Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent estimate he has made of the number of people subject to the under-occupancy penalty who have moved into a smaller home since the introduction of that penalty.

The last published figures for May 2014 showed that, as a result of various actions, the number of people affected by the removal of the spare room subsidy had fallen by 65,000 over the last year.

Analysis of off-flows indicated that up to December 2013, around 22,000 people had downsized or moved.

New figures are not yet available and will be published in due course.