Karen Buck
Main Page: Karen Buck (Labour - Westminster North)
Grant Shapps
My hon. Friend points out a real problem with the housing system—that it is possible to earn a six-figure salary, sit on the Labour Benches and still occupy a home built for some of the most vulnerable people in society, who deserve those homes. We will allow the pay to stay scheme to go ahead, meaning that people can stay in their homes and pay the market rent so that we can use all the money to build more affordable homes for people who really need them.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
If the Government are so keen on restricting social housing to those on low incomes, how does the Minister explain the affordable rent regime? Is it not the case that in local authorities such as my own, even at 65% of market rents, the income required—without benefit—to pay for an affordable family-sized house is £77,000 a year?
Grant Shapps
We are keen to protect people on low incomes, not on high ones, as the hon. Lady suggested. The point about the housing benefit changes is that many of her constituents, along with mine and everyone else’s, will be asking how it can be fair for people in receipt of housing benefit to live in homes and streets that people on ordinary salaries cannot possibly afford to live in. That is the system that we are going to fix; when the Opposition were in government, they used to support that policy.