Housing Benefit

Natascha Engel Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

I have been sitting here for several hours stewing about the opening statement by the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Thornbury and Yate (Steve Webb). He said that the Government identified their largest area of spend—the Department for Work and Pensions—and decided that pensions were not going to be touched and so looked at the welfare budget, where they saw that people on housing benefit were the most expensive and so that was the area they were going to target. That says that the Government have deliberately targeted people in the greatest need of support and help. The Government may call it welfare, but I still call it social security, because that is what it is: it provides social security for people who need it. The Government have identified the people who most need that social security and they are going to take it away from them.

That is a big admission of the big differences between Government Members and Labour Members—the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) called them “philosophical differences”, but we call them ideological differences. As many Opposition Members have said, those differences relate to the fact that the only crime these people have committed is to be too poor to afford to buy a house. That is the crime for which the Government are going to be punishing them. In my constituency, 60% of the people affected by the bedroom tax since April—only half a year ago—are now in housing arrears. The Minister, in his opening statement, admitted that the cost of the discretionary housing payment has trebled. What I want to hear from the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey), who is responding to the debate, is if the cost of the discretionary housing payment has trebled, is this not also taxpayers’ money? It is, indeed, also money that the Government are spending, not saving, and they are giving it to the people we have already identified as being in the greatest need. As many Opposition Members have said, this policy neither saves money nor does anything about overcrowding.

I have read the opening pages of the Government’s impact assessment to consider the savings that are going to be made, and the best estimate is £930 million. It says that figures will be gathered to make sure that there can be a policy review, and I would like to know when it will take place. I would also like to see the breakdown of the amount of money spent as against the amount saved. One saving that the Government are making relates to people who will “float off Housing Benefit”: the assessment estimates this to be £5 million. That is so to misunderstand this area of the housing market as to be cruel and incompetent, as Opposition Members have said. Not only is it cruel and incompetent, but it has been especially designed to be so.