Housing: Cost of Living

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I thank the right reverend Prelate for that question, and I think it is an extremely interesting opportunity. I would like to talk to her in further detail about that because I have read the report Coming Home and I think the idea of the five S’s—sustainable, safe, stable, social and satisfying housing—is a wonderful thing to aspire to. I cannot offer her a long-term cross-party review at this time, but I would like to talk to her further and talk to my officials about that.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, 20% of families in England now rent privately and one-third of them rely on housing benefit. That is capped by the local housing allowance, which was fixed on rents in 2019 and has been frozen for five years, although rents are rising rapidly—by 12% in the last year. This means that a family with a two-bedroom house faces a shortfall of some £1,500 a year that they have to meet out of the rest of their benefit. Does my noble friend recognise the difficulties that this can cause? Is there a case for the Chancellor, in his forthcoming Budget, reviewing the decision to freeze the local housing allowance?