Housing Benefit

Stephen Twigg Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am not sure how to follow that, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I shall do my best.

I listened very carefully to the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies), and also to other Government Members, including the Minister. At the end of the Minister’s speech, I concluded that they just did not get it. Almost a decade ago, the Secretary of State, who is not with us today, set up the Centre for Social Justice. He said then that his aim was to put social justice at the heart of British politics. What could be more opposed to that aim than this appalling, cruel and unjust policy of the bedroom tax?

The hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Heather Wheeler) said that 300 families in her constituency were affected by the tax. In a single ward in my constituency, Norris Green, more than 1,000 families are affected by it, and 2,500 are affected in the constituency as a whole. It is a totally different situation. One in six households in a ward that suffers enormous social and economic deprivation are faced with the cruel and unjust policy that she defended.

However, it is not just the cruelty and the injustice to which I am objecting. The bedroom tax also undermines the good work that is being done by social landlords working with local communities. We are seeing increasing amounts of rent arrears, and increasing numbers of void properties. Many people who are finding the money to pay this tax are having to give up other essentials as a result. As others have pointed out, they are going to food banks and to payday lenders. Two in three of those affected have disabled people living in their households, and—again, others have mentioned this—many of them have adapted their homes to meet the needs of their disability.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) said, the policy also undermines communities. Why should people who have lived in communities for decades, who have been born and have grown up in those communities, be forced to leave them?

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for highlighting some of the injustices of this policy. Does he agree that Labour councils such as the one in my patch in Carmarthenshire should introduce a no-evictions policy?

[Stephen Twigg]

I do not want to see people evicted, but I think that there is a more intelligent way of achieving what the hon. Gentleman and I want to see than merely adopting a slogan. I think that Labour and other councils all over the country are doing their very best to prevent evictions

In Merseyside a year ago, there were 1,378 empty properties run by social landlords; the figure is now 1,956. That is a 40% increase. In Liverpool, rent arrears have already risen by 12.5%, and we are only six months into this policy. We heard a great deal from the Minister about discretionary housing payments. The pot for Liverpool is £1.6 million, but the housing benefit shortfall that has resulted from the introduction of the bedroom tax is £7.5 million. In other words, less than a quarter is available through discretionary housing payments. A lady who came to my surgery last week had just received her second discretionary housing payment, with my support. It will last her until January, but the money simply will not be there in January for her to receive a third payment.

[Lucy Powell]

We heard about Manchester city council’s discretionary housing payment pot. I now have the figures. Manchester has been allocated £1.9 million, and £1.2 million of that has already been spent. Did my hon. Friend gather from the Minister, as I did, that he was guaranteeing that all those who qualified for money from the discretionary housing fund would be able to receive it later in the year?

[Stephen Twigg]

I listened carefully to what the Minister said, and it seemed to me that he was saying exactly that. I should appreciate an answer to my hon. Friend’s question from the Minister. If the needs of the lady in my constituency whom I have just mentioned are the same in January and there is no longer any money left in the pot in Liverpool, will the Government come up with the additional funds that are needed to ensure that those discretionary payments continue?

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Stephen Twigg]

I have given way twice, so I shall not do so again.

I have also noticed a perverse effect of this policy on the constituents who come to see me. Often now, people who have been on the social housing waiting list for some time and who are entitled to a larger home are reluctant to move to a larger home. That is sometimes because they would have to pay more. However, I am meeting families who would not be subject to the bedroom tax but who are nervous of taking the larger property because they think their situation might change in the future—they might lose their job and therefore have to go on to housing benefit, or their sons or daughters might move away and suddenly they have spare bedrooms.

The result of this is not just a general increase in the number of empty properties, but, in particular, an increase in the number of empty larger properties. Liverpool Mutual Homes has had a brilliant programme over recent years of improving its properties so the standard is very high, yet it is finding it very difficult to fill those properties. In April last year LMH had just 18 vacant three-bedroom properties; that number has now trebled to 54. How can that be right, and in the name of dealing with overcrowding how can it make any sense to have an increase in the number of empty larger family properties in Liverpool and other communities around the country?

We heard earlier from the hon. Member for South Derbyshire about leadership. The Opposition are showing real leadership. This is an enormous issue in the city of Liverpool, in my constituency and across Merseyside. It is directly affecting families and communities across my constituency.

The Prime Minister said at last year’s Conservative party conference:

“Conservative methods are not just good for the strong and the successful but the best way to help the poor, and the weak, and the vulnerable.”

Where is the social justice in the bedroom tax? There is no justice. Where is the compassion we used to hear about from this Government? There is no compassion.

The promises we have heard—the words of the Minister today, the words of the Prime Minister last year—ring very hollow in my constituency, not just to those affected by the bedroom tax, but to others who care about the communities in which they live. This is a tax that hits the poor, the weak and the vulnerable. It is a symbol of the social injustice for which we know the Conservative party stands. I urge colleagues on both sides of the House, including the Liberal Democrats, to vote with us tonight against this cruel, unjust, unworkable bedroom tax.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

Before I make my speech, let me say that I listened to the passionate remarks made by the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), who was really unhappy about the impact of the benefit changes. However, perhaps he would like to speak to his Labour-run Liverpool council and ask why, when it received £892,000 in discretionary housing payments last year, it actually sent back £337,000. Perhaps he could take that up when he leaves the Chamber—

[Stephen Twigg]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Mrs Main]

No, I will not take an intervention—[Interruption.]

[Mrs Main]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I think that Mr Twigg can just ponder for a while—[Interruption.] I am going to shock the Opposition, who obviously want to shout me down. Unicorns do not exist, fairies do not exist and a bedroom tax does not exist.

[Stephen Twigg]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The hon. Lady did not show me or the House the courtesy of allowing me to intervene after she referred to something that I had said. Does she accept that the figures that she has given are from before the bedroom tax was introduced? This year, Liverpool city council will certainly spend the entire discretionary housing pot.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

That is not a point of order, but it was certainly a point of clarification.