Affordable Homes Bill

Debate between Nick Raynsford and George Howarth

Friday 5th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Nick Raynsford (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

May I at the outset draw attention to my interests as declared in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests?

I am very pleased to speak in support of the Bill, and I congratulate the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) on seizing the opportunity of his good fortune in being drawn in first place in the ballot to introduce a Bill that will have a significant impact on the living standards and housing prospects of a substantial number of our fellow citizens. The House should warmly welcome this serious Bill, and I applaud his decision to bring it in.

As the hon. Gentleman made clear, the Bill has two main purposes: first, to limit the circumstances in which social housing tenants are subject to deductions in their housing benefit or universal credit because of the impact of the bedroom tax; and secondly, to encourage the development and take-up of low-cost home ownership and other intermediate housing market options to assist people in need of housing who are unlikely to qualify for social tenancies but cannot afford the often prohibitive costs of housing for sale on the open market. I support both objectives, although in several respects I would like the provisions to go further. Indeed, the hon. Gentleman has made clear his own inclination to go beyond the specific measures, but the Bill as presented to the House is a good start in the right direction, and it deserves our support. I will take the two main objectives in turn.

I applaud the three proposed limitations on the impact of the bedroom tax, which is one of the harshest measures introduced by the present Government. The bedroom tax was misconceived from the outset, being promoted on a false—indeed, one might say fraudulent—premise that the objective was to encourage better use of the country’s social housing stock. It was misconceived in that there was no way that the measure could achieve its supposed objective of prompting tenants under-occupying social tenancies to move into smaller homes because the supply of smaller homes available to accommodate them was hopelessly inadequate. Social housing providers and local authorities presented such evidence to the Government time and again when they proposed the bedroom tax, but the Government ignored all the clear evidence that there was simply not a sufficient supply of smaller homes to make it possible for people who would be penalised to move into smaller accommodation.

[Mr George Howarth]

On that point, I can give the example of the Ravenscroft Re-build Housing Co-operative in my constituency. At my surgery last week, two ladies told me that because of how it is funded, the rent for a two-bedroom property is £54.50 a week and the rent for a three-bedroom property is £56 a week, while there are no smaller properties within the co-operative and there is a waiting list of one. If they moved to social housing—say, a one-bedroom flat—the rent would be between £70 and £80 a week, which makes a complete nonsense of the purpose of the policy in the first place.

[Mr Raynsford]

My right hon. Friend’s point is absolutely valid. The policy is based on extremely unproven and in many cases very suspect assumptions. The idea that people eligible for housing benefit will benefit either themselves or the public purse by moving out of accommodation costing £55 a week into accommodation costing £70 seems absurd. That, however, is the consequence of the bedroom tax as it is currently constituted. The Government have made it clear that they expect people to look for alternative options in the private rented sector, even though that sector is in general hugely more expensive than social housing. There are a whole series of contradictions at the heart of this policy.

Local Government Finance Bill

Debate between Nick Raynsford and George Howarth

Tuesday 31st January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr George Howarth]

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[Mr Raynsford]

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