Supported Housing: Benefit

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Marie Rimmer) and my constituency neighbour the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen). I am sure the hon. Lady agrees with me when I say that housing in Cambridge is now fearsomely expensive. The price of a terraced house in Cambridge is almost £500,000, and the average rent is twice that in the rest of England. The Office for National Statistics tells us that house prices in Cambridge have risen faster than anywhere else in the country since the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats formed their unholy alliance.

People are increasingly locked out of the housing market and the private rented sector, and it is against that backdrop that the brave people trying to provide sheltered housing in an expensive city such as Cambridge have to operate. They do not pull their punches when asked about the current situation. I went to see one of the excellent Metropolitan’s housing schemes a few weeks ago, and it was inspiring. It was exactly the kind of scheme that every Member of the House would be proud our country is promoting. What did it tell me? It told me it could not do it now—it could not do something similar again—because of the uncertainty it faces.

The hon. Lady has already mentioned the excellent Cambridge Housing Society Group. It has a scheme just up the road from where I live in Cambridge, and I was there at the weekend to celebrate 25 years of its excellent nursery scheme. It runs supported housing schemes as well, and its brilliant chief executive, Nigel Howlett—he will have had the same conversation with the hon. Lady as he has had with me—is absolutely clear about the impact: schemes it wanted to implement are on hold. As has been said, the potential loss to the Cambridge Housing Society is over £500,000, with four schemes absolutely at risk.

I was very impressed by the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood), who is no longer in her seat, and I suspect the local authority of every Member in the House has the same set of examples. Cambridge City Council manages more than 100 units of accommodation for homeless households, including three hostels, 22 units of move-on accommodation for adults recovering from mental health conditions, and 13 sheltered housing schemes for older people, with more than 460 tenancies. The council tells me that all those rely on this income. In a high-cost city like Cambridge, the inevitable consequence of the changes is that it will have to make more cuts. As has been said, that means fewer wardens, less support and less preventive work to stop people going to the national health service, which is of course tremendously overburdened.

As we have heard from Members on both sides of the House, there is a problem, and I urge the Government to think hard about it. We have a new Prime Minister, who has made her point about social justice, and she has a very early opportunity to turn those warm words into action. It really does not have to be that difficult. Please just do it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Monday 9th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson]

I would be happy to look into the details, but local authorities do have access to the £870 million for discretionary housing payments. We have also regularly updated the guidance for local authorities to help such individuals.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

T8. The Government intend to replace the current statutory child poverty measures with new measures of life chances. Researchers at the London School of Economics analysed responses to the Government consultation on child poverty measurement and found that 99% of respondents believed income and deprivation should be included. Does the Minister agree or disagree with them?

[Stephen Crabb]

What we are focused on—more than any previous Government—is tackling the underlying causes of poverty. One of the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues talked earlier about entrenched poverty; if we are going to tackle entrenched poverty, we need a coherent, integrated life chances strategy that focuses on the underlying causes and on some of the measures and indicators that track them.

Welfare

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

There really should not be any nervousness on the part of employers over hiring disabled workers. Disability Confident, into which we as a Government have put a lot of resource, is doing some really excellent work; indeed, I had the pleasure of participating in some of its work in my previous ministerial role. We have engaged a taskforce of experts to work on new and innovative ways to ensure that the scheme reaches small and medium-sized enterprises. Hopefully, in that way, we will support employers to hire more disabled people.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

For almost three hours now, we have been addressed by a Treasury Minister, the Prime Minister and now the new Secretary of State, and yet we still have not had an answer to Labour’s very direct question of where the £4 billion is coming from. There are two possibilities: either the Government do not know, or they do know but will not tell us. Which is it?

[Stephen Crabb]

We have explored that issue in depth for a long time this afternoon. There will be further opportunities later today and tomorrow in the Budget debate. Let me just repeat the commitment that I have made today: we will not be pressing ahead with the proposed PIP cuts; we will not be seeking alternative offsetting savings; and the Government do not have plans for further welfare savings.

