Housing Benefit

Kate Green Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Main]

No, I will not give way to the hon. Lady.

The Opposition should also address overcrowding. As yet, they have not done what Mr Tom Copley says that they should do and apologise for the fact that they never addressed the dire need to build more social housing to allow—

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mrs Main]

No, the hon. Lady will have her time at the end.

Mr Copley said:

“As a Labour politician one of the things that really galls me is that there’s this statistic that more council homes were built in the last year of Thatcher’s government than were built in the 13 years of Labour government, and that’s something I think as a Labour Party we need to apologise for.”

The apology needs to be made because the dearth of social housing that we inherited was a direct result of Labour’s inability in the good times to deliver sufficient adequate social housing. The Labour party should be ashamed of itself and it should apologise.

I do not think that the Opposition has a coherent policy. They want to penalise people in the private rented sector. They are not making any commitment to redress the imbalance, yet they wish to have what they see as a core vote that might be deserting them in droves. We helped the aspirational working class during Thatcher’s era under the right to buy, but unlike us, they introduced a policy to penalise only the private sector. Labour is the party of inequality, not the party of equality. I congratulate the coalition Government on all their efforts to level the playing field for more people both in social and private rented housing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

The Opposition are proud to have called this debate. The testimony we have heard from right hon. and hon. Members from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland has shown again why this policy is both a moral and a practical failure. It is cruel, unworkable and perverse. It is not reducing overcrowding and it is not saving money as intended. It is causing fear and misery, and it is time it was scrapped.

I want to respond to as many of the points that have been raised as possible. I appreciate that many of my right hon. and hon. Friends who wanted to participate this afternoon have not been able to do so. One or two of them have notified me of their concerns and I hope to be able to raise them.

Let me start with an issue that was raised repeatedly by Government Members, who made comparisons with the private rented sector and said that the situation there is appropriate for the social sector. A whole raft of arguments against that position were made by my Opposition colleagues. My hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg) pointed out that the social market is a very different market with very different rental structures from those in the private sector. The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) pointed out that we allocate social housing predominantly on the basis of need, not market forces.

My hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) pointed out that there is a significant difference between this Government’s implementation of the bedroom tax and Labour’s implementation of the local housing allowance. The local housing allowance was not implemented retrospectively and people were not trapped. My right hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Mrs McGuire), who was a Minister at the time so she ought to know, pointed out that it never became our policy in the social rented sector.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Katy Clark) was right to say—this was also highlighted by Government Members—that our aspiration for social housing is very different from theirs. We see it as fulfilling a role of offering high-quality, stable accommodation to strengthen families and communities. We cannot understand why a Government who proclaim their commitment to a big society would not agree with us on that.

The hon. Members for Meon Valley (George Hollingbery) and for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) suggested that the policy is popular with the public and pointed to the recently published Ipsos MORI poll. I suggest that hon. Members look a little more closely at the poll, because it shows that the public become more sceptical about the policy the more they know about it. The public are not in favour of the policy if there is no alternative home for people to move to or if it means that people cannot meet basic living costs, which they cannot. As the Real Life Reform research is beginning to show, the policy is causing human misery and leading to arrears and debt, to mental health problems and stress, and to families cutting back on fuel and food.

[George Hollingbery]

Having looked at the poll this afternoon, I think I am right in saying that the hon. Lady may have a point on the issue of requiring people to move out of the area in which they live, but that there was an approval of more than 45%—I think it was 48%—for expecting people to move within the area in which they live. Is that correct?

[Kate Green]

That may be the case, but as my Opposition colleagues have repeatedly shown, in many areas there is a mismatch of suitable properties for people to move into. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to acknowledge, as we have said, that expecting people to move up and down the country would not command the same popular support.

As many of my colleagues have pointed out, the policy is especially cruel towards those affected, including 220,000 families with children, lone parents and separated families and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck) has said, those fleeing domestic violence. As my hon. Friend the Member for Halton has said, some pensioner couples will be affected under universal credit if they are not both over state pension age. Most crucially, two thirds of those affected are disabled—420,000 disabled people are affected by the bedroom tax.

