Universal Credit: Private Rented Sector

Dan Poulter Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Lloyd]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention; I was going to come to that point in a moment, but I will come to it straightaway. In Northern Ireland—I think five or six years ago, way before we reached the crisis that we have had over the past couple of years—the politicians negotiated default direct payments to landlords. They also negotiated that the payment should be every two weeks. I am reliably informed by colleagues from Northern Ireland that at the time the DWP—again it was under the then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green, if my memory serves me—did not want to budge and insisted that that would collapse the entire thing. However, as Government Members have discovered, when my friends in the Democratic Unionist party dig their heels in, they dig their heels in. I pay tribute to them on this one, because the DUP, and I think the Social Democratic and Labour party as well, said, “No, we are not budging. It must be a default payment.” Do you know what? It was. It worked. It is the same computer system, folks. The previous Secretary of State—the one who has just gone—kept saying, “It is much more complicated, you can’t just change it.” Do they use a different computer in Northern Ireland? I do not think so, because as we all know, they are part of the United Kingdom.

The other thing that the Stormont Government negotiated was payments every two weeks. The percentage of rent arrears in Northern Ireland for people on universal credit is almost zero. In England, as we all know from our constituency surgeries, we have section 21s in the private sector going through the roof, or private landlords coming into our offices and saying, “That’s it, we are pulling out of universal credit. We’re not going to touch it.” Meanwhile the local authorities, housing associations and councils, which are under horrendous stresses and strains at the moment, are asking where all these additional people are going to go.

[Dr Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a good speech with some considered suggestions for the Government. On the point he has just made, does he also agree that landlords who are fearful about delays in people accessing universal credit might actually have a wider problem with renting not just to people on benefits but to people on lower incomes who they fear might need to receive benefits in the future? That will not be very helpful when, in most constituencies, one in five houses is in the private rented sector.

[Stephen Lloyd]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention and welcome him back. I agree entirely, because universal credit is just one area. It is one side of the impact of what has been an ill-thought-through policy.