Scotland: Underoccupancy Charge

Lord McFall of Alcluith Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, a good idea has many fathers. Clearly, everyone in this Government is responsible for the bedroom tax and I am one of them.

[Lord McFall of Alcluith (Lab)]

My Lords—

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Hill of Oareford) (Con)]

It is the turn of the Liberal Democrats.

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, we are currently looking very hard at what the support should be in the next year and possibly beyond so that we will have a smooth transition for this policy. One interesting thing is that there is a real economic mismatch, which I have talked about, in what we are building for people: we have 60% of people requiring single bedrooms and we are building only 13% in any one year. There is an economic mismatch so the signals must be corrected and that is one thing that this policy does.

[Lord McFall of Alcluith]

My Lords—

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns (Con)]

My Lords, we have reached 30 minutes.