Housing Benefit

Debate between John Hemming and Rachel Reeves

Wednesday 26th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Housing Benefit (Transitional Provisions) (Amendment) Regulations 2014 (S.I., 2014, No. 212), dated 4 February 2014, a copy of which was laid before this House on 5 February, be annulled.

The motion also stands in the names of my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), the hon. Members for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) and for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) and others.

Let me set out our reasons for calling this debate and forcing this vote today, and the circumstances that have brought us to this position. The matter before us takes us to the heart of this Government’s shabby and shameful record. By statutory instrument, the Government are trying to close a loophole in the bedroom tax legislation without even understanding how many people are affected by these changes. Instead of trying to close this loophole, the Government should finally try to do the right thing and scrap the bedroom tax altogether. This Government promised that they would not balance the books on the backs of the poorest and most vulnerable, but that is exactly what they are doing, and in such a careless, clumsy and cack-handed way that we see chaos, confusion and uncounted costs piling up around us as they compound the injustice of their policies with utter incompetence in their delivery.

This Government’s bedroom tax has been a fiasco from the very beginning. More than half a million households have been hit by this mean-minded measure. Two thirds of those affected are disabled and 60,000 are carers. More than 200,000 families with children are affected, many of whom are already below the poverty line and forced, as a result of this tax, to find an average £728 a year extra in rent—equivalent to losing all the child benefit for a second child. So much for the Prime Minister’s moral crusade.

[John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)]

In January, the hon. Lady said that she would place a cap on structural social security spending, so what other cuts in welfare would she make to cover this exemption?

[Rachel Reeves]

Specifically on the bedroom tax, we have said that we would cancel it by closing the loophole in the shares-for-rights scheme, the bogus self-employment in the construction sector, and the tax credit that the Chancellor gave to hedge funds in the Budget earlier this year. We have been very clear about how we would pay for this. In the hon. Gentleman’s local authority of Birmingham, 2,100 households are being affected; I wonder whether he might speak for them and their concerns.

The implementation of the bedroom tax has been a shambles. Ministers have been unable to explain whether the policy is supposed to reduce overcrowding or whether, as their costings assume, people are expected to remain in their properties. There has been uncertainty and inconsistency, with mixed messages about who is exempt, whether it be parents with children serving in the armed forces, disabled people or carers. The truth is that none of them is exempt. Courts and tribunals have had to devote days to debating the definition of a bedroom, and as the unintended consequences become clear, the uncalculated costs are mounting.

Housing Benefit

Debate between John Hemming and Rachel Reeves

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

I thank my hon. Friend. It is a shame that of instead of just shouting that he is wrong, no Conservative or Liberal Democrat MPs came to visit today’s lobby of Parliament by people who are affected by these policies. It is also a shame that the Secretary of State is in Paris rather than listening to these stories and hearing about the impact of his policy.

[John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)]

Obviously it was the Labour party in government that introduced the bedroom tax—in the private sector. On 19 January 2004, Labour Ministers said:

“We hope to implement a flat rate housing benefit system in the social sector, similar to that anticipated in the private rented sector”.—[Official Report, 19 January 2004; Vol. 416, c. 1075W.]

The question for the shadow Secretary of State is, “When did you change your policy?”

[Rachel Reeves]

It will be interesting to see which way the hon. Gentleman votes this evening given that his own party conference has said that this is an unfair tax. Will he vote with the Conservatives or with his own party? Let me be very clear: if I am Secretary of State in 2015, the first thing I will do is reverse this unfair and pernicious tax. It is a shame that his party and his Minister will not do likewise.

There is a contradiction at the heart of this policy that shows how disingenuous the Government’s justifications are for it. On the one hand, they say that it is necessary to deal with under-occupation and overcrowding, yet on the other that the benefit savings they are claiming assume that nobody moves. So which is it to be, because it cannot be both? Is this a policy to cut costs by getting social housing tenants to pay more, or is it a policy to move people out of their housing to avoid paying the tax, in which case it does not raise any money? It just does not add up.