Housing Benefit (Under-occupancy Penalty)

Russell Brown Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Geraint Davies]

rose—

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

rose—

[Geraint Davies]

Instead of having a policy of evicting people because their children have grown up, would it not be better to offer cash incentives to move to smaller housing? When I was chairman of the housing department and leader of Croydon council we offered people cash benefits rather than by evict them because their children had grown up. [Interruption.]

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[Sheila Gilmore]

rose—

[Mr Russell Brown]

rose—

[Greg Mulholland]

I do not think that the Government have got it right, and I ask them to address the issue compassionately and with common sense, not only through the application of discretionary housing payments, which are essential and welcome, but through the provision of further exemptions for certain categories.

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[Greg Mulholland]

I will not give way to the hon. Lady again, but I will give way to the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Brown) if he still wishes to intervene.

[Mr Russell Brown]

Will the hon. Gentleman clarify something for me? There is much talk about 1 million empty bedrooms, but there is some confusion about that. Are we talking about 1 million empty bedrooms in households that exclude pensioners, or would pensioner households create 1 million-plus empty bedrooms? Are we talking solely about households excluding pensioners?

[Greg Mulholland]

As the hon. Gentleman has clearly heard, it is the former. I hope that is clear.

The simple reality is that the social housing sector has an exemption in this regard that the private rented sector does not have. It is important to remember that in April 2008, when I sat on the Opposition side of the House, the previous Labour Government introduced the local housing allowance. I was a member of the Work and Pensions Committee at the time and know that it was not an entirely controversial measure, as Opposition Members will remember. We scrutinised it and raised concerns, but the then Labour Government were absolutely clear that local housing allowance would and should depend not only on the maximum rent allowed for properties in the area, but specifically on the number of rooms a tenant needed.

Again, the principle behind bringing this measure into the social housing sector is reasonable, and it would be helpful if the Opposition at least acknowledged that and said that they wish to assist and encourage people who are over-occupying and have more bedrooms than their family need to seek alternative accommodation in order to free up those properties. We all know from our huge case loads that that is needed. We can blame the previous Government and the Government before them for simply not building enough and for the absurdity of allowing the right to buy a council house without then building more to replace them. Those are things that this Government have committed finally to addressing.

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[Mr Russell Brown]

rose—

[Jane Ellison]

Let me develop my point a bit further, unless the hon. Gentleman wishes to confirm that he will be calling on those on the Labour Front Bench to make a manifesto commitment on that point.

[Mr Brown]

I appreciate that the hon. Lady came to this House in 2010, but may I tell her something of which she may not be aware? When the Minister who opened for the coalition Government was in opposition, along with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury he condemned the Labour Government time after time when we considered welfare reform and said that we were not doing enough. They have both completely flipped over. They are worse than any of the hon. Lady’s Conservative colleagues because they relish the job they are doing.

[Jane Ellison]

With all due respect, that was not in any sense a response to the challenge I made to Opposition Members.

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[Mr Redwood]

My spare rooms are a matter for me because I paid for them myself, and I am sure the hon. Gentleman has spare rooms and I dare say he paid for them himself. That is exactly the kind of society we all want to live in, I would have thought. I do not know of any Labour MPs who could stand up and say that they are at the minimum accommodation level—I invite them to do so, but I do not see anyone rushing to stand up.

[Mr Russell Brown]

rose—

[Mr Redwood]

The hon. Gentleman stands up but he has no voice. I think that means he does not want to say that he has the minimum accommodation available or thought specific to certain people.

I want to live in an aspiration society. We want to promote better jobs, better paid jobs and more people owning their own home. Where that is not possible, we need a fair distribution; we need to provide more and to distribute it more fairly. I just hope that Opposition parties, if they have serious aims to be in power one day, will think more carefully before pledging to repeal things, or will come up with better ideas on how we can promote that better use of the housing stock that must make sense.

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[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

I apologise to the House for leaving the Chamber earlier. I had a meeting with a local firefighter who had travelled 300 miles to see me.

According to the four main registered social landlords in my constituency, the bedroom tax will affect 1,770 tenants in my area. That is not an insignificant number and the landlords are working hard with each and every one of them. There is no doubt that some tenants will decide to try to squeeze money out of their budget in order to avoid moving, if moving is an option for them in the first place.

We have already heard—I do not want to go over a lot of the same ground—that this is about some of our most vulnerable people, including the disabled, students and the military. The last thing that those who serve our country in theatre want to see when they return to their barracks and spend time at what they call home is their family, particularly their parents, being punished in any way.

We have also heard about foster carers. Things are not easy for emergency foster carers, who sometimes have to take in more than one child. If there has been a family breakdown, two or three children might have to be taken into emergency foster care. Kinship carers are also common in my part of the country. Mothers and fathers or aunts and uncles sometimes take in children in an emergency, because of the parents’ chaotic lifestyle.

The hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) asked whether assistance will be provided if someone manages to downsize. Will the Minister explain clearly what that assistance will be? Will it merely be discretionary support? It is important that we understand what it will be.

As has been said, people will lose, on average, £14 a week. What will it mean to take in a lodger in such circumstances? Yes, people will be able to make up that shortfall, but if the lodger pays £50 or £60 a week for board and lodgings, that could throw the benefits system into turmoil for many claimants, because there might be a reassessment of benefits. Will the Minister provide clarification on that?

I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Mrs McGuire) for encouraging me to hold a welfare reform meeting in my constituency last week. I held it in the town of Dumfries and will hold a similar event in Stranraer, at the other end of my constituency, next week. We brought together charities, churches, registered social landlords, the council, benefits advice organisations and a gentleman from the Department for Work and Pensions, whom I thank. I told the audience, “Do not shoot the messenger. Department for Work and Pensions staff are there to deliver on a policy devised by politicians.” Some horrendous stories were told. The aim of the event was to encourage those working in the community to look for the tell-tale signs of families starting to feel the pressure as a result of the bedroom tax or universal credit.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Katy Clark) was right to highlight the amount of money that this will take out of the local economy. When we debated the Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill, I pointed out that the 1% freeze would take money out of the local economy and away from some of our poorest people. That will also happen as a result of this provision. Taking money out of the local economy does not stimulate it, and does serious damage.

My local authority, Dumfries and Galloway council, has a Conservative and SNP administration. Some months ago, it set up a welfare reform working group. My Labour colleagues, who make up the largest political grouping on the council but are in opposition, did not take part in that group. Instead, they established their own welfare reform working group. The report by the Labour group came before the council’s policy and resources committee yesterday. Lo and behold, the Conservative leader of the council accepted all 21 recommendations the Labour councillors put forward. I will not go through them all, but they include an urgent report on the legal and financial implications of using discretionary housing benefit to cover any shortfall in the first year for those affected by the tax, and a report on the proposal to expand access to credit unions and to explore other banking options for bad debtors.

The Conservative leader of the council accepted the recommendations wholeheartedly, but he took the matter a step further. He decided that it was right for Dumfries and Galloway council to write to Lord Freud to make him aware that the steps he was taking, especially the bedroom tax, were wrong. The leader of the council said on the radio this morning:

“In Dumfries and Galloway we’ve taken the decision in the past that we don’t see one bedroom being the ideal situation. Two bedrooms is what we’ve been basing our housing strategy on in the past and we feel that the minimum should be two bedrooms rather than one bedroom when they are looking at under-occupancy legislation. This is something that we feel that we need to push harder on for our tenants across the region.”

That comes from a Conservative leader of a local authority in Scotland.