Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment his Department has made of the potential effect of extending the shared accommodation rate to social rented housing on levels of homelessness among people under 35, in light of the Government's decision to exempt single under 35 year olds from the shared accommodation rate in supported accommodation but not in general needs social rented housing.

Full impact and equality impact assessments will be undertaken in due course.

It should however be noted that a number of exemptions to the shared accommodation rate already exist for the under 35s in the private rented sector and, as a minimum, they will be brought forward in relation to general needs housing in the Social Rented Sector. The exemptions are:

• Those with children or non-dependents;
• Care leavers until the age of 22;
• Certain homeless people;
• People over 25 leaving prison where their housing has been arranged under the Multi Agency Public Protection (MAPPA)
• Those requiring overnight care or for HB are in receipt of the severe disability premium; or receive the middle or higher rate of disability living allowance or the daily living component of a personal independent payment (or the armed forces independence payment and no one receives carers allowance in respect of them). Therefore only those that fall out of these exemptions i.e. young people who are able to work and around a third of ESA/LCW/LCWRA who are not on Severe Disability Premium/PIP daily living component will be impacted.