Karen Buck
Main Page: Karen Buck (Labour - Westminster North)Department Debates - View all Karen Buck's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
(5 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Alok Sharma
On rent arrears, the hon. Lady may have seen the report produced by the National Federation of ALMOs—I believe it came out in July—which stated that, of their tenants moving on to universal credit, 76% were already in arrears. That was before they moved on to universal credit. We introduced changes with the extra £1.5 billion to help people moving from housing benefit with their cash flow, giving them a two-week run-on, which does not have to be repaid. It is possible under universal credit to have alternative payment arrangements with payments made directly to landlords.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
Has the Minister also seen the research that was published yesterday by the Residential Landlords Association, which found that two thirds of private landlords are concerned about universal credit tenants falling into arrears and that the average arrears owed has doubled in the last year? What urgent action will he take to resolve that problem?
Alok Sharma
As I said, we are rolling out the landlord portal for social housing, which is working. It is also possible for alternative payment arrangements to be put in place for tenants of private landlords—that is part of the system.