Housing Benefit

George Hollingbery Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[George Hollingbery (Meon Valley) (Con)]

It is an honour to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) and the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford), with whom I have sparred on a number of occasions on similar issues.

We need to pose ourselves a question: what is dealing with the spare room subsidy about? Is it about reducing the housing benefit bill? Yes, of course it is. The Government propose a £500 million saving, which is important. Let us not delude ourselves, however. We face a structural problem with housing: there is too little of it, and what there is of it is too expensive. The only way meaningfully to reduce the housing benefit bill is to increase the supply of housing hugely—something that we all know will not happen overnight. It did not happen on the watch of the previous Government, but it is happening at least in part on this Government’s watch. Although an important saving is being made, reducing the housing benefit bill is not the principal thrust of the reductions in spare room subsidy.

[Jonathan Edwards]

May I take up that point, which is raised in the Government amendment? Notwithstanding the bedroom tax, the cap on benefit and the annual real-terms reduction in the uprating of benefit, the Office for Budget Responsibility still predicts that the housing benefit bill will rise. This is a failed policy.

[George Hollingbery]

What the hon. Gentleman says demonstrates that, as I have just pointed out, what we need is a massive increase in the amount of housing that is built. That was a failure on the part of the last Government, and it has not been easy for this Government to rectify it during the current recession. I believe that we are doing a great deal to try to rectify it, but the real answer is to build a very large number of new houses. That cannot be done in an instant, which is why the housing benefit bill is almost bound to rise in the short term.

This is, in my view, a policy about behavioural change and about the chronic underuse of publicly owned housing assets. Those who live in social housing have no incentive to downsize, because they have tenancies for life. I understand the motivation behind that: as has already been pointed out today, these are not just tenancies, but homes. However, the position is not sustainable given such a limited supply of stock. The Government have, of course, taken action to end tenancies for life, but that will take a very long time to feed through the system. Meanwhile, there are vast numbers of people on housing waiting lists and large numbers living in overcrowded homes, while 1 million or more dwellings have an extra bedroom. That cannot be right.

[Katy Clark]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[George Hollingbery]

I will, but by doing so I shall take time away from Opposition speakers.

[Katy Clark]

Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that that there is a complete mismatch between the types of homes that are available and what the Government want people to do? In North Ayrshire, for example, 2,260 council tenants are affected by the policy, but only 59 tenants in under-occupied properties have been able to move since April.

[George Hollingbery]

The point is well made. I entirely accept that there is indeed a mismatch in many parts of the country. However, it is not impossible for people to move between local authority areas. That happens in the private sector, and there is no good reason why it cannot happen in the public sector. Certainly, it is more difficult, but there is no reason why it should not happen.

I recently visited a young family in Wickham, which is in my constituency. The couple had one child and another on the way. There was one bedroom upstairs, with a small bathroom, a kitchen-sitting room-dining area downstairs, and that was it. The child was living in a cot in the sitting room. Just yards away were two and three-bedroom homes under-occupied by lifetime tenants.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I must apologise to the hon. Gentleman. The clock is wrong, and I should warn him that he does not have five minutes and four seconds left; he has only four minutes and one second.

[George Hollingbery]

Thank you for that warning, Madam Deputy Speaker.

The situation that I have described cannot be right, either in terms of the use of resources or in terms of plain fairness. According to the switching site HomeSwapper, those who have successfully moved as a consequence of these changes often say that their understanding of the unfairness of the situation was a significant part of their motivation. However, it is also important to note that the potential reduction in housing benefit payments was what made them actually do something about it.

The unfairness is, of course, only exacerbated by the rules governing the private rented sector, under which only the space that is needed is paid for. That has been referred to at length this afternoon. Presumably, if the principle of ensuring the right number of bedrooms is unfair in social housing, it is also unfair in private housing. That point too has already been made. The motion

“calls on the Government to end these deductions with immediate effect”.

I can only imagine that the Opposition will propose similar changes in the private sector, as the same principle applies. If so, how much will it cost, and if not, why not?

It is clear that the Opposition’s thinking on this matter has been, to say the least, inconsistent. In 2011, I was a member of the Committee that considered the Bill that became the Welfare Reform Act 2012. We had a long discussion, and a number of amendments were tabled to clause 68, which established the principle of the spare room subsidy reduction. All the points that were made were salient, the amendments—most of which were tabled by the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck), who is no longer in the Chamber—were perfectly sensible, and, in large part, the Government have introduced provisions to deal with them. Interestingly, however, no Division was called on a stand part motion, and no attempt was made to remove the clause on Report. I am a novice in these matters, but my interpretation of what happened is that the Opposition accepted the principle. If that is not the case, I should like to hear why it is not.

The Opposition’s difficulty with welfare reform as a whole is clear. Recently, the hon. Member for Westminster North, who very ably took large parts of the Welfare Reform Bill through Committee, including clause 68, was reported as saying that the Opposition had not won the public debate on welfare, and it appears that she is right. Ipsos MORI carried out a survey of 2,000 people in late August this year from which it concluded that:

“By a margin of 3 to 1, the majority of the British public believe that the benefits system in Britain is too generous.”

