Housing Benefit (Under-occupancy Penalty)

Justin Tomlinson Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

When I listen to the Government, I wonder what world they live in. It certainly is not the world of the 2,400 tenants of Bolton at Home or the 4,500 tenants of Wigan and Leigh Housing who are facing unaffordable bills because the Government have decided that the poor should pay the price for the wrongs of the rich.

The Government have a fundamental ignorance about social housing and a thoroughly disgraceful attitude towards people who, through choice or circumstance, are living in council or housing association properties. They seem to think that it is a negative choice and that everyone, whatever their circumstances, should aspire to own a home. It is as if they have learned nothing from the sub-prime catastrophe.

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Julie Hilling]

I will not because other Members want to speak.

Social houses are homes: homes that are usually occupied by people who cannot afford to buy a house because they do not earn enough or because they cannot work; homes that people live in for many years; homes that tenants lavish care and attention on; homes that they hope to live in until they choose to downsize to a flat or until they die; homes that their children may move back into when they finish university or when relationships break down; homes that families come to visit and where grandchildren come to stay; homes that are part of a community that benefits from stability and from established residents who make a contribution.

The Government do not seem to think about homes and communities, but merely about spare bedrooms. When they talk about overcrowding, they do not look at where the so-called spare bedrooms are and where the overcrowding is. Unfortunately, the two do not match. They also do not consider who will lose out. What they are doing is like shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic. They are simply moving the problem, not solving it.

Bolton and Wigan do not have spare one and two-bedroom properties, so tenants will have to starve or freeze to pay the additional rent, move to the private rented sector or be evicted for arrears. The Minister suggests that people should work more hours. If only it were that simple in Tory-Lib Dem Britain to get a job. Even if people can get a job, the Minister ignores the fact that every time people earn more money, they lose benefits. How will that help to cover the gap?

The Minister also says that the measures will drive down housing benefit costs. Wigan and Leigh Housing has done its own modelling. If about a quarter of its tenants moved into the private rented sector, there would be an additional cost to the Department for Work and Pensions of more than half a million pounds. It also estimates that the cost to Wigan and Leigh Housing would be more than £10 million, which would come from a different public purse. That includes £1.4 million for the adaptation of new homes for the disabled and £300,000 for rent collection. This measure will, of course, affect other tenants as well as the ability of housing associations to repair and maintain housing stock, and it will prevent them building new homes. One housing provider has said that it will lose one new build a week because of the cumulative affect of welfare reform.

Government Members like to throw out the accusation that the previous Labour Government introduced the same policy for the private rented sector with the local housing allowance, but they should stop listening to their own spin. The LHA was tested for four years before it was introduced and did not apply to existing tenants but just to new claimants or people moving house. It did not specify how many bedrooms people should have, but allocated a sum of money based on the median rent for properties of the relevant size. Therefore, if a family found a house with more space for a lower rent, they could move in. The size of the housing benefit bill is due to the cost of private rents, not social housing. However, the Government will not do anything about fair rent and instead just reduce the chances of ordinary people to find houses. I also wonder when Government Members last visited a council house and looked at the size of the so-called third bedroom. Often, it is a room that barely fits a bed and would be unbearable for two teenagers with no space to do homework or hang up clothes. It is certainly not the sort of space that a lodger would want to rent.

My hon. Friends have mentioned the difficulties of expecting children with vastly different ages to share a bedroom, and the difficulties experienced by families with a disabled member. Let me lay out the nature of the Government’s policy. A family with two children under 10 in a three-bedroom house will now need to move to a two-bedroom house. When a child turns 10, they will need to go to a three-bedroom house but if one child moves out, they will have to go to a two-bedroom house. If both children move out, they will have to move to a one-bedroom home, but what about if one child wants to come home? What about the cost of this measure? Will children have to move school? What happens to the community? This policy is nonsense.

Others have spoken in detail about the situation of separated couples, but I have one question: will mothers allow their children to stop with their father overnight if the father is in a bedsit and the child has to share a bed with dad or sleep on the couch? The Government just have not thought this through.

I have already spoken in this House about Isabel and her son Carl who has Down’s syndrome, so I will finish by talking briefly about two people who came to see me last week as a result of my asking the Prime Minister whether he had ever met anyone who was losing their home because of the bedroom tax. The Prime Minister replied that he often met service people in his constituency, although he did not tell us whether they were losing their homes. Stephen and Bill came to see me because they are ex-servicemen.

Stephen and his wife told me that for them this policy feels like persecution. Stephen served for 17 years in the Air Force and then continued to work. He became ill and lost his house; he has had two back operations and has irritable bowel syndrome. His wife is suffering from depression. Stephen has been in his council house for 22 years and told me that he feels that he has made a huge contribution to this country and cannot understand why in his hour of need the country is turning its back on him.

I cannot talk about all of the situation of the other person, Bill, who came to see me, but he lives in an adapted house with a carport, ramp, walk-in shower and stair-lift. Bill is disabled, has anxiety and depression, and IBS. He lives close to his family and gets support from them—and he gives them support; his son is serving in Afghanistan. He is anxious about the bedroom tax and is trying to be proactive, but because of his needs, accommodation is limited. Bill says that the only thing he has to live for in his life is his fishing and he is worried to death that he will not have room for his fishing gear in any other accommodation. He is considering suicide.

This is not scaremongering; it is the reality of people’s lives.