Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what estimate he has made of the number of people affected by both the under-occupancy penalty and the introduction of council tax reduction schemes.

There are 4.6 million households in England who are in receipt of local council tax support, as of October 2014.

Housing benefit statistics are produced by the Department for Work and Pensions, and can be found online at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/number-of-housing-benefit-claimants-and-average-weekly-spare-room-subsidy-amount-withdrawal