Housing Benefit

Debate between Esther McVey and Yasmin Qureshi

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

Just like I am being shouted down now, the voices of nearly 2 million people on waiting lists have been shouted down and, unfortunately, the 400,000 people in overcrowded accommodation are not being listened to.

We have two different legal systems within one—it does different things for people in the private rented sector and for people in the social rented sector. Opposition Members want to remove the reversal of the spare room subsidy, but I want to throw a question out there. If they retain the spare room subsidy, I believe a legal challenge is on the way from people in the private sector, who want the same policy to apply to them. If Labour reverses our policy, that is not tough on fiscal responsibility. Instead, Labour will spend yet more, which is typical Labour: spend more and increase benefits, and ignore the problem altogether.

Hon. Members have asked whether the policy was about saving money, getting the housing stock right or getting the right people into social houses. Actually, we must do all those things. That is why, as we are solving those problems, £4.5 billion will be put into new building, so we will have 170,000 new houses by 2015. A further £3.3 billion will mean we have another 65,000 houses by 2018.

The hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson) said that Members on each side of the House are different and she is quite right: those on the Opposition Benches deliver problems and those on the coalition Government Benches have to solve them. The hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) asked what the difference is between the Government side and the Opposition side of the House. The Opposition drove us into recession, never thinking about what they were spending and never living within their means. We are digging them out of that recession.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

What would the hon. Lady say to my constituents, Mr and Mrs Wilkes? Mrs Wilkes has a back problem and is disabled. Her husband cannot share a bed with her, much as he would like to, and has to stay in the second room. They are having to pay the bedroom tax. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Interventions must be brief. I think we got the gist and we are grateful to the hon. Lady.