Housing Benefit (Amendment) Regulations 2012

Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope Excerpts

Monday 15th October 2012 Grand Committee

We accept provisions relating to the local housing allowance to be largely consequential on the earlier order that made the change to uprate by CPI. We then expressed our concerns about that and continue to do so. These regulations are focused on the narrower issue of the annual uprating, but inevitably are at the start of a process in which there is a divergence between levels of support and actual rents payable. The reality is that implementation of these regulations will create tremendous hardships for thousands of our fellow citizens, and the Government know it. It is a callous piece of public policy.

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope]

My Lords, perhaps I may make a brief intervention at this stage. It is right not to dredge back over the painful territory of the policy intent, because we discussed it at great length in another context earlier in the year. We should use our time this afternoon to look at some of the detailed implementation questions that arise from the policy. Actually, we should be thinking about getting a housing policy for the United Kingdom that is worthy of the name when trying to sort some of this out.

People have been asking me some of the practical questions about this and I just do not know the answers. I am nervous that we are getting towards a single implementation date, 1 April 2013, when there will remain a great deal of uncertainty on the back of the substantial change. If people get substantial change and are not prepared for it, they are even more badly affected by it. We must avoid that at all stages, if we can.

Has the department any confidence in working with local authorities and local housing associations? I was interested to hear the Minister talk about the work done in Liverpool and the Midlands on the home swap direct scheme. That is entirely healthy and welcome. However, if we had taken this at a slower pace and worked with local authorities and local housing associations across the length and breadth of the United Kingdom, a lot of that would have been in place before 1 April. I have no confidence, even if everyone works hard—and I am sure that they are working hard—that we will get proper home swap direct-type arrangements in place across the United Kingdom.

Are there sufficient co-ordination mechanisms in place between the DWP and the other constituent nations of the United Kingdom—Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland? Presumably, they are making their own arrangements in their own ways. Is the department confident that there is a proper exchange of information and swap of best practice, and that the circumstances north of the border, and in Wales and Northern Ireland, will be as fit for purpose as they can be, come 1 April next year? That is a very important question.

Discretionary housing payment distribution is an important element of that. I understand the Minister to have just said that decisions will be taken later about how it is to be rolled out. However, I say to him that only last week someone in a local authority tenancy came to me. He is in a two-bedroom property, had some adaptations made to the premises and signed a letter of undertaking to the local authority to say that he would stay in that property for a one-year or two-year period. Therefore, he is locked into that tenancy and cannot move. He was prepared in principle to consider moving but he is now caught both ways.

That is just one example of, I am sure, many detailed questions that are arising which would have been better addressed if we had had a more measured transitional phase in the policy’s implementation. Following our important debates on the Bill earlier in the year—it is now an Act—does the department have any further research on the availability of single and two-bedroom properties? Is the map any clearer as regards where the accessibility lies so that people can make a decision about whether there are appropriate smaller properties into which to downsize? It would be reassuring to know that some work had been done and that people were being helped to understand where to start looking for some of these properties.

I concur with what the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, said about the disability issue. When looking at the impact assessment and the briefing that we received last week, I missed the significance of that. I am not a disability expert; a lot of people know a lot more than I do about this technical and politically very important problem. I was taken aback by the extent to which the client group will be affected by this policy change. I did not know that. I wish that I had known it during the passage of the Bill.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

The figure is two-thirds.

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope]

Yes, it is two-thirds. I would not have guessed that. That is new and it is deeply concerning. I hope that the Minister will help us to understand what is being done about that.

During the passage of the Bill, the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, kept referring to rurality. Another point that was driven home to me over the summer, coming from south-east Scotland, is that people are panicking about where they should begin to look for appropriately sized accommodation if they are to avoid the penalties that these policy changes introduce. There are no real alternatives in many cases, which is a problem.

A lot of us are relying heavily on the review. I was reassured that the Minister committed himself to conduct a proper review working with the noble Lord, Lord Best. I think that he made that commitment on his own initiative. Therefore, we are entitled to be confident about the review. However, if the review shows that the policy intent has not been delivered in some of these important areas, which I am sure are causing concern to other Members of the Committee as well as to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, and me, I would like him to reassure me that action will follow as a result of the review, so that this is not an academic piece of work that says, “On the one hand or on the other hand”, but will say, “Actually, we did not think that would happen. The culture has not changed in the way that we expected it would and therefore we are going to do something different and perhaps even change the policy”.

Of course, housing benefit needs to be constrained; it is a very big number and it is getting bigger. However, I think that we are grabbing at this policy. Irrespective of whether you think that the policy is right or wrong, the process is being carried out far too fast. Doing it all on one day—1 April next year—is a very unsafe thing to do in my view. I hope that we get this right and that the review will lead to some amelioration of some of the problems that are bound to come out of the woodwork when these policy changes are implemented.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Freud]

I have pleasure in giving a commitment that I will tell noble Lords exactly how we plan to do it when we know. I think I have covered all the issues that were raised—

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope]

I apologise for interrupting the Minister’s progress. Is there a communications strategy that will roll out with the policy? Obviously, this will have to be delivered by housing associations and local authorities. Is the noble Lord confident that proper notice will be given to those who are affected so that a letter will not arrive in the letter box a fortnight before the policy crystallises?

[Lord Freud]

We are holding a big exercise with local authorities and housing associations and, indeed, the institute is doing a lot of work on this. All the materials are currently going to the relevant bodies and it is up to them to deliver it. They have DWP-branded material in the form of leaflets and so on, so the information is available and ready to go out. Clearly, a lot of effort is going into working out who will be affected and making sure that they get support. There are model letters and leaflets that make up a full toolkit.

I hope I have dealt with the issues. Again, I know full well that noble Lords do not like this policy. That view has been expressed in the Chamber twice and I remember that absolutely, as I suppose noble Lords do, too. There is history here. Our votes were overturned by the Commons, this came back and noble Lords tried again. In the end, after one iteration of it was stopped, I said that I would take following that up in terms of research very seriously, and I set that in train. I hope noble Lords will accept that, unpalatable as these measures are, we have found the best balanced way of reducing the housing bill, which is simply enormous now. No one has said to me, “There is another, easy half a billion to find in the housing bill this way”. This is the fairest way of doing it. It requires a response from local authorities, housing associations and tenants but one that, in the majority of cases, those groups will be able to make. There will be hard cases. Let us hope that we have put enough resource into looking after various hard cases. With that, I hope that on balance noble Lords can support these regulations—with reluctance. I commend them to the Committee.