Housing and Planning Bill (Twelfth sitting)

Teresa Pearce Excerpts

Thursday 3rd December 2015 Public Bill Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Marcus Jones)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. This has been a wide-ranging debate, and a number of points have been raised that I am confident will be covered when we consider other amendments to the clause. I will therefore keep narrowly to the amendments in question, which seek to include a substantial amount of detail in the Bill on who the policy should and should not apply to. That is unnecessary as we have the power to make regulations for that purpose if they are required.

I assure the hon. Member for City of Durham that we are giving careful thought to how the policy should treat certain benefits, including the state pension, housing benefit, and employment and support allowance. With regard to carers, as I said before, exemptions can be made and we will consider carers carefully. We recognise that, in certain circumstances, exemptions may well be needed, and we are thinking through that process carefully. We will provide more detail as we approach the making of the regulations and will continue to engage with the sector as we develop the policy.

[Teresa Pearce (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)]

When having those deliberations about what should and should not be included in household income, will the Minister consider whether disability living allowance and personal independence payments should be excluded? There are additional costs for people with disabilities. Will he take that on board and consider giving some reassurance that DLA and PIP will not be included in household income?

[Mr Jones]

As I have made clear, we are considering carefully the circumstances in which the measure will apply to certain tenants. I note what the hon. Lady says, and we will take those comments into account in our deliberations before making regulations.