Oral Answers to Questions

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

5. What assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of real-term reductions in local housing allowance rates on levels of poverty.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

6. What assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of real-term reductions in local housing allowance rates on levels of poverty.

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

13. What assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of real-term reductions in local housing allowance rates on levels of poverty.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mel Stride]

I would just say to the hon Lady that there is the household support fund as well, which she did not mention. That is there to provide support in the circumstances that she described, along with the discretionary housing payments that I set out and the fact that, in 2020, we did indeed raise LHA to be in line with the 30th percentile of local rents.

[Rachel Hopkins]

The reality is that a family in one of the cheapest three-bedroom homes in Luton have faced a shortfall of about £2,300 over the last year, and that gap increased by £650 from five months earlier. That proves that the growing gap between housing benefit and the cost of the cheapest private rents is forcing people into poverty. When the Secretary of State chose to freeze local housing allowance for another year, did he consider how that might make more and more families across the country homeless?

[Mel Stride]

I did of course very carefully consider the points that the hon. Lady has made, just as I very carefully considered the extent to which there should be an uprating of benefits more generally; they went up by 10.1%—the level of the consumer prices index at that time. I also considered very carefully what the uplift in pensions should be and, again, that was 10.1%, the level of CPI. For pensioners, we also stood by the triple lock.