Housing Benefit Entitlement

Gemma Doyle Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Bayley, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) on securing the debate.

Like other hon. Members, over the past few months, I have been contacted by many of my constituents who simply do not know what to do about the policy’s implications. There is not a smaller house for them to move into, and they are not going to be able to afford their rent.

One of my constituents lives in a three-bedroom house, which he needs, as he looks after his children at weekends—similar to some other examples we have heard—but his housing benefit will be cut. If he has to move to a one-bedroom house, does it mean that it is right that his children only get to see him if they all sleep in the living room at weekends? Where should they do their homework? Would he even get access to see his children if he does not have somewhere for them to sleep, if the courts were involved in making a decision?

I have also been contacted by a couple who foster up to six children at a time, and again, they are not exempt from the cut. Is the Government’s policy honestly to cut housing benefit for foster parents, which means that they have to downsize and that they cannot foster children any more? What on earth are the Minister’s plans for the children who will then not be able to be placed with foster parents? Another constituent has sent me his monthly expenditure breakdown. The only thing he has left to cut is his contents insurance, and even then, that will not make up the difference.

What about tenants whose house has been specially adapted for them? Councils do not have the money to adapt another tranche of houses for all the people who have an extra bedroom. Some councils are considering knocking down a whole block of flats—from two-bedroom flats into one-bedroom flats—to try and deal with this. The Minister is nodding his head. Does he honestly think that that is what councils should be spending their money on? Okay, he does. We have that on record. I am a bit shocked about that.

I also want to raise the impact of the bedroom tax on serving members of the armed forces and their families, as alluded to by my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones). A prisoner can be away from home for up to 52 weeks and not have their housing benefit docked, but if someone is a serving member of the armed forces, their housing benefit will be docked if they are away for 13 weeks or more. It is astonishing that Ministers are giving prisoners more flexibility to claim those benefits than serving personnel. They are choosing prisoners over patriots. Some 96,000 members of the regular forces do not live in service accommodation, and I want to know how many of them will be affected. The Minister seems to be indicating that they will not be affected. Perhaps he can explain how that is, because we are aware of examples where they will be. Service families and personnel could be hit for doing their duty for their country.

Reservists will be affected too. They do not live in forces accommodation, so surely an even higher percentage of them will be hit. The Government are trying to increase recruitment to the reserve, so how do they think the prospect of having a housing benefit cut will affect those plans? They must publish the impact of the bedroom tax and set out very clearly who will be affected. It is the least they can do to clear the matter up for our forces. Either Ministers do not realise that serving personnel and their families will be affected, or they think that it is right that prisoners should have an exemption, while those protecting our country do not.

I want to read out a couple of lines from an e-mail that I received from a constituent about the impact that the policy will have on him:

“I am 40 years old, receiving incapacity Benefit, and live alone in a 2-bedroom flat. I struggle to make ends meet as it is at the moment, and literally keep track of every penny I spend. I do not drink, or smoke, or go on holidays, or socialise—my existence…consists of hiding from the world in a cold flat (I cannot afford to use the central heating) and reading. I cannot even visit my parents because I cannot afford £4 bus fare.

Come next April, I will no longer be able to afford to live. I do not enjoy my life, but have struggled to retain it. These changes are likely to be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back, and I am sure I am not the only person considering this.

I would like to know, in your opinion, what I can realistically do next year to survive.”

I have replied to my constituent, but I could not tell him how he can survive when the impact of this policy is felt, so I wonder whether the Minister could tell my constituent what he can do.