Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many households are currently affected by the under-occupancy charge with deductions for (1) one extra bedroom, or (2) more than one extra bedroom; and what assessment they have made of the impact of these deductions given the increased cost of living.

The removal of the spare room subsidy is an important tool to make better use of the existing social housing stock, enable mobility within the social rented sector and contain growing housing support expenditure. It also aligns the size criteria rules used in the private rented sector in the social sector.

The policy allows for the provision of an additional bedroom to support disabled people and carers, the families of disabled children, foster carers, parents who adopt, parents of service personnel, and people who have suffered a bereavement. Additionally, those in receipt of pension age housing benefit are exempt.

Those who need additional support with their housing costs can seek assistance from their local authority via the Discretionary Housing Payment (DHPs) scheme. Since 2011 the Government has provided almost £1.5 billion in DHP funding to local authorities.

The number of Households affected by the removal of the spare room subsidy is set out in the table below.

Households with a reduction due to the removal of the spare room subsidy, Great Britain, February 2022

Notes:

i. Figures are from Stat-Xplore and are rounded to the nearest hundred.

ii. Includes Housing Benefit and Universal Credit Housing Element. Universal Credit data for February is provisional and will be within two per cent of revised figures in future releases.