Housing Benefit

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

In powerful speeches from the Front and Back Benches, we have heard arguments against the bedroom tax, all of which were predicted and laid out by the Government in their impact statement. The impact statement made it clear that if this policy worked, in so far as it allowed people to downsize and their properties to be occupied by other social tenants, it would not save money, and that savings would come about only if the policy did not work. Contrary to the statements from some Government Members, those two objectives are mutually incompatible.

The impact statement showed that an estimated one in three of those affected would go into arrears. The Government knew that arrears were the likely consequence of this policy, and that is what we have seen. What we have not heard is another truth, which is that two thirds of those people affected by the bedroom tax are also affected by the Government’s cuts in council tax benefit. Out of their very low incomes of £75 or £105 a week they are having to make a contribution of £14, or in some cases £20-plus, for their bedroom tax and their council tax.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Is not one of the big problems the lack of accommodation? It is ridiculous to try to move people from large to small accommodation when we do not have it. Will that not contribute to the housing bubble?

[Ms Buck]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I was about to make that point. The impact assessment also told us—as has been mentioned already this afternoon—that the distribution of properties across the country does not match the two objectives of downsizing and dealing with overcrowding. In the north-west, in Yorkshire, 43% of social tenants are affected by the bedroom tax, and I think the figure is worse in Wales. That is more than double the rate for London, yet it is London that has the most serious problem of overcrowding: one in six properties is overcrowded. So the policy is predicated not just on people moving from one property to another in their neighbourhood or community, which might have some sense to it, but on people moving from one part of the country to another, from one end of the country to another. Frankly, that is not how people live. People are not sticks of wood. People are not crates of dry goods that can be put in a container and taken from London to Liverpool or Wales, because that is how the distribution of property suits their needs.