Housing Benefit

Debate between Kate Green and George Hollingbery

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[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.