Oral Answers to Questions

Gregg McClymont Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Of course, we always keep in close contact with social landlords to ensure that they do what they are meant to do and do not overcharge. The Homes and Communities Agency’s latest figures show that arrears have fallen in the same period from last year and rent collection among housing associations is stable at around 98%, so I think that it is safe to assume that the under-occupancy penalty has had little effect on housing association arrears.

[Gregg McClymont (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (Lab)]

The bedroom tax surely has a claim to be the most wrong-headed and iniquitous policy introduced by any Government in recent memory. The Government’s justification for this cruel tax was that putting it on social housing tenants would incentivise families and individuals to move into smaller homes, but the policy has one fatal flaw: the absence of homes for those families and individuals to move into. Surely the Secretary of State must today concede that the policy has been an abject failure and scrap the tax immediately.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Apart from the rhetoric, the reality is that the hon. Gentleman is wrong. It was his Government who started the process in the first place. I remind him that when they introduced the local housing allowance, they refused to allow anybody who accepted that benefit to live in a house that had extra bedrooms, because that would be unfair on those who were in that accommodation. We have restored that fairness. That is the right thing to do, and it saves £500 million a year.