Housing Benefit Entitlement

Simon Danczuk Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Simon Danczuk (Rochdale) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) for securing this important debate on a critical issue. I want to talk about two families who came to see me in Rochdale, but they are just two of the many who have come to see me. I also want to speak briefly about the impact on community cohesion and the role of housing providers.

Mr Berry and his family came to see me relatively recently. After a serious accident 17 years ago, Mr Berry and his wife had no choice but to take the council home offered to them. Since then, they have brought up their two children—a boy and a girl—in the three-bedroom property. They have made modifications, and they have made the house into their home. They are very much part of the local community. However, the Government’s bedroom tax means that they will have to move out of their house. After 17 years, the family are being pulled out of the community in which they have lived for so long. That leads me to the first point I want to make.

Families who have lived for decades on council estates in places such as Rochdale are being forced to move. Homes are being taken away from people, and they will be filled by Asian or Afro-Caribbean families, because that is the nature of the demographics in places such as Rochdale. That will have a direct impact on community cohesion, and that impact should not be underestimated. It will create tensions, and there is the potential for conflict. The Government’s impact assessment on this policy took no account whatever of community cohesion. It is as though the policy has not been thought through.

Let me turn to the second family who came to see me, just before Christmas. The husband is a paraplegic. They have lived in their property for 15 years. The council has spent £18,500 adapting it. It has three bedrooms, one of which is used to accommodate a lift. The other two bedrooms are used by each of the individuals in the home. They have been visited by Rochdale Boroughwide Housing, and they have been told that they will have to pay £22 a week extra or they will have to move out. The family described that as the last straw. They have been through so much in their lives. The lady was crying in my surgery on the eve of Christmas, because of the Government’s policy.

I explained to the family the possibility of receiving temporary discretionary housing payments, but they are not enough. The Government do not seem to understand the misery that they are creating. They have housing providers such as RBH running around implementing their policy, which is having a devastating effect on families and communities. That leads me to my second point.

Housing providers such as RBH have an excellent track record in managing their stock. RBH has mixed communities, because it focuses on creating a balance. It takes into account people’s individual needs, and it constantly reviews under-occupancy and acts on it. The Government should leave housing providers to manage their stock; it is not for the Government to micro-manage such things.

Let me finish by making two important points. First, there is the potential for community conflict as a result of this policy. Secondly, if this is such a good Government policy, why is there not a single Conservative or Liberal Democrat Back-Bench MP here to defend it?