Housing Benefit

Debate between Laura Sandys and Guto Bebb

Tuesday 9th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Laura Sandys]

First, it is 13% of people who work who receive housing benefits. It is good to see on the Front Bench the Minister who is responsible for disability, because in addition many provisions are made for people with disability. We need to protect those who are vulnerable, and they will be protected. It is crucial that we ensure that equity and justice are at the heart of the housing benefit structure.

Housing benefit is one of the key problems in Thanet. In an area of real deprivation, the rate of housing benefit has dramatically distorted the market, disadvantaging those on low wages while not delivering an improvement in the housing stock for those on housing benefit. I wish to highlight three blights that my constituency faces as a result of the level of housing benefit. As I said, it is unfair on the low paid, who do not claim housing benefit. The double whammy of inequity is compounded by the inflationary impact on the overall housing market.

[Guto Bebb (Aberconwy) (Con)]

I, too, represent a seaside constituency, so I know that my hon. Friend’s point is strong and fair. The average wage in my constituency is £21,800. People earning that will be paying about £4,500 in taxes, yet they often find themselves priced out of the local market by people who move into the area from other parts of the world.

[Laura Sandys]

My hon. Friend mentioned £21,000, but the average wage in the south-east is £17,000. The inflationary impact of housing benefit on those families has been huge.

My second point is that these rates have not seen an improvement in the housing stock. Some landlords are interested in the rental value rather than the capital appreciation because that gives them such a high return on their investment. Investing in the properties and in the fabric of them is therefore not a priority.

The third issue is the extreme concentration of housing benefit claimants in pockets in my constituency. That problem was brought up by my hon. Friends the Members for North East Hertfordshire (Mr Heald) and for Cardiff Central (Jenny Willott). We create micro-economies that attract a significant amount of housing benefit because property prices are so low and the return from housing benefit is proportionally high.

The current situation has fundamentally distorted housing in my area. The average wage in Thanet is £17,000 and housing benefits for the unemployed stand at more than £8,000 a year. Most working families cannot compete in that market.