Housing Benefit

Debate between Tobias Ellwood and Baroness Clark of Kilwinning

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

I was getting flashbacks to 1970s socialism during that contribution—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) is very proud of that; that is good to hear.

It is said that a lie can be halfway round the world before the truth has got its boots on, and such is the case with Labour’s bedroom tax. I am pleased that the name of the debate has changed, and I welcome the chance to clarify the details of the policy. I am sorry that the debate has been somewhat binary. Some good points have been made by Members on both sides and some pertinent questions have been asked. The hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) posed a very important one: how does somebody who is told to go out and work in order to pay for that second room manage to do that? I hope the Minister will elaborate on this, but the universal tax credit system will come in to address that.

The debate has illustrated the cultural divide that exists between this Government and Labour. On one side there is an attitude of responsibility and holding welfare reform to account, and on the other there is a continuing concept of offering welfare as a lifestyle choice. That is no longer possible. After 13 years of Labour the cost of housing benefit doubled to £21 billion. That is unacceptable. The cost to taxpayers was £900 per household. The system was getting out of control. There was no house building programme, leading to overcrowded accommodation, and there was no management of the housing stock, which left some families receiving housing benefit of more than £100,000.

[Katy Clark]

Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that the reason that housing benefit has gone up is the rising cost of rent in the private sector? Does he not accept that this Government’s policy of trying to force house prices up is putting rents up, which will make the housing benefit problem even worse?

[Mr Ellwood]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. I cannot accept that a doubling of housing benefit to £21 billion is accounted for by the private sector alone. There are other aspects, such as the type of housing we are building. We were building the wrong type of houses—60% of new houses built needed to be for single occupancy, but only 30% were. That is Labour’s legacy. It raises the fundamental question of today’s debate: in these financially tough times, should those on housing benefit be allowed to stay in accommodation with more bedrooms than they really need? This Government say no and Labour says yes, even though it said no in 2008 when we had exactly the same debate on private sector housing, proving that a little inaccuracy sometimes saves a ton of explanation.