Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stephen Williams and Ian Mearns

Monday 25th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

12. What recent assessment he has made of trends in rent arrears in social housing.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Stephen Williams)]

Housing association arrears at the end of 2011-12 were 4.8% in England—an improvement on performance in the previous year, when they were 5.1 %.

[Stephen Williams]

My information about Tristar is that the figures the hon. Gentleman quotes are a significant reduction on earlier in the year—that is the information the Department has. On financial savings, it is far too early to say. The Department for Work and Pensions will undertake a review in the early part of next year.

[Ian Mearns]

In the north-east of England, 39,000 households are affected by the bedroom tax—or, as the Government would like to call it, the spare room subsidy. In Gateshead, more than 3,000 households in the local authority’s housing or the housing associations’ housing are affected. The local authority alone has accrued £152,000 of additional arrears. When will the Government realise that the policy is hurting but certainly not working?

[Stephen Williams]

The figures I gave in the earlier answer were for the year before the spare room subsidy withdrawal—they are the most recent comprehensive, across-England figures we have. Through the Homes and Communities Agency, the Department has surveyed all the large housing associations. They tell us that, at the moment, rent collection levels are in excess of 95% and well within their published business plans.