Housing White Paper

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I commend my hon. Friend’s work on homelessness, particularly through his Homelessness Reduction Bill, which is making its way through Parliament. He is right about the importance of commissioning, which has a role to play and is something that I am looking at carefully.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

The National Audit Office estimates that the total Government spend on housing in the last financial year was £28 billion, but a staggering £20.9 billion of that total was spent on housing benefit. Is that not a demonstration that rents are too high and that even people in work cannot afford them? Did the Secretary of State give any consideration to reforming housing benefit when putting together the White Paper?

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Lady will know that housing benefit has already been reformed, but she is right to make the link between housing benefit and high rents. Again, that is a symptom of the fact that for far too long we have not been building enough homes.