Housing: Underoccupancy Charge

Lord German Excerpts

Thursday 12th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, you have to look at the whole transaction, a bit like a housing chain. If a single person moves into the private rented sector out of a large social sector home, clearly that frees up room for people to move into that home from the private rented sector. That is where either you get a much more efficient allocation or you get the savings.

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, in Questions to the Prime Minister on 27 November on the spare room subsidy clawback, Mr Cameron said that,

“what we have done is to exempt disabled people who need an extra room”.—[Official Report, Commons, 27/11/13; col. 254.]

For families with a disabled child, there is a blanket exemption. However, households with a disabled adult are subject to the vagaries of local councils using the discretionary housing payment, which has not been great. Does my noble friend agree that now is the time to make a clear exemption, as we do for disabled children, for households with a disabled adult who need a spare room, so that the Prime Minister’s statement of 27 November can be carried out?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, the difference between children and adults is that adults can adapt their circumstances in a way that children cannot. We have gone through a judicial review of this policy as it relates to disabled adults. The judges found that it was impossible to reach a coherent definition and that the discretionary housing payment system was created to look after people in those circumstances.