Housing Benefit

Stephen Pound Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

The hon. Lady said from a sedentary position that disabled people are exempt, but she would not say it when she was on her feet because she knows it is not true.

Many of those who move will end up in the private rented sector, meaning that the housing benefit bill may be much higher. The National Housing Federation says that families removed from a two-bedroom home in the social sector to a one-bedroom home in the private rented sector would end up claiming an average £1,500 more in housing benefit. How can that make sense? How do the sums stack up? They do not.

To cap it all, we have learned of the absurdity—the complete and utter travesty—of housing associations looking to demolish homes that the Government now refuse to house people in, while the families being forced out by this policy are left to the private sector, where rents are higher and conditions are poorer.

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

A young man who lives in Earls Court has total renal failure. His spare bedroom is a dialysis unit, but he has been told that he now has to pay the bedroom tax. He is very happy with the efforts of his Member of Parliament—who is not of my political persuasion—to attempt to free him from the chains of the bedroom tax, but my brother faces losing his home of 20 years for being a kidney patient. Does my hon. Friend not agree that this is beyond disgraceful?

[Rachel Reeves]

I thank my hon. Friend for that moving intervention. So many of us can give examples from our constituency surgeries. If Government Members were honest, they would say that they hear the same sorts of stories at their surgeries. They know that these people are not exempt.

This is not a housing policy or a way to get the benefits bill down. It is an attempt to victimise some of the most vulnerable families and most vulnerable people in our country, and it is making the housing crisis worse.

Jobs and Business

Stephen Pound Excerpts

Friday 10th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

Like a lot of the things the Government do, we have to take the shiny wrapping off carefully and look at the contents. In so many areas we find that there is either very little in it, or a stinking mess of incompetence, which is now becoming a trademark of the Government.

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

If I may interrupt my hon. Friend’s unwrapping for a moment, he is probably the best qualified of all Members to link the armed forces and the problem of asbestos. I urge him to look at those men—they are mostly men—who served in the Royal Navy in the ’50s and ’60s and often had to use flash hood protectors, which were imbued with asbestos. Looking at that issue has been very difficult in the past because of the confidentiality of procurement.

[Mr Jones]

We made some progress on that when in government in relation to Crown immunity and the fact that people can now access war pensions for such things, but it is very difficult. It is easy to argue that their exposure to asbestos was quite limited, but it can still cause some debilitating diseases. The proposals do not represent a great victory for victims.

The deregulation Bill has been trumpeted as something that will remove the burdens on business and civil society in order to facilitate growth. The great idea seems to be that sole traders will somehow be exempt from health and safety legislation. We wait to see how that will generate growth. It will also create some problems. For example, will we have a two-tier work force on certain sites, with some people having, quite rightly, to follow sensible health and safety legislation, which was put in place to protect not only them but the public, while others will be able to do what they want? As I asked the hon. Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher) earlier, if I invite an electrician into my house as a sole trader, will I be signing up to the fact that he can completely ignore any type of health and safety legislation, whether in relation to me, my family or anyone else?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

The hon. Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) has sat down a little earlier than I thought he would—and I was enjoying his speech so much!

My constituents were looking forward to Her Majesty’s Gracious Speech, as they have looked forward to every Budget and autumn statement since this coalition assumed office. They have been looking for a sign that Ministers had abandoned government by dogma and were prepared to prioritise targeted programmes to tackle the problems of unemployment and under-employment, particularly among young people, but there has been no such sign.

Youth unemployment in my constituency is currently 14.3% as against a national average of 7.2%. That is totally unacceptable. It is double the national average and will be blighting the lives of those young people, possible irrevocably. Why is it always the north-east that suffers when there is a Tory in the Prime Minister’s office? Do not our kids deserve as fair a chance as the kids in the shire counties? Are they always going to be at the bottom of the list of priorities for Tory and for Lib Dem Ministers, perhaps because their parents vote for Labour in droves? One nation Labour will not behave in such a way when we are in office. We will govern for the whole of the country and all young people regardless of how their parents vote.

My constituents have been looking for signs that this Government are on their side, rather than on the side of the super-rich, and for signs that they are going to tackle the big issues which have such a big impact on the quality of life of so many people—lack of affordable housing, rising fuel bills, poor economic performance, zero growth and a weak jobs market. They will have been sorely disappointed as there were no measures to tackle any of them, and there was nothing to arrest the increase in child poverty. Earlier this week, the Institute for Fiscal Studies projected that there would be more than 1 million extra children in poverty, wiping out the progress made by the last Labour Government, and surely saddling the country with huge costs over the lifetime of those children in lost opportunities and increased health and earnings inequality.

