Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Karen Buck and Jenny Willott

Monday 13th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Ms Buck]

I am not confusing anybody. It is a cut in housing benefit of up to 23% for 670,000 households, of which, according to the Government’s own impact assessment, 400,000 include a disabled person and 108,000 are in adapted properties. Most of those people will have no means of avoiding the cut in their housing benefit, because there is nowhere for them to go. Even if there were, the Government do not want some of them to go there, because then they would not meet their own savings targets.

[Jenny Willott]

The hon. Lady said that she thought that there was no earthly chance of somebody with a similar level of disability needing a property that had become available. I am sure that, like me, she must have an awful lot of people coming to her constituency surgery who have disabilities and have been waiting a very long time for adapted homes. [Interruption.] Disregarding the rest of the debate, and the Labour Members who are hollering at me, the chances are that there will be somebody who wants those properties. That is not a reason to go ahead with moving people, but it is not true to say that there will not be people waiting who need those properties.