Affordable Homes Bill

Stephen Pound Excerpts

Friday 5th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

It is always a genuine pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford). We have both been Housing Ministers in our time, and I concede that he was always a genuine expert on housing and local government policy.

I will start by focusing on the cost of today’s Bill. Listening to the right hon. Gentleman’s speech and some of the interventions from Labour Members, I reminded myself—I thought I might have forgotten—that there was an agreement earlier this year to introduce a welfare cap. Such are the wonders of modern technology, that even I can now google “welfare cap” on my BlackBerry, and I am reminded by the BBC that on 26 March this year—

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

He’s reading!

[Sir Tony Baldry]

I am. I am quoting from the BBC. I can read. It states:

“MPs approve annual welfare cap in Commons vote.”

[Interruption.] Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would rather I did not read this and remind the House of the reality, but I think we ought to share it:

“MPs have overwhelmingly backed plans to introduce an overall cap on the amount the UK spends on welfare each year. Welfare spending, excluding the state pension and some unemployment benefits, will be capped next year at £119.5 billion. The idea, put forward by Chancellor George Osborne in last week’s Budget, would in future see limits set at the beginning of each Parliament. With Labour supporting the idea, the measure was approved in the House of Commons by 520 to 22 votes…The cap will include spending on the vast majority of benefits, including pension credits, severe disablement allowance, incapacity benefits, child benefit, both maternity and paternity pay, universal credit and housing benefit…Under the proposed system, if a government wanted to spend more on one area of the welfare state it would have to compensate by making cuts elsewhere, to stay within the overall cap.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Angela Watkinson]

rose—

[Stephen Pound]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

I cannot remember whether I gave way to the hon. Lady earlier, but she is so appealing—

[Stephen Pound]

I am right behind you, Chris.

[Chris Bryant]

I am not asking you! I give way to the hon. Lady.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sheryll Murray]

rose—

[Stephen Pound]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

I will not give way to the hon. Lady because I hope to get to the end of my speech very soon. Notwithstanding that, I feel that I must give way to my hon. Friend.

[Stephen Pound]

I am overcome by my hon. Friend’s generosity and tolerance. The previous intervention referred to handrails. My brother’s case is very different. He has a separate room that has been supplied with a different water supply for his dialysis. Does my hon. Friend not agree that the real cruelty of the discretionary regime is that it is precisely that—discretionary. It is not good enough to say that money has been allocated for the next financial year, because the principle remains in place. The anxiety of those people who live in adapted properties and who can only see that sword of Damocles hanging over their heads is one of the cruellest and most brutal aspects of this incompetent legislation.

[Chris Bryant]

I should have trusted my hon. Friend all along. He is absolutely right. I visited a man in Birmingham who was in a situation similar to that described by my hon. Friend. In my constituency, I have had several people who have required a second room for dialysis equipment. There is a wide range of situations out there. For example, one partner in a couple may have a disability which means that they are not able to sleep in the same bed and the same room. Those people on an annual basis have to go through the whole business of explaining again to their local authority, civil servants and council officials why they are not sleeping in the same room. That is degrading and unfair. It makes it seem as if this is an act of charity by Government, whereas in fact the way in which this legislation has been drafted is exactly the opposite of charity. As my hon. Friend said, the word “discretionary” is one of the cruellest elements of the whole thing.

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[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

We have been educated today, and I pay tribute to the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) for bringing this extraordinarily interesting Bill before the House, but if there is one thing that has run through our discussions for the past three hours—it seems longer—it is not so much a golden thread as a string of tarnished brass: that it is all very well to have a theoretical construct that encourages people to leave their homes, but there has to be somewhere for them to go. It is so flipping obvious to anyone who lives in the real world and who knows the experiences of ordinary human beings who do not consider this a spare ballroom tax—

[Mark Hunter (Cheadle) (LD)]

claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).

Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.

The House divided: Ayes 304, Noes 237.