Business of the House

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 24th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

The initial city deals in the largest cities demonstrated how those can energise economic potential by bringing people together and allowing them to think not in terms of what local authorities, universities, chambers of commerce, local enterprise partnerships and central Government do individually, but to put all that together. I will not be parochial, but Cambridge is also submitting an expression of interest in the next round of city deals. I will talk to my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury about whether we might find an opportunity for some of the cities that are coming forward with new expressions of interest in city deals to have, in effect, a shop window to say how they would use that flexibility.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

In Hull North seven members of the Hooper family, including a disabled five-year-old child, will lose £80 a month because under the coalition’s bedroom tax, they are under-occupying their four-bedroom house. On 8 January, Hull city council told me that it had 73 one and two-bedroomed properties available for households needing a smaller property, but 4,700 tenants will be hit by the bedroom tax. May we have a debate on the Floor of the House about the shambles that this unfair policy will cause up and down the country?

[Mr Lansley]

The hon. Lady and her party need to recognise that when, as I and many hon. Members know, very large numbers of people are seeking access to social housing and we have large numbers of under-occupied houses, it is necessary to do something about it. If the hon. Lady wants to raise the issue, she will have the opportunity at questions to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and his colleagues on Monday.