Discretionary Housing Payments: Coronavirus

(asked on 5th May 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of removing the cap on discretionary housing payments to enable local authorities to provide support to households affected by covid-19.


Answered by
Will Quince Portrait
Will Quince
This question was answered on 15th May 2020

We have already provided £180m in Discretionary Housing Payment(DHP) funding to Local Authorities to support vulnerable claimants with housing costs in the private and social rented sector in England and Wales for 2020/21. This includes an extra £40m as announced last year at the spending round.

In addition to the central government contribution, Local Authorities in England and Wales are able to top up DHP funding up to a maximum of two and a half times this figure using their own funds.

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