Housing Benefit

Michael Ellis Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Burley]

The hon. Lady should have listened to what I said. Our point is that it is not just about reducing the housing benefit bill, but the issue of fairness. We need to go back to the first principles in this debate and decide what is a fair amount for the working majority to pay towards those who do not, cannot or will not work. What is fair? The average annual earnings in my constituency is £25,279 a year.

[Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)]

On the subject of fairness, is it not right that Opposition Members persistently forget one of the first principles of fairness, which is the juxtaposition between low-paid hard-working families and those on housing benefit? Housing benefit claimants should not be better off than those who are hard-working and low paid. Is that not a principle of fairness?

[Mr Burley]

That is precisely my point. People in Cannock Chase who earn £25,279 a year would frankly love to have £20,000 to spend on housing from an equivalent annual salary of £80,000, because that is what it equates to. That is dreamland for them. They have never earned £80,000 a year, so why should they be paying out of their hard-earned taxes for some people to have the equivalent of a salary of a quarter of a million pounds so that they can live in parts of London that have some of the most expensive postcodes on Earth.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

Follow that indeed.

I want to pick up on some comments made by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Paul Uppal) and my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods). They referred to the tenor of the national debate on this issue, which I have found deeply worrying, and how our newspapers in particular show unemployed people being divided from employed people, benefit recipients being divided from those who are not claiming benefits.

We saw that division of rich and poor at the weekend with the headlines in some newspapers reflecting announcements from the Department for Work and Pensions. The Mail on Sunday said “New IDS blitz on the workshy”; the News of the World said “Work gangs for shirkers”; and The Sunday Telegraph said “Workshy will have to take unpaid jobs”.

[Michael Ellis]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Umunna]

I want to make some progress, but I may give way later.

Today, we read that the Department has released figures showing that every family will have to pay more than £1,500 a year in taxes to fund the housing benefit system. As ever, it seems that a particular section of society has become a target. Has the Treasury released figures to show how much each family in this country loses as a result of tax evasion and avoidance by wealthy individuals and companies? It is extremely important that we do not allow the tactic of divide and rule to succeed.

This is particularly pertinent to my community. The constituency that I represent is diverse not only ethnically but in regard to the socio-economic demographic of the people who live there. I spoke to one of my constituents about these issues last weekend. He and his wife live in one of the more leafy parts of Clapham common, an area known as Abbeville village, and he works for a private equity company. He is undoubtedly in the top 1% of earners. I asked him what he thought about the Government’s changes to the housing benefits regime. Given that they will not have a direct impact on him, I was surprised to find that he had strong views about them, and that he was horrified at their likely impact on his community. One of the reasons that he likes living in my constituency is the diverse nature of the streets and the different parts of the area. He said that he did not want to live in a street where all the people were like him. He liked the fact that there were different people living there.

I mention this because it is important to understand that these changes will be an issue not only for people claiming housing benefit but for the community as a whole. Given the impact that the changes will have on my constituents, I do not feel that I am whipping up hysteria or unduly disturbing my community. I am simply looking at the facts. There are 5,470 households in Lambeth that will face huge cuts in housing benefit next year. For example, 1,520 households in two-bed properties in Lambeth will see the contribution to their rent reduced by an average of £25 a week. That is £1,300 a year, and those people simply cannot afford it. The changes will undoubtedly cause an increase in poverty in my constituency. Shelter is predicting that they will affect many of the claimants who live just above the poverty line, and they will undoubtedly lead to deep anxiety and stress among people who are already struggling to get by.

--- Later in debate ---

[Glenda Jackson]

From a sedentary position, the Minister is waving his hands in disbelief. This afternoon he was leaping to the Dispatch Box asking questions about what my party would have done if we had been in government. He knows, and I know, that if my party had been in government and his party had still been in opposition, and we had introduced the policies that he is supporting now, he would have fought them tooth and nail.

The Minister has absolutely no cover any more. As I have had occasion to say before in the House, his party has become the “30 pieces of silver” party, and nowhere is that more marked than in what it is proposing to do to some of the most vulnerable people in all our constituencies. I say to Government Members that the problem is not exclusively London’s; this will affect the whole country. When the second tranche of the Government’s approach to social housing comes in—the increase of rents to at least 80% and the removal of secure tenancies—the impact will run and run.

[Michael Ellis]

Are not hard-working people on low incomes also vulnerable, and do they not also need to be treated fairly by our society, as opposed to those on whom so many of the hon. Lady’s Opposition colleagues focus—people on housing benefit who are receiving more from the taxpayer than many of the working poor could dream of paying for themselves?