Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between John Leech and Mark Lazarowicz

Wednesday 9th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Leech]

I was just coming to that. Yes, I do think it is unfair.

The Bill proposes that from April 2013 the local housing allowance should be uprated in line with the consumer prices index rather than real rent increases. I shall avoid the temptation to reopen the debate about whether RPI or CPI is a better measure to use. I merely point out that the Government do themselves no favours by picking and choosing which measure to use. If CPI is a better measure of inflation, we should not allow train operating companies to increase train fares in line with RPI, but that is a debate for another time. I recognise that the current arrangements do little to keep rents low, but there is a real danger that rents will increase at a much faster rate than CPI. The Government must be prepared to keep a watching brief on increases in rent and to take further action if the changes fail to keep housing benefit in line with rent increases.

I do not think that any Member has raised the issue of under-occupation so far. The decision to restrict housing benefit in social rented homes when tenants are under-occupying properties is ill thought out, and will cause significant hardship to many families who are existing tenants. I recognise that this is designed to bring housing benefit for social-rented property into line with the private-rented sector, but it does not take into consideration local circumstances. In Manchester, for example, under existing rules a family with one child is entitled to queue for a two or three-bedroom property. That is intended to allow for the possible growth of young families and reduce the need for future moves caused by overcrowding. Similarly, in low or no-demand areas where there are a lot of two-bedroom flats, property has been provided to single people or childless couples either to allow children who live elsewhere to visit, or simply to fill the vacancies in hard-to-let properties. As a result, a significant number of families on housing benefit could face a reduction in benefit through no fault of their own. We need to look at this again and recognise that a one-size-fits-all approach will not work. I suggest at the very least applying a gross under-occupation test whereby restrictions to housing benefit could be applied if more than two rooms were unoccupied.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

Another possible circumstance could arise where people who have been in work all their lives and have never had to claim any benefit suddenly find that after 20 or 30 years they have to apply for housing benefit and face the prospect of having to leave the house that they have lived in for decades. Would that not be extremely inhumane as well?

[Mr Leech]

Yes, that is true, and it might lead to people being forced to go into private rented accommodation and not having a protected tenancy.

I want to comment on the proposals to cap benefit at £500 a week for families and £350 for a single person with no children. I recognise that a cap on benefit is justifiable to make work pay, but the cap should exclude housing benefit costs, which can vary dramatically in different parts of the country. Given that the cap on housing benefit for four-bedroom houses will be £400 a week, large families might be expected to survive on as little as £100 per week if total benefit is capped at £500 a week. Under other proposed changes, homeless families will receive only one reasonable offer, which might be of a private rented property that could swallow up the vast majority of their total benefit entitlement. The answer to this problem is to calculate a maximum benefit excluding housing benefit to ensure that families in receipt of benefit have enough to live on, regardless of the cost of housing locally. That is the only way to guarantee that they will have enough to live on.

Finally, although this point is not directly related to the Bill’s contents, I suggest to Ministers that the best way to tackle escalating housing benefit would be to invest properly in affordable social housing and bring more empty homes back into use. That would not only massively boost the construction industry but help reduce rents in the private sector, which is holding tenants to ransom. There would be a short-term cost, but it would give a major boost to the economy and there would be a long-term reduction in housing benefit costs.

High Speed Rail

Debate between John Leech and Mark Lazarowicz

Wednesday 9th June 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mark Lazarowicz]

I am interested in the hon. Gentleman’s comments. I certainly did not hear those rumours, but his colleague the Minister will no doubt reassure him that she will be able to combine her commitment to high speed rail with the interests of his constituents.

I welcomed the fact that the Conservatives declared in their manifesto that

“a new government will begin work immediately to create a high speed rail line connecting London and Heathrow with Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. This is the first step towards achieving our vision of creating a national high speed rail network to join up major cities across England, Scotland and Wales. Stage two will deliver two new lines bringing the North East, Scotland and Wales into the high speed rail network.”

That was an unqualified commitment to start work immediately, not just as soon as possible. I welcome the Minister to the debate and congratulate her on her appointment. I know of her commitment to high speed rail. Indeed, so unqualified was her manifesto’s promise that I am almost surprised to see her here today, as she might have been out on the building sites with a hard hat and a bulldozer, starting work on the line immediately.

