Housing Benefit

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Meon Valley (George Hollingbery) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford), who made an excellent contribution.

I am pleased to be called to speak in this debate and I am proud that the Labour party now has a commitment to axing this appalling policy. I am proud of Opposition Members’ contributions to this debate, which stand in stark contrast to some of the drivel we heard from the Government Benches, much of which showed a lack of understanding of and basic research into how this policy is being delivered on the ground.

One example of that was in the contribution of the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), who said people should simply work an extra three hours a week to pay for this. If she knew the policy, she would be aware that those in work and receiving housing benefit who work an extra three hours a week will lose 85% of that extra income to pay for their rent and council tax. Therefore they would still have to pay the bedroom tax.

I am the MP for Manchester Central and my constituency has the highest number of people affected by the bedroom tax in the country—over 4,000. That is not just a number; it is people struggling desperately as a result of this unjust policy.

I have three main criticisms of this policy, and they build on the points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich: it is a morally wrong and corrupt policy; it costs more than it saves; and it does not even work. By any measure, that is a pretty damning indictment of a policy.

It is morally wrong because it is such a blunt instrument and it is punishing all sorts of vulnerable people who have done nothing wrong. We have heard many examples from colleagues, charting the human cost of this disastrous policy. I want to highlight one other.

Elizabeth has a very disabled son, Ryan. Their case has been highlighted by the Manchester Evening News and the Daily Mirror, both of which have been running excellent campaigns against the bedroom tax. Ryan is a disabled adult and requires around-the-clock care, including overnight care. He is not excluded from the bedroom tax policy, however, because he is not the tenant of the property. Therefore, they are subject to the bedroom tax. After many weeks and months of anxious worrying, Elizabeth finally, after my intervention, was awarded the discretionary housing money. However, this does not take away from the fact that she is not sure what is going to happen next year or the year after that. That is the kind of anxiety people are facing. On the discretionary housing payment, I am delighted that the Minister has today said that if more claimants qualify but the £1.9 million that Manchester city council has received is not enough, the Government will guarantee those payments.

This policy also costs more than it saves, as is highlighted by the case of my constituent, Alan. He is in his late-50s and he has worked for most of his life. He lives in a two-bedroom property because no one-bedroom properties were available for him. He was made redundant and is now on benefits of £71.70 a fortnight. His social housing costs £60 a week and he has been asked to pay the bedroom tax out of that money. If he wants to move to the private sector, which is the only real option for him, that will cost him at least £100 a week in rent, which the housing benefit bill will have to pay. So that is going to take costs up, not down.

The final point I wish to make is that this policy does not even work. Many Government Members have talked about how it deals with overcrowding and people on the housing waiting list. In Manchester, 19,000 people are on that list and that figure has not moved one jot since this policy was introduced, because all the slack of available property is being taken up by people doing housing swaps. The only properties becoming available are two-bedroom properties in blocks of flats, which are unsuitable for families with children. So those properties are going to people in band 5—people who are not most in need. Those who are most in need are being pushed further and further down the waiting list.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making a strong speech, in which she mentioned families with children. Did she share my shock at Lord Freud’s comment that families who are separated should get a sofa bed to deal with the problem of being hit by the bedroom tax? Was that not a shocking thing to say about the situation of families in this country?

[Lucy Powell]

It was a shocking thing to say. It showed a complete failure to understand what family life is like and to understand that many fathers—I thought the Conservatives claimed to be the party of the fathers—have contact with their children only if they have a spare bedroom for them to stay in, so they will be losing that contact. That is a disgraceful aspect of this policy.

Perhaps if the Government had done a little more research, analysis and modelling before introducing this proposal, they might have foreseen some of these knock-on consequences. Labour Members are all for looking at how we can deal with some of the issues relating to under-occupancy and housing shortage, but this sort of brutal, blunt instrument does nothing to address that—in fact, it does quite the opposite. We need a long-term strategy bringing together the housing associations, other policy makers and tenants to work out how we can best use a carrot and stick approach to deal with under-occupancy. What we have from this Government is a morally corrupt policy that does not work and is going to cost the taxpayer even more.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow the passionate speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery), who took on some of the outrageous and absolutely extraordinary comments that we have heard.

As we have heard today, the policy is iniquitous, unfair and economically illiterate. We have heard fantasy claims about the savings that will be made and the transfer of liability—the financial consequences for councils and registered social landlords. We have also heard some quite extraordinary boasts from the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Thornbury and Yate (Steve Webb). He talked about the wonderful rise in discretionary housing payments. Such claims are like telling someone that both their arms will be broken, but they will be given a sling for one of them. The policy is not working, but they will have some crumbs off the table to sort it out afterwards. That is extraordinary, and it reflects the local story of pressure and pain that I have seen with the rise in food banks. The Trussell Trust says that 45% of that increase is due to policies such as the bedroom tax and the cost pressures that come with energy bills, leading people into the embrace of loan sharks.

There is also the mental strain. We have heard some tragic tales today, in particular from my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) about suicide. I similarly have had constituents come to me. One in particular handed me a letter that he could not bear to read to me, which literally said, “I would rather kill myself, then there would be one less mouth to feed.” Those are the real stories and Ministers would do well to listen to them.

One family in Llanrumney in my constituency lives in a four-bedroom council home with two severely autistic sons. They moved in 15 years ago and had important adaptations made on medical grounds. Their daughter then moved out, and they are now considered to have a spare room and have been hit by the bedroom tax. The council is doing everything that it can to help, but there will be a massive cost in moving to another house and adapting that, let alone the additional strain put on two autistic children. Changing their lives will mean significant damage to them. The suggestion of some Government Members that such circumstances are lifestyle choices is frankly offensive.

Ministers would do well to listen to some of the financial facts. I have spoken to both my local authorities this week. Cardiff has told me that it is now dealing with more than £1 million-worth of arrears. That is up £360,000 since the same period last year, largely due to the bedroom tax. It has five times more tenants looking to move to one-bedroom properties than exist in the city, and in the Vale of Glamorgan, my neighbouring authority, there are more than 16 times more people looking for one-bedroom properties than exist. Again, 41% of their accounts are seeing increasing arrears.

It was a shame today to hear the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies) refer to feckless fathers and putting them in chains and other things, because he and I have had some sensible and reasonable discussions on these issues, most notably in preparing a report that was agreed by the Welsh Affairs Committee. I urge Ministers to look at that because it shows the disproportionate impact of this policy on people in Wales, where it has hit 40,000 people, more than anywhere else in Britain, 25,000 of whom are disabled.

We also heard some real gems in that inquiry, most notably Lord Freud’s suggestion that people should buy sofa beds or go out and get some work. He did not recognise that most of those people are in work and claiming housing benefit because they are on such low incomes. Also, extraordinarily, given the stories about suicide and mental health issues that we have heard today, neither he nor the Department had even considered the mental health impacts.

It is therefore really galling to have a Liberal Democrat candidate wandering around my area of Cardiff, where many hundreds of people are affected by the bedroom tax, and sticking leaflets through the doors stating that the Lib Dems are on the side of a fairer society. I am sorry, but I find that absolutely extraordinary. I hope that the voters of Cardiff South and Penarth show them exactly what we think of them in a few weeks’ time.