure of Gosforth fire station. Before the Prime Minister was elected to office, he promised that front-line services would not be impacted, but this Government are cutting Tyne and Wear fire authority’s budget by 23% by 2017. How on earth does the Secretary of State believe it can lose a quarter of its funding without that having an impact on front-line services?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Brandon Lewis)
This body has had a cut of a couple of per cent. in spending power for each of the past couple of years, and has built up its reserves and been able to spend that on extra training facilities when the Government already have a training facility. The hon. Lady should put pressure on that fire chief to make sure he is making his decisions based on local risk. The local risk decision is one that only the local fire service can make.