Housing Benefit (Abolition of Social Sector Size Criteria)

Heather Wheeler Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)]

As always in these debates—we have had a few of them—I rely on the statistics and figures from my outstanding South Derbyshire district council, which has retained housing. In the first 12 months of this policy, 318 tenants were affected and needed help. The council was proactive, employing a tenants sustainability officer to help to ensure that all the relevant benefits were being paid to those who needed help. I am delighted to tell the House that, over the last 12 months, only 73 tenants have been affected by the policy. That is an outstanding achievement. I am incredibly proud of the council.

A number of factors came into play. The council has been very proactive in using the discretionary housing budget. When it had used about 80% of its allocation, the Government offered more money to affected councils. It put in a bid and was given more money, and has now used more than 80% of the grand total—the larger amount. The council understands about keeping communities together and about dealing with carers and disabled people.

There is another crucial reason for the fact that the situation in South Derbyshire has completely and dramatically changed. This is, of course, a groundhog day debate, but it proves yet again that the Opposition are hardly worthy of the name. One of the reasons for that dramatic change—apart from our having a caring Conservative council—is the huge drop in our unemployment figures. In May 2012, 1,402 people in South Derbyshire were unemployed; in November 2014, 517 signed on. The point is that this Government believe that work should pay, this Government believe that people should have every opportunity to get back into work, and this Government are sitting on the fact that the number of tenants affected by this policy has fallen from 318 to 73.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, as a result of the tough decisions on welfare that the Government had to make and the lower borrowing rates that they have now produced, we can give businesses the tax cuts that will enable them to pay more than the minimum wage and hopefully go further, thus helping the poorest in society to get on?

[Heather Wheeler]

Absolutely. I do not know whether you will allow me to give my hon. Friend a proper answer, Madam Deputy Speaker, because this is slightly off the point, but two major companies have factories in my constituency. One is Faccenda, whose turkey-processing plant is very busy at the moment, and the other is Nestlé. Both have announced publicly that no one working in those factories will earn less than the living wage. They are taking the lead, and that is the moral thing to do.

I am incredibly proud of my businesses, my council, and the tenants who have found the right way to obtain jobs and get out of the welfare benefit society that the Opposition seem to want to make everyone pay for. It should not be like that. Get into the 21st century, guys!