There were some important items of legislation in the Queen’s Speech, of course, but in the main my constituents got a list of vague ideas designed by Lynton Crosby to try to woo right-wing voters back into the Conservative fold—I include some Government Back Benchers in that group. There was very little positivity for the future, very little vision for a fairer and more modern Britain and very little to put food on the tables in Washington and Sunderland West.

Having said all that, I am hopeful about one Bill. The consumer rights Bill announced in Her Majesty’s Gracious Speech has, of course, been long anticipated; indeed, time is running out for it to be introduced. As Members will be aware, the European directive on which it is based needs to be implemented by December, so the Government will no doubt be in a rush to make significant progress on the Bill before the House rises for the summer.

During that rush, I hope to make my case for the Bill to include measures to reform the secondary ticketing market to ensure that fans get a fair deal. I was very encouraged to hear the shadow Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna), confirm in response to my intervention during his opening remarks that, if the Bill introduced by the Government contains no such measures, he will seek to make amendments to ensure that the wild west that the secondary ticketing market has become is reined in and regulated.

Members, and certainly Ministers from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, will remember that I introduced a private Member’s Bill in the first Session of this Parliament that attempted to start this process. It would have established a scheme whereby those who are putting on a ticketed event—whether that is a gig, a west end show or even an art exhibition—could, if they wanted, protect those tickets from being resold by unauthorised individuals or companies for a mark-up of more than 10%. People would still be able to resell their tickets if they could no longer attend an event, but not for a huge profit.

Members might have noticed that I said, “even an art exhibition”. There is actually a roaring trade for such tickets. The Da Vinci exhibition at the National Gallery hit the headlines last summer because tickets were being snapped up by touts, much to the annoyance of the National Gallery, which felt absolutely powerless to do anything to prevent it. Anyone who wants to see the exhibition on David Bowie that is on at the Victoria and Albert museum will find themselves having to fork out at least £60 for a weekend ticket, which is more than four times the face value.

Back in 2010, I thought that my Bill was a sensible way to empower artists and event-holders to protect their fans from the rampant profiteering that we see on a regular basis. I believe that even more now. However, I also believe that the market needs to be much more transparent, as consumers should know who they are buying from and the provenance of the ticket. That is how any market should work.

There are a number of reasons why I am more convinced than ever that we need action. Since my Bill was talked out by the usual suspects on the Government Benches, we have had an excellent exposé by the “Dispatches” programme of how websites such as viagogo and Seatwave, through which the vast majority of secondary tickets are now sold, operate. Surprisingly enough, that differed greatly from the image that they used to portray of themselves as being fan-to-fan exchanges. They used to have that description on their websites, but since they have been exposed they have taken that down. We saw tickets being sold as if by fans when those companies were receiving allocations of tickets directly from promoters, or using banks of phones and batteries of credit cards registered to multiple addresses. We also saw how those companies court what we call “power sellers”—professional touts who manage to secure huge inventories of tickets to events by highly dubious means such as botnets, which Chris Stewart of Ticket Hut was recently found by the Daily Mirror to be using to secure vast swathes of One Direction tickets. I am sure that there are a number of One Direction fans in the Chamber today.

What makes me more concerned about the murkiness of this industry is that football tickets are now being sold through those websites, with clubs exploiting their right to authorise resale by saying that the likes of viagogo and StubHub can do that, even though it is actually random season ticket holders who are doing so. The resale of football tickets through other channels is understandably banned, due to safety concerns, and many people might think that the resale of football tickets is illegal, because there is supposed to be legislation. The purpose of the ban is to ensure that hooligans cannot get their hands on any tickets, and that fans of each team are segregated.

[Stephen Pound]

Every word I hear from my hon. Friend makes me all the more furious that her excellent Bill was talked out. Is she aware, as many of us are in the House, that Sir Alex Ferguson’s last match in charge of a certain team from up north is already attracting ticket prices of £3,000? Surely, under those circumstances, action must be taken.

[Mrs Hodgson]

I agree. There is obviously the unfairness, but there is also the fact that there was supposed to be legislation to protect football audiences from unscrupulous fans. Nothing stops any of those fans who might be able to get hold of that amount of money going along and ruining an amazing occasion such as the last match that Sir Alex will be in charge of. I certainly do not have any confidence in the websites that are now authorised by the clubs to sell tickets, because their ultimate aim is to make profits and I do not think that they are best placed to uphold the principles with regard to hooligans and segregation.

