Oral Answers to Questions

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 9th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

6. What recent assessment he has made of the effects in Wales of changes to housing benefit.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

9. What recent assessment he has made of the effects in Wales of changes to housing benefit.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Stephen Crabb)]

The Government remain committed to reforming housing benefit to create a fairer and more affordable system.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Crabb]

We are not forcing disabled people out of their homes. On the hon. Gentleman’s question about Flintshire, we are making available to his local authority more than £240,000 this year in discretionary housing benefit. I ask him to ask his local authority why it has more than 275 empty properties in the social rented sector. That is part of the answer to the local housing problems in Flintshire.

[Geraint Davies]

Is the Minister aware that in Swansea two thirds of the thousands of people affected by the bedroom tax are now in arrears and that those arrears have doubled since April? Will he and the Secretary of State have an urgent meeting with the Prime Minister to make the case for Wales, which is the worst affected area in the whole of Britain, with fewer smaller units and the poor being thrust into dire poverty and the arms of loan sharks?

[Stephen Crabb]

I am happy to meet the hon. Gentleman to talk about housing issues in Swansea, but he should be aware that there are about 300 empty properties in the social rented sector in Swansea. That should be part of the answer to the problems he is talking about. I am concerned to hear about the large increase in the number of people he says are suffering from rent arrears. We are making available substantial resource to Swansea borough council, and we should be asking how it is using those discretionary housing payments to assist people through the difficult transition.