Contrary to what Government Members appeared to believe at the beginning of the debate, not all disabled people are protected from this policy. Adults with an overnight carer are protected, but children who need an overnight carer are not. Children with medium and high-level care needs will now be protected—following the Government conceding that they need to take action in light of the Burnip and Gorry cases—but children with higher rate mobility needs are not protected, contrary to the advice of the Social Security Advisory Committee, let alone there being protection for all disabled children.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg) pointed out, and many colleagues reinforced, there is no protection for a couple if they are unable as a result of health or disability to share a bed or bedroom. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) highlighted to me the case of her constituents, Mr and Mrs Wilkes, who have been particularly harshly hit by this measure.

There is no protection if someone needs extra space for equipment or because they have had their home adapted, as was the case for the Rutherford family who were required to install a hoist, wider doors and a wet room for their 13-year-old son, Warren, yet are not protected from the bedroom tax. Mr Randall from Basildon has been told by his council that it will not move him to a smaller property as it has not been and cannot be adapted, yet he is being hit by the bedroom tax in his current property on which adaptations have been made.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a very good case. As I understand it, the Government have two arguments, the first of which is that the policy will relieve overcrowding. When larger properties are freed up in my constituency, they are sold on the open market. If families move into private rented accommodation, that costs five times as much as social housing. Neither argument works.

[Kate Green]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Let us remember that disabled people’s options are more limited. A number of hon. Members have said that people should work, or work a few more hours a week. Often for disabled people it is particularly difficult to work or to do extra hours, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) pointed out, that is a particular challenge for carers. One point that I do not think has been made, but which is extremely concerning for disabled people, is that many local authorities are treating disability living allowance as income when calculating someone’s entitlement to discretionary housing payment. That is a disgrace. I have challenged the Minister on that before, but he has declined to take action to ensure that all local authorities of whatever political colour have clear guidance on how they should treat the DLA.

As colleagues have pointed out, the policy will not achieve the savings that have been expected and scored by the Government because of the extra cost of having to adapt, readapt or undo adaptations to homes and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) pointed out, because of the extra high cost of rent and therefore housing benefit in the private rented sector. There are the implications of higher levels of arrears and the extra cost of advising people in arrears, and of collecting and managing arrears. There is also, of course, the impact on the financial standing of housing associations. The policy is damaging their credit rating and cash flows, and makes it more difficult for them to undertake the new builds we desperately need.

As colleagues have said, we will see extra costs for local authorities, children’s services, the health service and so on, and we also highlighted the utter perversity of the fact that being in arrears means someone will not get another tenancy in a small property unless and until those arrears have been cleared. That is simply not possible for many families.

We were pleased—surprised, I think—to hear the Minister of State say at the beginning of the debate that if it turned out that the discretionary housing pot in a local authority was fully committed, more money would be made available. That was encouraging, and we would welcome his colleague repeating that commitment. Let us remember, however, that the discretionary housing payment is temporary, transitional and—as its name suggests—discretionary. In many cases, we have instances of local authorities denying people access to that pot of funding, and actively discouraging people from going to appeal.

The most cruel part of the policy is the lack of suitable alternative homes for people to move to. There is a lack of one-bedroom properties in certain parts of the country and, increasingly, three-bedroom properties are left lying empty. How can that be sensible? People are being forced to leave sheltered accommodation that, by definition, cannot be taken up by families who do not have the special needs or meet the criteria to live in those homes.

Hon. Members on both sides of the House have rightly said that the answer to the problem is to build more housing. I am proud that Labour has committed to building 1 million new homes—[Interruption.] Let me address Labour’s record on housing. Between 2000 and 2007, the Labour Government increased the number of additional net new homes in every single year. The Department for Communities and Local Government figures from last week prove that. The number of net new homes has declined in every year since 2007, including under this Government.

[Ian Swales]

rose—

[Kate Green]

I will not give way.

In 1997, when Labour returned to power, the Labour Government inherited an urgent priority to deal with the appalling quality of the housing stock. Our priority was to bring it up to decent standards. Of course, it would have been good to build more homes, but we had to bring existing homes up to a decent standard.

It is time to call a halt on the Government’s policy. A review in 2015 is too late. Labour will act as soon as it comes to power to abolish the policy, but I hope the Government commit to abolishing it now.