Housing Benefit

Fiona O'Donnell Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

I was interested by what the hon. Member for High Peak (Andrew Bingham) said. I think that it had something to do with hard-working families and the impact of the present housing benefit system on people who wish to work hard. I was reminded of the first Thatcherite regime, when the hon. Gentleman’s party deemed a living wage to be 75p an hour. I also remember that during our term in government, his party voted against every single move to take people out of poverty, including the national minimum wage.

The most interesting thing to emerge from today’s debate is the fact that Government Members have swallowed hook, line and sinker the myths that were originally used in the proselytising of their Prime Minister, who stood on the Floor of the House and castigated housing benefit for paying people £1,000 and £2,000 a week. He attempted to present that as the median for people claiming the benefit, and I was so intrigued that I tabled a question on the issue. There are, in fact, no claimants receiving £2,000 a week, and there are precisely 90 families, in London exclusively, whose housing benefit pays them rent of £1,000 a week, because those are extremely large families.

The myth with which the Government have been successful in their proselytising is that most people on housing benefit live in four-bedroom properties. Nothing could be further from the truth. Most people on housing benefit live in shared accommodation or in one or two-bedroom properties. In my constituency, the amounts that those claimants will lose range from £21 a week for those in shared rooms to £246 a week for those who are fortunate enough to live in four-bedroom properties.

[Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)]

The 10 families in my constituency who live in five-bedroom properties do so not because they have dressing rooms or extra en suites, but because of the nature of families nowadays. A mother and a father may bring in children from previous relationships. Government Members do not seem to be able to grasp that.

[Glenda Jackson]

That is a salient point, which can be replicated in my constituency. I know of a family with two children who are severely disabled and in wheelchairs, and two who are not so severely disabled. There are also a mother, a father and a grandmother, and they are all attempting to live in a four-bedroom property.

The other myth that has been propounded by Government Members today is that these changes are essentially fair. I distinctly remember the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister—who has proved himself to be the Maréchal Pétain of his generation—saying that the changes were not only fair, but made at a time when the Government were having to make extremely difficult choices to protect the most vulnerable members of our society. Throughout the afternoon, it has been clear that Government Members do not regard pensioners as vulnerable. Nor, apparently, do they regard them as being taxpayers. They do not regard people with disabilities as being vulnerable, and they do not regard people on low pay as actually working.

What I say about my constituency and my city of London is not scaremongering. We have been here before. As I said, some of us remember the Thatcherite regime, when people were forced out of their homes and some were sleeping on the streets because they could not afford to find anywhere to live. The bills for bed-and-breakfast accommodation were astronomical. I am sure that Government Members are smiling at that memory, because that, essentially, is what they wish to do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bob Blackman]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, which leads on to the other key issue in this debate: the supply of housing in this country. That point is not really being answered by the Opposition. The Labour party had every opportunity to build houses over the past 13 years, but it failed to do so. At the same time, it failed to take account of the fact that this country’s population is increasing, so the need for housing increases all the time. We have a market for housing and housing benefit distorts it directly, which is why it is a bad benefit in desperate need of reform. One of the reforms that must take place is a change to the way in which housing benefit is withdrawn from people as they get work. At the moment that is a direct disincentive for people at a certain level to work, because they lose benefit pound for pound. Why should someone work if that is the position?

[Fiona O'Donnell]

Does the hon. Gentleman not realise that what this means for housing associations, on which we are going to rely to build homes, is that their cash flow will be interrupted, they will have debts and there will be an adverse impact on their ability to borrow to build those homes?

[Bob Blackman]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. The housing associations throughout this country seek changes of tenure, changes of regime and an encouragement to develop the housing that this country desperately needs in every local authority area. I trust that that is what will happen. The coalition Government have set out their stall: we will build 150,000 new homes during the life of this Government. We agree that that is not enough, and we would like to see more. What we want to see is young people getting a foot on the housing ladder, moving out of rented accommodation and purchasing their own property. What has to change is that the applicable lending regimes of the banks, building societies and suchlike must enable people to get on the property ladder.