Interestingly, it also revealed that the public broadly supported the Government’s position on the spare room subsidy.

Back in April, Peter Watt, former general secretary of the Labour party, wrote on the “Labour Uncut” website:

“I don’t know what Labour’s position on welfare reform is”,

and added,

“Labour has in the past also talked tough on welfare and that it would like to reduce welfare bills. The problem is that it is currently fighting a battle in which it is opposing the government’s attempts to achieve this. So Labour appears confused.”

Today, in this motion, we see yet another example of this confusion.

It must be right, at a time of acute overcrowding co-existing with a great deal of under-occupancy in the social housing sector, for the Government to take action to encourage change. A broad policy of this sort will inevitably throw up real-life difficulties when applied in the particular, but the Government have been very careful to deal with as many of them as possible and have made many exceptions to the general rule. They have also made substantial amounts of money available through discretionary housing payment to ease the transition for those who are affected.

Furthermore, evidence shows that over 10% of those who have been affected by the change so far have come off benefits entirely, which must surely be welcomed by all. Change of this sort is never easy to implement, but that does not mean it is not fair in principle and that it is not necessary. In this case, it is both, and I will certainly vote for the Government’s amendment this evening.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

The Opposition are proud to have called this debate. The testimony we have heard from right hon. and hon. Members from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland has shown again why this policy is both a moral and a practical failure. It is cruel, unworkable and perverse. It is not reducing overcrowding and it is not saving money as intended. It is causing fear and misery, and it is time it was scrapped.

I want to respond to as many of the points that have been raised as possible. I appreciate that many of my right hon. and hon. Friends who wanted to participate this afternoon have not been able to do so. One or two of them have notified me of their concerns and I hope to be able to raise them.

Let me start with an issue that was raised repeatedly by Government Members, who made comparisons with the private rented sector and said that the situation there is appropriate for the social sector. A whole raft of arguments against that position were made by my Opposition colleagues. My hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg) pointed out that the social market is a very different market with very different rental structures from those in the private sector. The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) pointed out that we allocate social housing predominantly on the basis of need, not market forces.

My hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) pointed out that there is a significant difference between this Government’s implementation of the bedroom tax and Labour’s implementation of the local housing allowance. The local housing allowance was not implemented retrospectively and people were not trapped. My right hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Mrs McGuire), who was a Minister at the time so she ought to know, pointed out that it never became our policy in the social rented sector.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Katy Clark) was right to say—this was also highlighted by Government Members—that our aspiration for social housing is very different from theirs. We see it as fulfilling a role of offering high-quality, stable accommodation to strengthen families and communities. We cannot understand why a Government who proclaim their commitment to a big society would not agree with us on that.

The hon. Members for Meon Valley (George Hollingbery) and for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) suggested that the policy is popular with the public and pointed to the recently published Ipsos MORI poll. I suggest that hon. Members look a little more closely at the poll, because it shows that the public become more sceptical about the policy the more they know about it. The public are not in favour of the policy if there is no alternative home for people to move to or if it means that people cannot meet basic living costs, which they cannot. As the Real Life Reform research is beginning to show, the policy is causing human misery and leading to arrears and debt, to mental health problems and stress, and to families cutting back on fuel and food.

[George Hollingbery]

Having looked at the poll this afternoon, I think I am right in saying that the hon. Lady may have a point on the issue of requiring people to move out of the area in which they live, but that there was an approval of more than 45%—I think it was 48%—for expecting people to move within the area in which they live. Is that correct?

[Kate Green]

That may be the case, but as my Opposition colleagues have repeatedly shown, in many areas there is a mismatch of suitable properties for people to move into. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to acknowledge, as we have said, that expecting people to move up and down the country would not command the same popular support.

As many of my colleagues have pointed out, the policy is especially cruel towards those affected, including 220,000 families with children, lone parents and separated families and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck) has said, those fleeing domestic violence. As my hon. Friend the Member for Halton has said, some pensioner couples will be affected under universal credit if they are not both over state pension age. Most crucially, two thirds of those affected are disabled—420,000 disabled people are affected by the bedroom tax.

Contrary to what Government Members appeared to believe at the beginning of the debate, not all disabled people are protected from this policy. Adults with an overnight carer are protected, but children who need an overnight carer are not. Children with medium and high-level care needs will now be protected—following the Government conceding that they need to take action in light of the Burnip and Gorry cases—but children with higher rate mobility needs are not protected, contrary to the advice of the Social Security Advisory Committee, let alone there being protection for all disabled children.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg) pointed out, and many colleagues reinforced, there is no protection for a couple if they are unable as a result of health or disability to share a bed or bedroom. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) highlighted to me the case of her constituents, Mr and Mrs Wilkes, who have been particularly harshly hit by this measure.

There is no protection if someone needs extra space for equipment or because they have had their home adapted, as was the case for the Rutherford family who were required to install a hoist, wider doors and a wet room for their 13-year-old son, Warren, yet are not protected from the bedroom tax. Mr Randall from Basildon has been told by his council that it will not move him to a smaller property as it has not been and cannot be adapted, yet he is being hit by the bedroom tax in his current property on which adaptations have been made.