Oral Answers to Questions

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Monday 14th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I simply do not agree with the hon. Lady, because the figures do not bear it out. It is worth remembering that in-work and out-of-work poverty rose under the last Labour Government. Under this Government, out-of-work poverty, which affected 71% of households with children in 2009-10, has fallen to 61% and is still falling. As we know, three quarters of poor children living in families that move into employment leave poverty altogether. A child poverty transitions report made that very clear. I think we should all celebrate getting people and families back to work, as we have been doing, and giving them a real chance to earn and have aspiration.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

As agreed with the Work and Pensions Select Committee when I was last in front of it, I can now inform the House that today we are launching the sanctions early warning trial for claimants. From April, early warning letters will begin to be issued to claimants within the trial site. The trial is being run in Scotland and gives jobseekers an extra 14 days to provide further evidence of their reasons for not complying before a sanction is applied.

[Daniel Zeichner]

My constituent Nick Dale is 36 years old and has a complex range of disabilities. His care package has just been reduced by Cambridgeshire County Council from 17 hours a week to 6.5 hours. The council told him he should see this not negatively but as a way

“of utilizing the strengths and resources that he may not realise he has within himself.”

His mother is appalled by his loss and the patronising tone—borrowed from the Government. If I lift the Secretary of State’s wallet in the Lobby tonight, would it help him utilise hidden strengths he did not realise he had, or is he as furious as I am about the way Nick Dale has been treated?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Disabled People (Justin Tomlinson)]

I am happy to look at that case. The Health and Social Care (Safety and Quality) Act 2015 should have put stronger protections in place, but I am happy to look at this matter further.

Motability Car Scheme

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2016 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) on securing this important debate.

I want to tell hon. Members about Lisa, who I recently met in my constituency. After a stroke left Lisa paralysed on one side of her body, she was thrown a lifeline and received a Motability car. For the past 10 years, the specialist car has helped keep her independent and active, meaning that she was able to remain motivated, to fulfil her ambitions and to go to university to study graphic design. Now, after a decade of working hard to maintain her freedom despite the hand she was dealt and the severity of her condition, her car has been torn away from her by the Government. Why did the Government sever her vital lifeline? Because Lisa was two points short under the new disability benefit rules, which are seeing disability living allowance replaced by the personal independence payment. Although she was awarded the enhanced rate of the care component of PIP, she was awarded only the standard rate of the mobility component. When I visited her, Lisa had trouble even walking to the kitchen to make a cup of tea.

We have heard anecdotally in the media, as well as in this Chamber, about other vulnerable people denied the enhanced rate of the mobility component under PIP—those affected by spina bifida, those who have had a leg amputated and those who struggle to walk a few metres. Whether those cases are the exception or the rule, it is unacceptable. If such people are not qualifying, it has to be accepted that either there is a problem with the criteria for the enhanced rate of the mobility component or the assessments are not being carried out appropriately.

Lisa’s mother described how it took almost eight hours to fill in the 40-page benefit claim, only to be told that Lisa was two points short. Lisa told me that she does not feel physically able or safe to use the bus. Despite having a decent support network and people who care about her, she worries that now she will be trapped at home.

The Government keep telling us that it is possible to appeal if one disagrees with their assessment. Well, I would appreciate some information from the Minister about the proportion of those appeals that are successful. I fear that for those undergoing that process, the appeals will all too often seem to be little more than kangaroo courts. Furthermore, the length of the appeals process is such that too many disabled people are forced to return their vehicles before the outcome of their appeal.

The Minister has assured us that the appeals process

“enables disputes to be addressed more quickly”—[Official Report, 2 November 2015; Vol. 601, c. 712.]

However, in answer to a written question recently, he stated:

“The Department does not routinely collect information on the numbers of people who have had to return a Motability vehicle nor on whether they were successful on appeal.”

It appears that the Government really do not know about the impact of their policies, so let me tell them a little bit about what we know. In March last year, Motability told us that more than 100 disabled people every week are losing their Motability vehicles. We have now heard that, of those previously on the higher rate of DLA who have so far been reassessed for PIP, almost half—almost 14,000 people so far—have lost their car. Motability has estimated that if three out of every eight of their customers lose their eligibility for a Motability vehicle, the number forced to hand them back could reach 135,000. That estimate looks accurate, if not a little low. Figures show that 45% of those reassessed so far did not secure the enhanced rate of the mobility component under PIP.

It is fair to conclude that we are facing a hidden crisis. For Lisa and for all others across the country like her, I hope that the Minister will—to use a well-known, worn phrase—pause the policy and think again.

