Housing Benefit

Debate between Steve Webb and Ian Swales

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Ian Swales]

I worry that housing policy tends to be dictated from inside the M25. It becomes less appropriate the further away from the M25 that we go.

My constituency has a discretionary housing payments problem. The last figures that I have seen show that there were 1,307 applications, but that only 358 awards were made. That happened because the money ran out, not because the applications were inappropriate.

We also have a one-size-fits-all penalty in the calculation for the amount of the spare room subsidy. In my constituency, the cost of an extra bedroom is about £7, but people are penalised by about £11. Therefore, people who should move from a three-bedroom property to a two-bedroom property get less housing benefit than they would get if they were in a two-bedroom house, which is deeply immoral.

Like many hon. Members, I have campaigned on various issues. I am pleased to welcome the Government’s concessions on foster parents, serving military personnel and disabled children. I also welcome the trebling of discretionary housing payments, but there is a lot of unfinished business. The hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg), the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, made some good points. I would make a plea for the exemption of disabled adults. Children are exempt when they need separate bedrooms for medical reasons. Let us do that for adults, instead of making people go through the demeaning process of applying. In my local council, people have to apply every quarter, and the application form is deeply intrusive.

As the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Heather Wheeler) has said, many people are perfectly willing to move to right-size accommodation, but it simply does not exist anywhere in their area. In the north of England, we have a shortage of one-bedroom accommodation. In fact, some one-bedroom accommodation is being demolished in my constituency.

[Steve Webb]

My hon. Friend is making a thoughtful speech. I assume that he has a Labour-run local authority. If it has told him that the money for discretionary housing payments has run out, will he ask it why it has not applied for our additional funding? It appears not to have done so.

[Ian Swales]

I thank the Minister for that response. His announcement of that extra funding is the first I have heard of it. I will ask my local authority why it has not applied.

We need to recognise that some people simply cannot afford right-size accommodation and that it does not exist in their area. The Government should seriously consider a policy of treating those people as willing but unable to move and give them concessions in the system.

In my area, there have been some helpful consequences. I have been thanked by a number of families who have managed, owing to the policy, to get a bigger house in the area where they want to live. One social housing provider I met was surprised by the number of large families moving into their houses from overcrowded private rented accommodation. I do not know why that provider was surprised; surely, we ought to have expected that. Only the week before last, I was in an excellent hostel run by Coatham House, a charity in my constituency for homeless young people. It has said that it has seen a dramatic fall in the number of homeless young people. It put that down to the policy. Hon. Members might think there are bad reasons for that—I can think of those, too—but there might also be good reasons.

Many points have been made in the debate. The hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) mentioned the financial stability of some of the stock transfer social housing providers. Some of them are highly leveraged and threatened by arrears, which will increase when direct payments begin. They could find themselves financially unstable.

I welcome the Government’s efforts to free up the system. One of the first cases that I dealt with as an MP was that of a single man living in a three-bedroom house. He wanted to downsize, but the system was so rigid that he was told that he would be moved to the bottom of the waiting list, with no guarantee of how and when he would get his next social house. Guess what? He did not move. I welcome that the system has, to an extent, been freed up and that exchanges are happening more often.

I welcome the continued commitment to review the policy, as it does need continual review. Despite the views that I have expressed in my speech, it is hard to welcome the hypocrisy evident from the Labour party on this issue. I look forward to the Minister’s response.