Housing Benefit

Heather Wheeler Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)]

I want to remind Opposition Members that the ethos behind the spare-room subsidy has been around for a very long time. I repeat what I said in an earlier debate: what have Opposition Members been doing to ensure that their councils talk to the Homes and Communities Agency and housing associations about the number of properties they need in their areas? My council, South Derbyshire district council, which I am very proud of, sorted out what the numbers would be; how many units we needed to swap; and what was going to be needed with the discretionary housing payments. We also opened up an early dialogue with all our tenants.

[Bill Esterson]

Perhaps the hon. Lady can tell me how, overnight, she could expect Sefton council, working with its social landlords, to provide 5,000 one-bedroom properties? That was the number of properties needed. How was that supposed to happen?

[Heather Wheeler]

That is the whole point: it was not overnight; there was at least two years’ notice. [Laughter.] Opposition Members may laugh, but in two years more than 140 one and two-bedroom units have been built in South Derbyshire. What, my friends, were Opposition Members doing to look after their so-called vulnerable people?

[Chris Bryant]

I presume that the hon. Lady is going to vote with the Government to close the loophole. I presume she will only do that—or else she would think herself to be cruel—if she knows how many people she will be adding to the list of those affected by the bedroom tax. Does she know that number for her own constituency? Does she know the number for the country? [Interruption.] I do know the number.

[Heather Wheeler]

I am very glad the hon. Gentleman knows the number for both; I am sure he is going to tell everybody. However, the most important thing today is that there is an anachronism. Opposition Members are living in the old days. When will Opposition Members wake up to see that there is massive overcrowding and that we need a massive new building programme? As ever, they are living in the old days and are doing nothing about looking after the most vulnerable people. The Opposition are living in fantasy land and that will not look after the most vulnerable people. They do not deal with the real problems in society: overcrowding; people who have been waiting and waiting to get decent housing; and people who have been on housing benefit for goodness knows how long because they have been brought up to stay in that sort of society. That is not good enough. That is not the society we want to have in the future. I see those on the Opposition Front Bench hanging their heads in shame. I hope the cameras can get that, because that is the truth of where we are.

[Katy Clark]

Does the hon. Lady agree that the real problem is that we do not have enough social housing?

[Heather Wheeler]

In the last two and a half years what conversations has the hon. Lady had with her council? My district council is now building council houses. My Conservative council is building one, two, three and four-bedroom council properties. What have Labour Members been doing?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

My hon. Friend is in full flow and I think she is magnificent. May I remind her that the answer to that question is that under the previous Government the building of social housing fell to its lowest level since the 1920s? Opposition Members talk a lot about it, but they did absolutely nothing for those living in overcrowded accommodation.

[Heather Wheeler]

That says it all. I know that this is meant to be a 90-minute debate, but I wonder whether the Opposition want to give up now because we are having the most ludicrous conversation. I feel so sorry for the voters and residents who are looked after by people who scream and shout and say that they look after the most vulnerable people in society, but physically do nothing about it.

[Sheila Gilmore]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I am just going to help a little bit. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman wants to catch my eye, in which case he will not get in at the moment because of how many interventions we have already had. That is how bad it is: we are cutting each other’s speaking times down. That will have to go down to four minutes shortly and some people will drop off the end.

[Heather Wheeler]

I thank the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) for staying seated. I am sure he will make a magnificent speech in a while.

I finish by saying that can Opposition Members please have serious conversations with their local housing associations, the Homes and Communities Agency and the big providers—the Legal & Generals, the big insurance companies and the other people who want to invest in big infrastructure? If there is an absolute need for one and two-bedroom rented properties in their constituencies, they should open up those conversations. Legal & General, among other insurance companies, wants to take on long-term rented properties. Please do not have a whinge and a moan in this Chamber. Opposition Members should get out there, do their jobs and see what they are meant to be sorting out for the vulnerable people in their constituencies.