Under-occupancy Penalty (Wales)

Mark Williams Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Jessica Morden]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. He is right. Will the Minister look carefully at the report from Bron Afon in Torfaen, because it highlights specific examples of why the policy will hit Wales particularly hard?

There will be two levels of reduction. Those who are under-occupying by one bedroom will lose 14% of their housing benefit, which is equivalent to a loss of £12 a week. For those under-occupying by two or more bedrooms, there will be a 25% reduction, equivalent to a loss of £22 per week. In Wales, 46% of all housing benefit claimants of working age in the social rented sector will be hit, compared with a UK average of 31%.

The Department for Work and Pensions says in its own impact assessment that 40,000 tenants in Wales will be affected by the bedroom tax with an average loss of income of £12 per week. Like many of the Government’s benefit changes, this is hitting Wales disproportionately hard. With tax and benefit changes to be implemented by 2014-15, households in Wales can expect to lose 4.1% of their income on average or about £1,110 per year on top of rising food and heating costs.

Some 1,794 Newport City Homes tenants have received letters telling them that they will be affected, and a further 421 who rent from Monmouthshire Housing Association have received letters in communities like Caldicot, which is in my constituency. With 4,220 on the Newport common housing register and 2,536 on the Monmouthshire common housing register, it is not rocket science to realise that there is not enough social housing for people to move to. Of the Newport City Homes tenants who are affected, 359 have two bedrooms too many and 1,435 have one bedroom too many, 916 of them will be looking for one-bedroom houses or flats and 823 will be looking for two-bedroom properties.

Newport City Homes has only 1,264 one-bedroom properties in total and 2,680 two-bedroom properties. This week, just 36 properties are advertised on the Newport housing options website, so people have very few choices. Whole estates in Wales have very few one or two-bedroom houses.

[Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)]

The hon. Lady is making the case clearly for the urban context, but does she agree that in rural areas such as mine, which have faced a housing crisis for years, people face even less choice? I am sure that she will mention the fears that people living in houses with adaptations for disability have raised. Although more money is coming from the Government, it is less than clear how it will reach our constituents.

[Jessica Morden]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I will come on to mention that later in my speech. Other hon. Members have raised the issues of people with disabled children and of rural housing. As he says, there is very little housing stock available for people to rent anyway.

Let me talk about the Underwood estate, on the outskirts of Newport. It has 138 three-bedroom properties, 45 two-bedroom properties and no one-bedroom flats, apart from 12 that are reserved for pensioners and disabled people. In the past, we needed larger properties, so that is what councils built. Wales will be hit hard because of a relative shortage of smaller housing. Newport is clearly not alone, as many housing associations across Wales face the same issue. Scarcity of larger properties is a problem in big cities in England, but in Wales, there is a scarcity of smaller properties.