Housing Benefit Entitlement Debate
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Jonathan Reynolds
Main Page: Jonathan Reynolds (Labour (Co-op) - Stalybridge and Hyde)Department Debates - View all Jonathan Reynolds's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
Housing Benefit Entitlement
Jonathan Reynolds Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Phil Wilson
We should wait until the Minister responds to the debate to find out exactly what the Government propose for that situation, but I do not think that it will be very much really.
Basically, the hypothetical family who I am talking about could be forced to leave the family home, and that is exactly what it is—a family home, not just a house. They will have no space for their grandchildren, who will not be able to stay with their grandparents. For families who are forced to downsize because of the cuts in housing benefit and who are in need of a one-bedroom property, the National Housing Federation has found that, although approximately 180,000 social tenants are under-occupying two-bedroom homes, less than 85,000 one-bedroom social homes are available.
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way; he will have a few applications to intervene on him, given the interest in the debate. I completely agree with his analysis of the general impact of the proposal, but will he say something about the complete lack of any exemption? Foster carers, who are doing everything they can for society, will be hit by the proposal between placements. It is absolutely unconscionable. Surely, this cannot be the way for the Government to proceed.
Phil Wilson
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I will come on to foster carers in a little while.
The lack of mobility in this sector—between two-bedroom properties and one-bedroom properties, for example—is a product not of tenants needlessly under-occupying larger homes, but of the logjam created by a national shortage of affordable homes, particularly two and one-bedroom properties.