Housing Benefit

Lord Best Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, there seems to be some evidence that landlords were able to benefit from the local housing allowance regime in that we saw its rates go up rather faster than rents for non-housing benefit recipients.

[Lord Best]

May I underline the thanks of everybody who is worried about the impact of housing benefit cuts for the Minister’s action in setting up this independent and rigorous review of the housing benefit consequences? Will he tell the House when it will start, who will be carrying out the review and whether it will include not just people who have to leave because they are evicted or cannot afford the new rent but those who stay put and may face considerable hardship finding the rent from their other benefits and allowances?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I am pleased that we have a stunning consortium to do this work. It is led by Ian Cole from the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research at Sheffield Hallam University, with other key team members being Peter Kemp of the Oxford Institute of Social Policy, Carl Emmerson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies and Ben Marshall from IPSO Mori. It is a stunning group and is going to build an understanding of the impacts of the housing benefit changes right the way through from people who move to those who stay—the noble Lord was concerned about them—at national and local levels, and it will integrate that with wider housing and labour-market evidence. A lot of this will be econometric analysis. The group will report the findings to me finally, as agreed, in spring 2013, but there will be interim reports next year.