Housing Benefit and Supported Housing

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Wednesday 27th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

My city of Cambridge is a high-cost area in the grip of a housing crisis. The problem is multi-faceted and complicated, and every single thing that the Government are doing is making it worse. This policy is no exception. We have been asked by Government Members what we would do. Well, I can tell them that three-year tenancies without any unexpected rent rises would be a very good start, and I commend that idea to them.

I have spent the past few days talking to providers of supported housing in Cambridge. What struck me was that every single one of them warned about the dangers of this policy and the effect that it will have on our cities. I will relay a few of the things that I was told. Let me start at the YMCA, which has 80 residents—a mixture of students and people in work—70 of whom receive housing benefit. I was told that if housing benefit is cut, the residents will be turfed out on to the streets. The YMCA does not want to do that, but it will have no choice. That would, of course, completely undermine recovery programmes and cause yet more young people to end up living on not the Conservatives’ spin-happy road to recovery, but the street.

What of the local council? Cambridge City Council directly provides or manages more than 100 units of accommodation for homeless households, including three hostels, 22 units of move-on accommodation for adults recovering from mental health conditions, and 13 sheltered housing schemes for older people—more than 460 tenancies. This will be the same story for every Member across the House. The council rightly says that, if this policy goes ahead, it will inevitably result in their tenants facing a higher net weekly payable rent. There will be no more income to pay the rent, just a higher rent. These are vulnerable people who will struggle to prioritise paying that rent, so we know what will happen: they will either sink into a spiral of debt or lose their accommodation—or, most likely, both.

My council also tells me that its inevitable loss of income will force it to reduce the services that it provides, which means fewer wardens, less support and less preventive work to stop people needing to go to hospital. My local NHS already has severe well-documented problems, which have recently been rehearsed in the Chamber, but the changes will just make that situation worse. We hear about joined-up government—I do not think so—but the policy will cost more money. It will just pass the buck by putting the cost on our hospitals and homeless services, which are already overstretched and working flat out.

Housing associations will also be affected. CHS Group tells me that the overall impact of the LHA cap will be a loss of income of £537,000 a year and that four of its support schemes in Cambridge will be plunged into a significant operating loss. Those schemes house 47 people—vulnerable teenagers, people with learning difficulties, and vulnerable women and older people—yet that provision will be under immediate threat.

Let me be generous for a moment. Perhaps the Government will change their mind, as happened when they thought again on tax credit cuts, after being presented with the facts. We have heard powerful and persuasive arguments from Labour Members today. Maybe the Government did not really understand the consequences of their proposals, but if that is the case, they should listen carefully now.

I shall conclude by being slightly less generous, however. I think that the proposal is part of a deadly cocktail of housing reforms that will decimate the sector and make our country’s housing problems worse. There is constantly a gap between what the Government say and what they do. They talk about helping our country to live within its means, but in reality they are just mean. I urge the Government to think again. We all make mistakes, so there is no shame in their admitting that sometimes they get things wrong. It would be far better to change course now than to risk inflicting such harm on so many vulnerable people.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

I shall tackle three areas and be brief. First, student finance has clearly been a controversial issue for a number of Parliaments. The tripling of tuition fees in the last Parliament was obviously highly controversial, and we now know that it was also an unsustainable system, with almost half of current students unable to repay their loans and the Government building up a huge amount of debt.

What is curious is that by abolishing the maintenance grant, the Government seem to be repeating the mistake. The Chancellor boasted yesterday that students from poorer backgrounds had not been put off going to university, but as hon. Members have pointed out, that was partly because these maintenance grants existed. Taking them away is likely to make that less the case. We should not underestimate the numbers involved. I was surprised to find that at Anglia Ruskin University in my own city, 5,697 students were in receipt of maintenance grants, while at the University of Cambridge, there were 2,720. Almost 8,500 young people in my constituency will, I suggest, all be angry when they learn about this.

The problem is not solved either, because more debt is created for the next generation, and the Government’s cunning plan to solve all this is to sell off the student loan book and raise huge amounts of money from it. We know that is controversial, too. Warning bells should be ringing if people read the small print on page 59 of the Red Book, where the Government say they will “review the discount rate”. What that basically means is that students will pick up the tab. They will notice this—and they will be loud.

