Housing: Underoccupancy Charge

Lord Christopher Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, the position is that we have got a large number of overcrowded social homes; we have got a very long waiting list, stretching out to 2 million people; and the job of local authorities is to make sure that available homes are matched with the requirement of people who have larger families.

[Lord Christopher (Lab)]

My Lords, what plans do the Government have to deal with the problem, before it gets widespread, of the growing number of private landlords who have decided not to let any properties to people on benefits?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, there are always flows between private landlords coming into the market and coming out of it. The underlying statistics are that, since we introduced the local authority housing changes, the number of people in private rented accommodation has gone up.