Housing: Underoccupancy Charge

Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope (LD)]

Does the Minister accept that there is an important regional dimension to all this? I support the request made by the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, for a regional look at some of this, and also her idea of looking again at the Newcastle study, which demonstrated not only that the bedroom tax increased poverty but that it had an adverse effect on health and well-being, and on social responsibility and networks within neighbourhoods. When the final report is published, will he use his best offices to get a regional dimension into it, so that it considers the community-wide impact, not just the household impact, and the totality of the policy across the piece? I hope that the report will be published before the end of the year.

[Lord Freud]

Yes, the current plan is to publish the report before the end of the year. It does incorporate the regional effects, and I will take the noble Lord’s points about how thoroughly it does so when I go back and talk to the team. For very obvious reasons, I have not seen what is inside that report before it is published, but I will transmit those thoughts to the team.