Inherited Social Housing Tenancies Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Work and Pensions
John Bercow
Main Page: John Bercow (Speaker - Buckingham)Department Debates - View all John Bercow's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
(10 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
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Mr Speaker
Before I call the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), to ask his urgent question I would emphasise to the House that its terms are narrow. It relates specifically to the question of inherited tenancies and the treatment thereof. I am sure the House had not been planning on a Second Reading-style debate on the merits or otherwise of the spare room subsidy/bedroom tax, but that is not the subject matter. It is a narrow matter and will be treated accordingly, and we are, of course, time-constrained.
Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)
I was surprised to read today in my local paper, The Oxford Times, that Oxford city council has spent only two thirds of its discretionary housing funds for 2013-14, leaving £200,000 meant for the most vulnerable unspent. May I therefore ask for the Minister’s guidance on how this fund can be better applied to inherited social housing tenancies and others?
Mr Speaker
An exceptionally interesting question, but its relationship with the urgent question tabled is, to put it kindly, tangential. However, let us hear the Minister as the product of her grey cells may prove me wrong.
Esther McVey
My hon. Friend is right that there are quite a few local authorities that have not spent the full amount, and it is that money that can be utilised here for those who have inherited a house or a property in that way. This is what the money is there for.