Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make it his policy to enable special circumstances to be taken into account when making the decision to withhold housing benefit from people who are away from their homes for a period of more than four weeks.

The temporary absence rules allow Housing Benefit to continue where under the normal conditions of entitlement it would not do so. They are therefore extensions of entitlement rather than withdrawals of it.

It is the intention from April 2016, that Housing Benefit claimants who leave Great Britain for longer than 4 weeks will no longer be able to get Housing Benefit while they are away. This aligns the Housing Benefit rules with other benefits including Universal Credit.

We intend that the period of 4 weeks could be extended in exceptional circumstances (for example, if their reason for being abroad is due to the death of a family member).