Pensions Bill [Lords]

Stephen Pound Excerpts

Monday 20th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Alex Cunningham]

Indeed, that is the case. Some of the women in these difficult jobs may not have their health in later years, so they will lose in all ways.

All too often, the elderly are ignored and not treated with the respect that they deserve. The Government should play a big role in ensuring that society takes care of people when they have retired and are not as independent as they once were. Family, friends and community all play a big role, but the Government can and should lead by example. Pensions, among other things, are a big part of that.

I am proud of Labour’s record in this field. We lifted a million pensioners out of poverty, and free bus passes, free TV licences and the winter fuel allowance all play their part in helping pensioners. In common with other hon. Members, I want to home in on two things.

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

I apologise for interrupting my hon. Friend’s fluent and fluid flow. Does he agree that it is insane, barking and bonkers to the ultimate degree to expect someone who has worked in a hard, physical job for most of their life to have the same longevity as someone who has luxuriated in the soporific circumstances of a stockbrokers’ office? What will happen is that people will be signed off sick. It will cost the Government more money and treat women appallingly in the process. Does he agree?

[Alex Cunningham]

Could I disagree? I most certainly could not. People in my constituency used to build ships and it has one of the biggest chemical industries in the country. It has people who have worked in difficult circumstances in hard jobs. My hon. Friend is correct that such people cannot expect a longer life, so I think we should make it a little easier for them.

Housing Benefit (West Ham)

Stephen Pound Excerpts

Monday 22nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

I am grateful to have secured this debate, which seems particularly timely given today’s announcement by the Minister for Housing and Local Government. Time and again, we have been told that the aim of the Government’s welfare reform package, including the reform of housing benefit, is to make work pay. Today, we have found out that if people living in social housing get a new job, or a promotion or pay rise, they may lose their home. So much for making work pay. However, that is a debate for another day.

I have a strong feeling of déjà vu about this debate. Housing benefit, and the difficulties that it poses to my constituents, has been a theme to which I have returned over past years, campaigning with a number of colleagues on the Labour Benches to identify an approach that makes work pay, and, by doing so, protects the public purse. I hope that despite the fact that the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Thornbury and Yate (Steve Webb), and I do not sit on the same side of the House, we too might work together to find some common ground and work towards common aims.

For the record, I do understand why housing benefit is seen as such a prize when the Government want public spending reduced. If I have my maths about right, housing benefit, combined with council tax benefit, is almost equal to all the other means-tested benefits added together. There are some rather easy, even cheap, political points to be scored by citing examples of abnormally high housing benefit for highly untypical large houses in high-rent areas. However, I do not believe that the changes proposed by the Government will solve the real difficulties faced by many of my constituents. They will, I believe, compound social and housing problems and become a greater cost to the taxpayer. Incidentally, a point worth noting and often forgotten is that many of those worst affected by the changes will be taxpayers too.

I represent a London borough—Newham—which has the fourth highest level of child poverty and the sixth highest level of deprivation in the country. The gross earnings figure for the bottom quarter of employees in Newham last year was 23% lower than the figure for London, and the average wage for those living in the borough is just £455 per week. As I am sure the Minister will acknowledge, that does not go far in an area where the costs of day-to-day essentials, including child care and housing, are so very high. The average house price in Newham is £221,801, which is 9.4 times the average income.

The implementation of the Government’s proposals will result in many private renters having their housing benefit, and therefore their income, driven down by a harsh reduction in local housing allowance rates. It is not as though private tenants claiming housing benefit have had it easy up to now. Even at the current rates, nearly half of local housing allowance claimants in Newham currently face shortfalls of almost £100 a month in meeting their rent obligations. Estimates by the London borough of Newham suggest that, as a result of the change in local housing allowance alone, more than 6,300 people in Newham—three quarters of the LHA claimants in the borough—will face shortfalls between the LHA that they receive and the rent they have to pay.

Some 40% of local housing allowance claimants work, and Newham council’s housing benefit team tells me that their average net annual earnings are just over £8,000 a year. I am sure the Minister will acknowledge that that is not a fortune, and makes it genuinely difficult to make ends meet in an expensive capital city. The cuts will push many already struggling families to breaking point.

