Inherited Social Housing Tenancies Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Work and Pensions
John Redwood
Main Page: John Redwood (Conservative - Wokingham)Department Debates - View all John Redwood's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Esther McVey
No. It is something we are having to deliver because of what we inherited from the previous Government, including a benefit, the cost of which had doubled in 10 years, and a policy that had left nearly 2 million people on housing waiting lists and 400,000 in overcrowded houses. It was a skewed policy under which people living in private rented accommodation could have their spare room subsidy removed but people who lived in the social rented sector could not. And as for people giving out wrong numbers, I would remind the hon. Gentleman that, when he plucked numbers from the air in the last debate, St Helens said that he had got his numbers wrong. Now, in response to his citing a figure of 2,100 cases, Birmingham has put up on its website this statement:
“We haven’t finished identifying them at Birmingham so can’t give you an exact number, but the number of possible cases has dropped substantially below the 2,100 that was reported in the papers”.
We have trebled the discretionary housing payments. We have also said that we will cover the differences involved for people who are exempt and that we will help local authorities with the administration charges. We have answered these points and we have voted on them. I suggest that the hon. Gentleman look again at the debate we had on 26 February.
Esther McVey
The number so far, on best records, is about 5,000. However, the cases are having to be manually checked at the moment, because of a change of computer system, and everybody is going through that. Also, a person has to be in continuous receipt of housing benefit and has to have lived in the same home since 1996.