Housing Benefit

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I think that that is the case on the Opposition side. The reality is that they have been scaring the public, and they know it. I detect just a little dog whistle blowing from those on the Labour Benches, freezing and frightening everybody out there in the socially rented sector.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I want to deal with some of the allegations. Opposition Members made the allegations, so let us get the record straight. The first was that London will somehow end up like Paris—socially cleansed so that people live only on the outer circle.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I will give way, but I want to make some progress first.

The fact is that we have heard a lot of this nonsense. We have put aside a large amount of money—some £140 million, and we have been keeping the position under review—so that we can deal with the hardest cases when we believe that it is necessary for anyone to be affected or moved. The Department for Communities and Local Government is assisting us with that.

Among the Opposition’s other charges was the charge that our changes were somehow not fair. The maximum rent following a cap—and the Opposition still have not said whether they agree with it—is £400, the weekly equivalent of more than £20,000 a year. Let me remind the House what someone who was out there earning would have to earn to pay that £20,000. That person would have to earn £80,000. The Government left us an LHA rate of £104,000 a year. Someone would have to earn £250,000 a year to pay that in rent. [Interruption.] I fully accept that we are dealing with the top end of the cases, who constitute by no means the largest number. The point is, however, that the previous Government were so slack with the system that they allowed abuses and excesses. Before the last election, even people on their own side were saying that they would have to change it. That is the reality.

[Toby Perkins]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I will, but then I must make some more progress.

[Toby Perkins]

I think that the Secretary of State is focusing excessively on the cap. My right hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mr Alexander) has already made it clear that that is not the main focus of our objections to the Government’s proposals. The Secretary of State dealt with myths earlier. Will he now deal with the myth that housing benefit recipients are out of work? Many of them are working, but they are low-paid. More than 350 of them in Chesterfield will be badly affected, when they are trying to work their way towards a better life. Why are they the people whom the Secretary of State is attacking with his policy?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

There are people in work who receive housing benefit, but the worst aspect of the changes with which the previous Government left us is that many of them are now trapped in short working hours. They dare not work for more hours, because they would lose too much of their housing benefit and would lose their homes as a consequence. Setting housing benefit at the levels at which the previous Government set it was no kindness to people who really do want to get on and work longer hours, because they are faced with the invidious choice of whether to move. That is one of the reasons more than 100,000 people moved in the rental market last year. Many people have to move to find a house that is suitable so that they can go and find better work. That is the reality. The hon. Gentleman’s party left us with that situation, and it is his party that he should now blame for the mess and chaos.