Housing Benefit and Disabled People

Ian C. Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Caton. I welcome the Minister to her place and offer belated congratulations on her appointment. I wish to raise with her the effect of the changes to housing benefit on people in the social rented sector who are deemed to be under-occupying a property. I thank my constituents John Turner and Matthew Hancock, Karen Armitage of Stafford and Rural Homes, and my colleague Pauline Ingall for bringing this matter to my attention.

From April 2013, size criteria for new and existing working-age housing benefit claimants will be introduced; they will replicate the size criteria that apply to housing benefit claimants in the private rented sector. The Department for Work and Pensions’ impact assessment estimates that out of 660,000 claimants affected by the new rules, some 420,000 are disabled. The impact assessment offers the explanation that

“Disabled claimants are, on average, older than non-disabled claimants. One consequence of this is that disabled claimants are also less likely to live in households with children… Fewer people living in a household means that large accommodation cannot be justified under the size criteria, and Housing Benefit entitlement is reduced.”

In the debate on the Welfare Reform Bill last year, I raised the matter of disabled people sometimes needing more rooms than provided for by the rules. One family in my constituency with disabled adults and children needed separate rooms for the couple and a separate room for one of the children under the age of 10. The then Minister for disabled people, my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Maria Miller), gave a clear answer. She said that

“if a disabled person has the need for an overnight carer, additional rooms can be allocated. Indeed, if there are disabled people in the house who require rooms, there will be clear support there for them to be able to have those rooms.”—[Official Report, 1 February 2012; Vol. 539, c. 937.]

I also raised the question of adaptations, which have sometimes had many thousands of pounds spent on them to enable a disabled person to live in the property. It does not make sense for people to move from such properties to others that will themselves require costly adaptations. I therefore welcomed the fact that of the additional £30 million per annum being added to the discretionary housing payment scheme by the Government from April this year, £25 million is intended to be used

“specifically to assist those disabled claimants who are in properties where a significant adaptation has been made to cater for their individual needs.”

I have contacted the two councils in my constituency to ask them how they intend to allocate the additional funding. Stafford borough council has been working with housing associations to identify tenants affected by the new legislation. It will be concentrating its extra funding, which I estimate to be some £75,000, on disabled people whose property has been adapted and on foster carers; the support will be for 12 months. South Staffordshire district council, which has an additional £64,000 funding, will give short-term support, one to three months, to disabled people with property adaptations. The support is short term, because the council wishes to assess the situation before it commits to the longer term.

Both councils have been proactive in arranging mutual exchanges of properties between those who have spare rooms and those who are overcrowded—they have been doing exactly what the Government wish to encourage. However, both councils face serious shortages of one-bedroom properties for couples or singles, as much of the housing in the area has two bedrooms. That raises two questions for the Minister. First, can councils be sure that they will continue to receive at least the level of additional funding each year for discretionary housing payments that has been granted in 2013-14? Given that much of the funding will be for disabled claimants in adapted properties in which they are likely to live for many years, the need for DHPs will continue. Secondly, is the guidance for the assessment of the number of rooms required by disabled people being set out in the terms that the Minister used to me in the House last year? In addition to the case I mentioned, there are instances where disabled people live on their own or as a couple in a two-bedroom property with little or no storage space, and they tend to use the second room, which is often small, to store equipment that they need—perhaps a wheelchair or a mobility scooter. My understanding of the Minister’s comments in the House last year is that the second room should not be counted as a bedroom.

[Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a compelling case. Some of the individuals affected are severely disabled and the uncertainty that he has outlined is creating great worry, and not just for them; some parents of disabled people are also concerned about the situation. Is it not imperative that an element of certainty is introduced to the system?

[Jeremy Lefroy]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention and I agree with him. Certainty is vital, which is why I am asking for clarification, and hopefully clarification in the terms used by the then Minister for disabled people in the House of Commons last year.

--- Later in debate ---

[Esther McVey]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, and I will come on to that a little bit later and explain in detail what we are doing. He will also appreciate that I cannot make spending commitments into the next Parliament. None the less, with regard to the discretionary housing payment, the Government are committed to ensuring that the reforms are well implemented. We are working closely with local authorities and the Local Government Association regarding this payment usage. As part of the review of these reforms, we are taking ongoing feedback, and I will be pleased to pass on the points raised here today and any further evidence that emerges as the reforms are rolled out. We will continue to monitor and evaluate the impact of the changes.

I should like to put it on the record that a lot of the negative impacts that people talked about last year, such as an explosion of homelessness and mass migration, have simply not emerged. We all want to ensure that there is a smooth transition and that the change is affordable. Of course we are using common sense. My hon. Friend talks about expensive modifications. We know that we have to take that into account, which is precisely why we have trebled the discretionary fund.

We have also made arguments for exempting certain categories from the social sector size criteria measure. However, we do not believe that blanket exemptions are the most effective and affordable approach to targeting resources, because they do not take into account local knowledge. We have therefore avoided exemptions where possible and favoured the discretionary housing payment, because local decision makers are best placed to make decisions based on individual circumstances.

[Ian Lucas]

The Minister is being generous in giving way. Can she foresee circumstances in which someone who requires an overnight carer is not allowed an extra room within the housing benefit provisions?

[Esther McVey]

That is precisely why we are monitoring and evaluating the scheme, and we will continue to do so for two years to see what extra support might be needed. Of course we are watching and observing what is going on. [Interruption.] I will complete my comments here. However, we are committed to undertaking the independent evaluation of all housing reforms. The first report on the private sector is due to be published later this year, and work on evaluating the social sector changes will be implemented in April, with initial findings being available next year.

I trust that I have answered many of the questions that have been raised today. On other specific matters, I will get back to my hon. Friend. As I have already said, this is an important debate, and it is crucial that we closely monitor the situation. We are considering the most vulnerable people in society, and we have a commitment to them.