Housing Benefit

Debate between Emily Thornberry and Mike Freer

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mike Freer]

My hon. Friend is right. My casework is about families living in overcrowded accommodation who cannot get into the right accommodation. That is what we need to put right.

With reference to London, as that is the most populous part of the UK, let us not forget how Labour’s Ken Livingstone destroyed social house building at a stroke when he was Mayor. His arbitrary thresholds ground social house building to a halt because builders built to the threshold and then they stopped.

[Emily Thornberry]

rose—

[Mike Freer]

No, I am sorry. I have given way once and I am running out of time.

Under that policy, we got no social housing at all on smaller developments because builders built to the threshold. That was Labour’s legacy in London. Of course there are difficulties, as the population makes the transition to the new arrangements, but, as I mentioned, I cannot be alone in the Chamber in having to deal with constituents in accommodation that is too small for them, where children and parents are sharing bedrooms, where children of different sexes approaching puberty have to share bedrooms, or where living rooms are doubling up as bedrooms.

What about the families consigned to emergency accommodation? We do not hear much about that from the Opposition today. That is a problem forgotten by Labour and being dealt with by the Government. It is argued that it is cheaper to subsidise spare rooms than to move people or adapt homes, yet the overall costs of converting larger properties to smaller accommodation would be repaid by the savings on emergency accommodation alone.