Housing Benefit (Under-occupancy Penalty)

Debate between Eilidh Whiteford and Gemma Doyle

Wednesday 27th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Dr Whiteford]

The hon. Gentleman is having a go at the record of the previous Government but he cannot abdicate all responsibility from previous Tory Governments who made it impossible for local authorities to build houses without them being sold off at below market value to tenants who bought them at knock-down prices. That underpins the whole shortage of supply and Government Members cannot pass off responsibility for having created the problem in the first place.

Housing in the social rented sector is by far the cheapest option for people on low incomes. In my constituency, a three-bedroom council house can be rented more cheaply than most one-bedroom flats. People who live in council houses already have limited choice about where they live and what sort or size of house they are offered. Councils and housing associations already go to great lengths to match tenants with a house of the right size, but they do not have enough one-bedroom properties to go round. Many councils allocate homes on a points-based system, which is the most transparent and fair approach, but they require considerable flexibility from prospective tenants in terms of the size, location and type of property they will accept. Demand exceeds supply. Anyone who knocks back the offer of a house because it has two bedrooms when ideally they need one bedroom may not get another offer. People cannot be picky and must take what is available.

[Gemma Doyle (West Dunbartonshire) (Lab/Co-op)]

I absolutely agree with the points that the hon. Lady is putting to the Government. Is she aware that 83% of the Government’s cuts have been passed directly to councils by the Scottish Government and that councils are having to deal with the sharp end of this measure? That amount of money that is being taken out of Scottish councils at this extraordinarily difficult time—[Interruption.]

[Dr Whiteford]

Colleagues from Wales are saying that there the Labour Government have passed on 100% of the cuts. Surely it is better that the Scottish Government have tried to mitigate the impact of those cuts on households, rather than passing them on wholesale. We must remember that most of our social housing was built in an era when people had much larger families and different housing needs. Existing housing simply does not match today’s demographics.