Department for Communities and Local Government

Mel Stride Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Meg Hillier]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. He is right. This invidious little tax is having a disastrous impact on many of my constituents. For example, if a family who occupy a three-bedroom property have two children of the same gender between the ages of 10 and 16, or two children of opposite gender under 10, they will be counted as under-occupying and be forced either to find the extra money to pay for the bedroom, until their children reach the age at which they qualify for the extra bedroom, or to give up their home and try to find, magically out of nowhere, a two-bedroom property. There is heavy demand for all types of social housing, while pensioners remain exempt.

[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

When it comes to the under-occupancy subsidy, is the hon. Lady not also concerned about the 250,000 people who are living in overcrowded housing and the 2 million people on the housing waiting list who are desperate to get into some of the 1 million excess rooms held in the social housing sector?

[Meg Hillier]

Of course, and as I mentioned earlier, this is a big issue, but that is to do mostly with the supply of housing and there are other ways to incentivise people to move out of their homes, rather than taxing them. Over the years, there have been schemes to provide money to help, for example, pensioner households with their removal costs and the costs of new furnishings for their new home to encourage them to move at a small price to free up the larger properties that are desperately needed. In my constituency, where about a quarter of residents are under 16, we need affordable family homes to be supplied. We also need reform of the private rented sector, which in this short speech I do not have time to go into, but the Government abolished the register of private landlords and are doing nothing to tackle the issue. “Generation rent” in my constituency is among the biggest in the country.

The bedroom tax is an invidious policy. It will not free up rooms in the way the hon. Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride) expects. Up and down the country, people are being forced to move from their larger homes, although smaller homes are not available in their area, and they are being penalised if they cannot move. It is illogical. The policy provides a good cheap headline for the Government, but it will not deliver and it is having a negative impact on families’ lives. There are better ways to tackle the housing issue. Cross-party, we should look at supporting an increase in supply and ensuring that there are no loopholes in any schemes. In the Budget, the Chancellor talked about the mortgage guarantee, which will enable people to buy second homes. The Government have still not come up with a comprehensive rejection of that approach, so we can only take that as an assurance that people can buy a second home with a mortgage guarantee from the Government, while many of my constituents will continue to struggle to get on the housing ladder, or into a form of tenure that provides them and their families with security and the strong base in the community that we all want to see.