The Liberal Democrats were, somewhat out of character, a little more cautious about their spending commitments on this issue. Nevertheless, they vowed to set up

“a UK Infrastructure Bank to invest in public transport like high speed rail.”

In the coalition agreement, the two parties stated:

“We will establish a high speed rail network as part of our programme of measures to fulfil our joint ambitions for creating a low carbon economy. Our vision is of a truly national high speed rail network for the whole of Britain.”

However, the agreement then stated:

“Given financial constraints, we will have to achieve this in phases.”

The prospect of work beginning on high speed rail is not so immediate now, it would appear. By the time of the Queen’s Speech, we were promised a hybrid Bill in due course.

To be blunt, one of my purposes in securing this debate was to test the strength of the coalition Government’s commitment to high speed rail. I have no doubts about the Minister’s commitment, but we need to know whether the coalition agreement means what it says. Did the coalition parties mean what they said in their pre-election manifestos, or was it just pre-election bluster? Will they really push it with the determination and leadership needed, or will they find excuses to delay it until some long-distant date? If the Minister gives the type of commitment that she gave before the election, she will certainly have support across the House for the development of proposals to introduce such a scheme, although the details may of course lead to debate.

I therefore have several questions for the Minister, which I hope she will be able to answer today. There are quite a few, but there are none that she should be surprised to be asked, so I hope that she will have answers today or at least some time soon. When do the new Government envisage bringing forward the necessary legislation for High Speed 2? I am not suggesting that the Minister should give an exact date, but a hybrid Bill could take years to go through Parliament so we need some idea of how it will fit into the Government’s programme. Does she agree with the previous Government’s assessment, as set out in their document on High Speed 2, produced earlier this year, that

“formal public consultation on the Government’s proposals for high speed rail in the light of HS2 Ltd’s recommended route for such a line should begin in the autumn”?

Does the Minister agree that HS2 Ltd should now begin similar detailed planning work on the routes from Birmingham to Manchester and Leeds, to be completed by summer 2011 with a view to consulting the public early in 2012? What steps do the Government intend to take to establish a company or other mechanism to deliver the project? What is their target date, in broad terms, for work to start on a new line?

Are the Government still committed to a high speed network that will serve the whole UK, including Edinburgh and Glasgow? I certainly hope that they are. If they are committed to that, do they have any views on the route that such a line should take, and when do they envisage that the line will reach Edinburgh and Glasgow? It will be unacceptable if there is not a commitment from the start that the line will reach Scotland, because high speed rail will bring real economic benefits to the cities and regions along the route, and those cities that are either not directly linked or that have indirect links with the network would certainly lose out.

[Mr John Leech (Manchester, Withington) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. He suggested the need for a commitment that the high speed network would run to Edinburgh, but I do not recall ever hearing that commitment from the previous Labour Administration before the general election.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

The previous Government made it clear from the outset that high speed train services would reach Edinburgh and Glasgow in due course. As the hon. Gentleman should know, I have been pushing for high speed rail for some time. I pushed the previous Government, and I intend to push this Government as hard as I pushed the previous one. If he wants high speed rail to go to places north of Manchester, I hope that he will put the same kind of pressure on his Government as I used to put on mine. I believe that we all want high speed rail to serve the nations and regions of the UK, so let us try to keep up the consensus and the pressure.

As I said, there are real economic benefits for all the communities and cities along the route of a high speed line. Research shows that cutting the journey time between Birmingham and London from 84 to 49 minutes would increase Birmingham’s annual economic output by £1.4 billion, or about 6%. The economic benefits of high speed rail would be more than £10 billion a year for the north-west and about £19 billion for Scotland. In total, 64,000 additional jobs would be created as a consequence.

There is an overwhelming case for extending the line to Scotland, to increase the number of business and tourist passengers travelling not just to and from London, but from the north of England to Scotland. Prosperity would spread much more than if the line were restricted to the south and south-east of England, and the UK as a whole would benefit as a result.