Prevention of Social Housing Fraud Bill (Money)

John Healey Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd October 2012 Commons Chamber

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

I rise to underline the support of Labour Back Benchers for the hon. Member for Watford (Richard Harrington) and to congratulate him on bringing in this Bill. As my very good friend the shadow Housing Minister said, I was the Minister in 2009 who introduced the first ever national campaign against fraud of this type. The number of properties recovered as a result of that campaign went up by 75%, but there is still quite a long way to go—and this Bill will help.

This is, of course, a money resolution and there should be a net financial gain to the state from this Bill, despite the costs that the resolution will allow to be incurred. The Audit Commission’s estimate of the number of properties in respect of which social landlords have lost control of the allocation is about 50,000—a figure from about three years ago. As a minimum, then, for the costs of temporary accommodation local authorities will be out of pocket by about £900 million each year.

The penalties in the Bill will help to deter people from cheating the system and cheating their neighbours. It will help the detection of those who are cheating taxpayers and will help to take action against them. More than that, however, those who badly need the homes that are available for them and that they should have are being cheated when these homes are sub-let illegally for the private profit of those who cheat the system. I hope we make progress in the Bill Committee tomorrow, and I hope we pass the money resolution to aid that progress.