My second point is about the proposal to limit public sector pay rises to 1% for the next four years. I do not think anyone knows what the economic situation is going to be in four years’ time. Frankly, it is hard to predict for four weeks when it comes to interest rates, oil prices and all the rest. One thing I do know is that rents in a city like Cambridge are shooting up and up. What that means is that for public sector organisations such as our national health service, recruitment—already difficult—will become near impossible in the future. Some of the high-flying research scientists in Cambridge are, in fact, public servants, and they had been waiting to see a sign that things were going to improve. I fear that what the Chancellor has done is in effect to write their exit visa to other countries. Our brightest and best—the people we need if we are to be competitive in the future—are being told that they can expect 1% over the next four years. That is not sustainable.

Finally, let me deal with housing, which is the key issue in Cambridge. There was nothing in the Budget to deal with the things that really matter in a city like Cambridge—nothing on more affordable housing, nothing on the huge trend of people from foreign countries buying up housing off-plan before it is even built, and nothing on the dreadful insecurity faced by tenants in the private rented sector, who are a different group of people these days. Conservative Members stole quite a few things from Labour’s manifesto, but they could do with stealing some of our proposals on the private rented sector, which would really help. As for the extension of the right-to-buy process, I have to say that almost half of all council homes sold in Cambridge under right to buy since 1980 are now back in the private rented sector, building up the housing benefit bill, which has increased by 51% since 2010.

Let me conclude by making one or two general points about the assault on council housing, including the threat to lifetime security of tenancy. Many people have told me about the difference it made to them when they actually got a council home that really was a secure home for them. People cannot be treated as if they are simply pawns in a game that can be moved from place to place. We are talking about people’s homes; if they are not secure, it makes thing very different for them.

Conservative Members have no understanding of what council housing was intended to be. It used to be a public service, not a safety net. We need to remember that tenants pay rent, and some of these houses have been paid for time after time. Extraordinarily, if there is any cross-subsidy going on, all too often, thanks to the vagaries of housing finance, it is happening the other way round, so council tenants are subsidising the wider community. Who can forget the dreadful “daylight robbery” situation under the last Conservative Government when council tenants were in effect subsidising all those on housing benefit.

The housing situation is deeply complicated. I finish by saying that the great goal of British housing policy was mixed communities. Nye Bevan famously said that he wanted a situation in which

“the doctor, the grocer, the butcher, the farm-labourer all live in the same street”.

We can update that image. We know that mixed communities work best, but they are hard to achieve, and this “pay to stay” is exactly the wrong thing to be doing. We need people to stay in their communities, not to be driven out. What a ridiculous situation it is when people who have done well are faced with a false choice, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) suggested. An income of £30,000 in a city like Cambridge is not extraordinary. My friend Councillor Kevin Price, the executive member for housing in Cambridge, tells me that people will face a 45% rise in rent if this proposal goes through. For a lot of those people, the sensible thing to do would then be to work fewer hours or for one person in the household not to go to work at all, which is the exact opposite of what the Government are claiming to want.

There is a real danger that we could lose our mixed communities and create no-go areas and dumping grounds of despair, fomenting future discontent. That is not about building one nation; it is about a divided nation, at a time when we should be bringing people together. I genuinely urge Conservative Members to think hard about these dangers and to step back from these proposals. These might just be a few lines at the bottom of a page in the Red Book, but they could do serious damage to our communities. and I urge Conservative Members to dissociate themselves from them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

This test will be reviewed through the Social Justice Cabinet Committee, which I chair. We intend, and the Prime Minister intends, that it will have teeth. We want to see an improvement in family life and greater support for those who have to juggle care for their children, care for elderly relatives, and work. Through that process we hope to improve their lives.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

T8. In my constituency rents are almost double the English average and the housing benefit bill rose by 50% during the previous Parliament. Does the Secretary of State think that subsidising private landlords to such a degree is a good use of public money?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, we deal with housing benefit claims as they come. They support people in both private rented accommodation and social rented accommodation. I remind him that the Government whom he supported introduced the current private rented benefit test. More importantly, under that Government more people out of work and more people in work were claiming housing benefit. Under this Government fewer of those out of work are claiming housing benefit.