Housing Benefit (Under-occupancy Penalty)

Kris Hopkins Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Kris Hopkins (Keighley) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on this important issue. As a former chairman of housing in Bradford and chair of the regional housing board for Yorkshire and Humber, I know the importance of social housing and housing benefit in meeting housing needs. My own extended family have used it and use it now.

In my district alone, tens of thousands of people are on waiting lists trying to gain access to social housing. The previous Government failed to build sufficient social housing and the former Prime Minister raided the regional housing boards’ funding allocation of tens and millions of pounds that could have been spent on addressing this housing shortage. I must say, however, that he gave some of it back, repackaged as new money, in the months leading up to the last general election. The reality is that the previous Labour Government robbed millions of pounds from the regional housing fund allocations that could have been spent on social housing and that was allocated for that purpose, and which could have addressed some of the issues we face today.

Merely sustaining the housing benefit bill of £23 billion costs each individual family £900. That is unsustainable. The Government are attempting to put fairness back into social housing, bringing the sector in line with the private rental sector.

I would like to facilitate the building of more social housing. It is really important, particularly in the current housing market, to get people on to the property ladder, if they have the opportunity, and to get them in stable housing. I encourage the Minister for Housing to make efforts to spend his limited money—some £300 million has been allocated for developing social housing—in areas such as Bradford’s canal corridor and on the excellent community scheme in Spring Bank in Keighley. The Government are delivering social housing where the previous Government failed.

Much has been said in the past hour or so about adapted accommodation for the disabled. I want to put on record what the Government have said they will do, as opposed to the somewhat misleading arguments that have been made by the Opposition. If someone lives in accommodation that has been significantly adapted for a disabled person, they will be entitled to a discretionary housing payment to address some of the shortfall. Some £30 million of the Government’s discretionary payment has been specifically aimed at foster carers and disabled people who have made changes to their homes, and when the disability means that the household needs an extra room, local authorities have been allocated a further £150 million to make discretionary payments.

[Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

We need to publicise that more. A family came to see me recently in my surgery. The husband is profoundly deaf and his wife has an open permanent wound in her intestine, so they need separate bedrooms, but nobody told them the fund was available. They are therefore very worried. We need more education, so that disabled and vulnerable people are better informed about what is going on.

[Kris Hopkins]

What my hon. Friend says is true. We need to ensure that the facts about this legislation are put out there and that vulnerable people are not misled by some of the interesting conversations that are going on.

[Stewart Hosie]

rose—

[Hywel Williams]

rose—

[Kris Hopkins]

I will give way, by all means.

[Hywel Williams]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Which one does the hon. Gentleman want to give way to?

[Kris Hopkins]

I will give way to the one with less hair.

[Hywel Williams]

Recognition, at last!

The change is coming in in April. Is the hon. Gentleman satisfied with how the Government have publicised the very point to which he referred?

[Kris Hopkins]

Today’s debate gives us the opportunity to make that point. The Minister’s speech was excellent and clarified many of the issues, but it is appropriate that we should use all means to put the information into the public domain.

During my time as housing chair, I visited many homes in the district. The majority were in very poor condition and had been for many years. Some were built before the war. Some were sold for as little as £1; people could not live in them as they were in such a poor condition.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

My hon. Friend is right to raise the important matter of communications, as was my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh). We have been talking to councils for quite some time and we are urging them to talk to their social housing residents. They are doing that, but they are not helped when others go out and say things about the provisions that are completely untrue. There have been many scare stories about pensioners and we made it clear from the word go that pensioners were not involved, but some of the Opposition parties spent their time saying that pensioners would be affected. There is a barrier, but we are doing our level best to get the information across.

[Kris Hopkins]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that point. The truth is that as a Conservative, I care about the disabled. I want to champion the work and efforts of carers and we should not allow the Opposition to brand us as that nasty party. Many of our councillors are working really hard for the vulnerable people in our society, and I know that Government Members care about those people.

[Stewart Hosie]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Kris Hopkins]

No, I will not. I want to make progress on the point I was making earlier.

We wanted to transfer our housing stock into a not-for-profit trust. We renovated 30,000 of those decrepit houses into decent quality houses. We put forward a £1 billion package to transform them into quality houses and put in a 30-year maintenance scheme to sustain them through that stand-alone trust. It is successful. Our Labour councillors, local Labour leaders and trade unions voted against that package, however, and actively campaigned against it. [Interruption.] I hear the scorn coming from the Opposition, but Labour does not want to take real action. Labour councillors and representatives were prepared to allow people to live in slums, rather than intervene.

[Nia Griffith]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that some local councils, such as Carmarthenshire county council, kept their whole housing stock in-house and have done an excellent job in renovating section after section of it? He should not be saying that the deciding factor is whether a council decides to keep provision in-house or to give it to another authority to look after. What matters is what is done with that stock.

[Kris Hopkins]

I do not know where the taxpayers of Bradford were to find £1 billion over 30 years to renovate those houses. That was the reality and the reason why the housing was put into a trust, which is delivering. The people of Bradford living in social housing were betrayed by the Labour party.

I want quality homes and I shall work to make sure we get them, but the fact is that the housing benefit budget has doubled in 10 years, on the back of the previous Government’s economic failure and mismanagement. We have to spend within our means. The public rightly expect us to get a grip on the benefits regime—a regime the Labour Government allowed to get out of control. Labour failed to build social housing, failed to manage the economy and therefore clearly failed those who are living in social housing and those who need access to it.