Under-Occupancy Penalty

Debate between Sheila Gilmore and Ian Lavery

Tuesday 5th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[Sheila Gilmore]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Many people would find the concept of taking in a lodger extremely difficult, particularly given the nature of many properties. I visited a constituent whose kitchen was off the living room, and whose bedrooms were not particularly big. When someone has a lodger, they are sharing a house. They are not taking in a lodger who has a self-contained annexe of the house; they are taking someone into the bosom of their household. The 60-year-old woman in question felt that that was not somewhere she needed to be in her life.

[Ian Lavery]

I am totally perplexed by the Government’s advice to take in a lodger, which was given from day one of the bedroom tax. Some 400,000 of the 600,000 people affected by the bedroom tax are disabled. Would disabled people want to bring in a stranger, just so they could afford to pay the rent?

[Sheila Gilmore]

The reality is that people are not taking on lodgers. The rhetoric on lodgers has quietened down, presumably because the impracticality of that idea has revealed itself. If the measure was about making better use of property, it was not the best way of going about that. It would be far better to encourage people to move in some circumstances, but that is neither a quick nor an easy process. It has to be planned for, and that comes back to looking at the nature of the local housing market and how those moves can be dealt with.

Older tenants in larger homes might want to downsize—if they are over retirement age, they will not be affected by the bedroom tax—but the bedroom tax will not whip them into wanting to move. Over the years, I have had many constituents say to me, “Yes, I would move. The stairs are getting too much for me. The garden is getting too much for me”, but they want control over where they go, and want to keep some of the things they like about their present home. Often that means the area, and that does not necessarily only go for those who live in what is perceived as a “good area”. Their area is where they have their social circle, and their family might not be too far away. There will be many reciprocal family arrangements, whether that is daughters helping mothers, or mothers helping their grown-up children with child care and picking kids up from school. All those sorts of things cannot be done if they are moved to the other end of town. Okay, they are fussy, but they are fussy because they want the move to be one that will last them the rest of their lives. They do not want to rush into something that is unsuitable.

All authorities might want to build new build housing that is geared to older people. If authorities do their homework properly, they will know in advance that that will release larger houses. The homework, however, has to be done, and investment is needed. If the investment is not there, it becomes very difficult. New build numbers are dropping, not only in England and Wales, which the Minister is concerned with, but in Scotland, too. In the whole of Scotland, new starts have dropped from the high point in 2007-08 of 6,214 to just 2,781 in 2012-13. That is a substantial drop. We want to have new build available to help people move around, but it is just not there.

There are many things that we should be looking at. We should be considering building new homes. Councils might want to consider—I have suggested this to my local council—buying some properties at comparable prices. They should not pay more for a property than it would cost to build, but that would help deal with some of the biggest chronic housing shortages. When homeless families, even those with children, are waiting in temporary accommodation for up to a year to get anything, we have a crisis, not just a slight shortage.

There is a further win-win in all this, which perhaps brings us back to the stated purpose of the bedroom tax. If more affordable housing is built, we can reduce the total housing benefit spend. It is true that the spend has gone up in recent years—the Government are not wrong to point that out—but their predictions and forecasts for the next few years are that the spend will continue to rise until at least 2016-17, when it will reach £23.38 billion.

Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Sheila Gilmore and Ian Lavery

Wednesday 1st February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Ian Lavery]

What I will not accept is that everyone suffering from cancer will be in the work group. That is not the case. They might be in for a short time or a prolonged period, but they are not guaranteed to be in there all the time. That means their benefits will be cut.

[Sheila Gilmore]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is rather strange that a Government who have been saying that disabled people should not be condemned to worklessness and should be encouraged to work seem to be turning on a pin to argue that everything will be all right because all those people will be in the support group?

[Ian Lavery]

If that was the case, there would not be a problem with the legislation. Everybody would get what they were due and there would not be the apparent cut.

For the third time, I shall try to conclude. We must give dignity to those people, who are in most need, and stop the war against those in need.

[Dr Whiteford]

I will try to keep my comments brief, given the time pressure on us.

The Lords has done us a big service by highlighting the impact and implications of these measures for sick and disabled people. The 12-month limit to contributory ESA is arbitrary. Regardless of the people in the support group, the measure will affect people who are adapting to radical and serious changes in their health, income and life. They might be suffering from life-limiting conditions, long-term disability or fluctuating conditions. They might be people who have been used to living on an average income, but will have to get used to living on a very low income. Those adaptations take time; getting better takes time. Some people will take less than 12 months, some considerably more. Macmillan thinks that 94% will need support in the work-related activity group for more than 12 months. In that respect, while I do not accept the principle of an arbitrary time limit, I suspect that two years would catch more of those people and see them getting the support they need.

Fundamentally, these measures will upset the contract that we all like to think we have when we pay our national insurance contributions—that there will be some limited safety net for us if we are unfortunate enough to become sick or disabled. That could happen to any one of us in this Chamber, at any time. We do not know when we are going to have an accident or develop a serious illness, so not only cancer is involved, although we know that people across society are affected by it. Other conditions are just as serious, and the same principles apply.

On insecurity, I should draw an analogy with what happened when banks tried to prey on people’s insecurities about the future by asking them to take on insurance for loans they had taken out. The banks have had to pay out seven-figure sums in compensation to people who were mis-sold insurance policies. I hope that that does not happen again as people think, “If I get a serious illness, there will not be support for me.” I am worried that there will be an opportunity for unscrupulous selling of insurance policies to vulnerable people at the most vulnerable times in their lives.

I am concerned about the knock-on impact of the proposals on carers too. In my constituency, I have seen families working longer hours, often in low-paid jobs, just to provide financially for family members who are no longer able to work, but who once were. There is particular concern around young people; that was mentioned earlier in the debate, but it has not been focused on so much. Parents of disabled young adults have often saved throughout their lives as they are concerned about what will happen when they are no longer able to look after their children. They have saved for their children to ensure that they have independent means and a bit of money behind them for when they are adult and their parents are no longer in a position to provide.

It would be unfortunate if the capital of those young people were eroded at a time when they still had some support from their parents. They might be prevented from having an independent old age and might be made more dependent on the state than they would otherwise be. That is about the dignity of young disabled people as much as anything.

I urge the Government to consider the fact that ESA needs to be assessed on the basis of medical need, not an arbitrary time limit. People should get the support they need according to their health, not some arbitrary category that they may or may not fit into.