Community Links is a fabulous local charity that, among its many activities, provides debt and benefit advice. As I am sure the Minister will appreciate, it is particularly concerned, given last week’s announcement on legal aid, that it will not be able to provide advice services for some of the most vulnerable in our community, and I expect that that will be the subject of much further, more anxious debate in this Chamber. In addition, Community Links reports that the numbers seeking debt advice have doubled in the past two years.

As Shelter has said:

“For those households already struggling to balance very tight budgets, a reduction in LHA will only push more of them over the edge, triggering a spiral of debt, eviction and homelessness.”

Things can only get worse, as the LHA allowance will effectively be cut year by year for ever. I must admit that even the ingrained cynic in me was a little staggered to learn that the measure of inflation to be used in calculating increases in LHA is the one that deliberately excludes housing costs. Over the past decade alone, it has risen at a third of the rate of private sector rents. How cynical is that?

Citizens Advice believes that many will face eviction in a matter of weeks after the cuts are imposed. The non-regional, one-size-fits-all LHA cap will make it almost impossible for low-income households to rent in the private sector in inner London. That will have an impact on outer London areas such as my own. In east London, low-income households will be priced out of areas such as Hackney and Tower Hamlets, forcing people to look for accommodation where rents are lower. Rents in Newham are lower than in neighbouring Whitechapel, in Tower Hamlets, and far lower than in Islington and Westminster. According to information sourced from the Greater London authority, the cost of a two-bedroom property in Whitechapel ranges from £271 to £369 per week. In Stratford, which is just a few short miles away, it ranges from £204 to £250.

I believe we will see evictees from Tower Hamlets crossing the border to stay with families in Newham and declaring themselves homeless once there. The impact on homelessness rates could be catastrophic. The Minister will be aware that Newham is already home to high proportions and concentrations of low-income households. The private rented sector is large and expanding. In my borough, 30,000-plus people are on the council waiting list. Newham already has more people on waiting lists for social housing and living in temporary accommodation than any other London borough. As well as housing, other services will be badly hit as a consequence of the cap in other areas. Newham will be left dealing with more pressure on school places, doctors’ surgeries, jobcentres and social services. Our schools are already over-subscribed.

Those problems will emerge as the council and other providers are forced to retract services due to the swingeing cuts in their budgets, and—I assure the Minister that this is not rhetoric—the cuts to Newham council’s budget are, by any definition, swingeing. Just to heap coals on the heads of our people, it is also clear that the employed residents of Newham are very reliant on public sector jobs; indeed, they are in the highest category in that respect according to the latest survey. That is what is called a double whammy.

I want to touch on the suggestion that the changes will give us an opportunity to renegotiate rents and place more power in the hands of the citizen. Westminster council’s cabinet member for housing writes of the need to

“support the reduction of the housing benefit bill…which was distorting private sector rents.”

Councillor Roe explains:

“Once the lower rate is in place, we believe rents will fall, as landlords will not be able to charge such high sums.”

I gently suggest, first, that the distortion of private sector rents was brought about by the deregulation of rents. I would also suggest that Councillor Roe is sadly over-optimistic about the direction of private sector rents, certainly in London. A survey of London landlords finds that when the shortfall in rent rises to more than £20 a week, more than 90% of landlords renting properties to LHA recipients in London would look to evict tenants who fall into arrears or not to renew the tenancy at the end of the rental period. Controls to limit evictions for families with manageable arrears are completely absent from the system. Using Department for Work and Pensions figures and results from the survey, it can be estimated that 82,000 households across London will be at risk of losing their home as a result of the changes.

The elected mayor of Newham, Sir Robin Wales, wrote to Lord Freud outlining his concerns about the LHA cap and the impact on Newham. In his reply, Lord Freud acknowledges the concerns, stating:

“We appreciate that outer London boroughs could be faced with an increased number of new Housing Benefit customers needing access to additional services such as schools and health care. We will look at the wider impacts on local authority housing departments, and other local services particularly with regard to social mobility, homelessness and overcrowding…We will ensure that the full range of options for customers facing a shortfall in their rent, from renegotiating their rent levels through to applying to their local authority for assistance in obtaining alternative accommodation, is publicised, and that people are encouraged to consider those options in good time”.

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

I am reluctant to interrupt my hon. Friend because she is making an extremely powerful case, but is she as nauseated as I am by the use of the word “customer” in that context? A “customer” is a person who makes a decision on alternatives in a market economy, so are recipients of housing benefit—those human beings—to be denigrated as “customers”?

