Housing Benefit (Abolition of Social Sector Size Criteria)

Hywel Williams Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

The Minister began his contribution this afternoon with the good news about unemployment. He made a case for giving the full picture, so this is a message for both Front-Bench teams—the one that has overall charge of the economy, and the one that has charge of the economy mainly in Wales. In the last quarter, unemployment in Wales went up by 8,000. That is indeed the full picture.

I welcome the motion. The bedroom tax is one of the most ill-thought-out policies brought about since the poll tax, and I think it should be abolished with immediate effect. The under-occupancy penalty, if we must call it that, has been applied to about half a million people, more than 60% of whom have a disabled member and the vast majority of whom have absolutely no hope of downsizing in order to avoid the penalty. In fact, in Wales, 35,000 households have been affected. Many of them were allocated their current homes a very long time ago—and they are their homes, which is a very important point. They are homes—not properties or just houses—where people live and have lived for a very long time.

Before the bedroom tax was first proposed, I asked the then Minister what assessment had been made of the elasticity of the local housing supply in the private sector in Wales. I asked whether the Government had thought about it beforehand. Tellingly, the answer was “none”. The Government’s motive was to cut. People could neither move nor take in a lodger, and no attempt was made to prepare people to move to smaller houses if needed. This was and is a ruthless money-saving exercise. Those of us who warned of the implications of the bedroom tax beforehand and opposed it from the very start take absolutely no pleasure in saying, “We told you so”—but that is the case.

Ministers have been keen to point to the discretionary housing payment fund, saying that it is helping to fill the gap. The average DHP funding per head in Britain is £2.83. In Wales it is £2.51—in marked contrast with comparable areas such as the north-east of England, where it is £2.80, and Scotland, where it is £5.39. I shall return to that point later. Ministers have sought to reassure us by saying that the DHP fund will receive an extra £40 million in the next year. Given that rents are rising again, I have some doubt about whether that will fill the gap and, as has been said, that is not long-term funding.

Looking back to the Welfare Reform Bill in early 2011—now the Welfare Reform Act 2012—I note that Labour Members abstained on Second Reading. Their action speaks for itself. In early 2013, it was left to Plaid Cymru, the Scottish National party and the Green party to use one of our few Opposition day slots to have a debate on the bedroom tax and then to force a vote on its abolition. That was down to my party, the SNP and the Green Member.

When, early in 2014, the finances allowed it, the SNP Scottish Government implemented a top-up from their budget in order to mitigate the effects of the bedroom tax. The Government of Scotland, voted for by the people of Scotland, were protecting their people from the worst excesses of a Westminster Government for whom they did not vote. Many of us in Wales naturally turned to our own devolved Government to see what they would do. Again, it was left to Plaid Cymru to push in the National Assembly for mitigation of the cuts to council tax benefit—thanks to the efforts of my colleague, Rhodri Glyn Thomas, AM.

Labour could have recognised that the bedroom tax was affecting the most vulnerable and implemented mitigation measures, but it chose not to do so. It did choose to allocate some money to the smaller houses—357 houses in all of Wales, to be precise, while 35,000 households are affected by the spare room subsidy. The Welsh Government could have implemented a no evictions policy, but chose not to do so. Leaving all that aside, I think the people of Wales can clearly see that it is Plaid Cymru in Wales, the SNP in Scotland and the Green party that have led on this matter—and they will act accordingly at the general election.