Housing Costs

Ian Lavery Excerpts

Thursday 3rd April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Dame Anne Begg]

Indeed. That is why the Committee did not go so far as to say that all people with a disability should be exempt and suggested that perhaps a proxy, such as those in the higher rate DLA category, might be acceptable. We are very clear that we think that the groups that the hon. Lady mentions should be exempt. I know that many Government Back Benchers often think that those people are exempt, but they are not, for the reasons I gave in my statement. We think that it should be very clear that someone in an adapted house, for instance, should not have even to apply for DHP. Surely they should be automatically exempt.

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

I welcome the report, which clearly identifies a hardship faced by many disabled people and their carers. Is my hon. Friend confident that the Government will exempt the individuals whose circumstances are outlined in the report from the bedroom tax?

[Dame Anne Begg]

I would hope so, simply because I know that Ministers have often repeated that the groups we describe really should not be subject to the spare room subsidy, or the bedroom tax, as everybody else calls it. I keep forgetting what we call it—that is it: the social sector size criteria. Ministers have often said that those people are exempt, but of course they are not. They are only generally not asked to pay because they qualify for DHP. As I pointed out, in the council areas where disability living allowance is counted as income in the means test, the very people that everybody in this House would hope are exempt from the policy are not exempt.