[Lyn Brown]

I am happy to agree with my hon. Friend. A customer has choice, but I am sad to say that the people of Newham will have very little choice. What options are open to those facing a shortfall in rent? What alternative accommodation and what options to renegotiate will they have? There are 35,000 households in private rented accommodation in Newham, almost a third of which are on housing benefit. Given that the rents in my area are relatively low compared with the boroughs immediately adjacent and to the west, it is absurd to suggest that the changes will force down rents in the area, or that residents will have the option to renegotiate their rents downwards. The private sector in Newham can and will soak up the properties left by those who, owing to the changes, have to leave their homes. The changes will mean that those dependent on housing benefit will be unable to afford to live in Newham.

The Minister will also know that, despite the Housing Act 2004, there is a dark side to a small proportion of the private rented market. Anecdotal evidence from head teachers in my local schools suggests that a new breed of slum landlords who rent out houses to families by the room is emerging. I am also told that some landlords will rent only to migrants, because they are less likely to know their rights. As we know, landlords should turn down families who have too many children for the rooms available. Instead, vulnerable tenants are claiming for space that they are not allowed to use as other families are squeezed alongside them. That is a benefit fraud, and it is perpetrated at the behest of landlords.

There are currently not enough resources to police the growth in multiple occupation, which will increase exponentially as the single-room rent is extended up to the age of 35. However, regardless of those extreme cases, it is clear that the cuts in housing benefit will force many more households into overcrowded and substandard accommodation.

My hon. Friends and I have spoken many times before of the knock-on effects on families of being shunted around from house to house and living in poor conditions; of the profound impact that that can have on health, education, inclusion in the community and mental well-being; and of the dreadful impact on children and their ability to achieve their potential. There will be more stress and conflict as unemployed family members are unable to pay their non-dependant deductions, which are set to increase disproportionately. As Crisis has pointed out, there will be more single homelessness and, yes, more NEETS—people not in education, employment or training—in this big society.

I believe that the situation will now get worse. Last week’s announcements by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions compounded all the problems that I have outlined. The universal benefit and its cap, set at £500 per week per family, will effectively mean pricing low-income families out of the capital. Citizens Advice has stated that

“we are very concerned that the Government appears to be rushing into benefits policies that have not been thought through, or tested for their impact on individuals…The fact that the cap applies regardless of household size means that it will inevitably fall hardest on families with children.

Coming as it does on top of the cuts to housing benefit announced in June’s emergency budget, a cap of £500 a week on household benefits will price many low income families out of living in London and the south-east of England altogether, and if it goes ahead will inevitably lead to widespread hardship, debt and homelessness…For example, a couple with four children currently receiving £350 a week in jobseekers allowance…child tax credit…and child benefit…and £25 in council tax benefit would be left with a maximum of £125 per week for rent.”

The Government’s impact assessment had little to say about the impact on children and poverty, yet London Councils calculates that nearly 80% of the households affected by the cap in London will be households with children.

Let us also recognise that there will be many thousands of families whose breadwinners may lose their jobs, but be horrified at the thought of claiming benefits. It is insulting to suggest that those people will have made a lifestyle choice to claim jobseeker’s allowance. In Newham, it is currently estimated that 1,900 families will be affected by the absolute cap. There will be many more after the cuts to the public sector have impacted and unemployment in my constituency has risen. The 10% sanction on housing benefit for people who have been unemployed for 12 months will hit my constituents especially hard. There are 1,910 JSA claimants who have been out of work for a year or more in Newham, and 10,196 people claiming JSA in the borough. Nine JSA claimants are competing for each unfilled job vacancy in Newham, compared with a national average of 5:1. I genuinely believe that the 10% cut presupposes that living on £65 a week jobseeker’s allowance is a lifestyle choice.

The Budget and the comprehensive spending review proposals are unjust, and they appear to have been thrown together with a disregard for the consequences. This attempt to save money will, I believe, store up problems for the future. The problems of homelessness, debt, unstable homes and constant moves impact on children and families, preventing children from belonging to a community and fulfilling their potential, and storing up social problems that all the Sure Start facilities in the world will not be able to solve. It is truly difficult to see how that fits with the Government’s commitment to end child poverty. This is not the big society. Quite the reverse: it is the sound of doors clanging shut and communities breaking apart. There appears to be a poverty of compassion in the coalition.

I hope that I have begun to outline some of the difficulties that I believe my community will face, given the changing benefit scene. I hope that the Minister will be able to address those concerns and offer some understanding both of the circumstances of Londoners and my constituents on low incomes, and of their challenges ahead. I and many anxious residents of Newham will listen eagerly to what he has to offer.