Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions pursuant to his contribution of 28 June 2010, Official Report, column 609, what estimate he has made of the number of elderly people in receipt of housing benefit who are in properties that are deemed to be too large for their needs.
Answer
The information is not available. The Department for Work and Pensions does not collect information on dwelling size for all housing benefit recipients.However, the English Housing Survey in 2008-09 showed that 430,000 (11.2%) of all social rented households and 494,000 (16.1%) of all private rented households in England were under-occupied as measured by the bedroom standard.The "bedroom standard" is essentially the difference between the number of bedrooms needed to avoid undesirable sharing (given the number and ages of household members and their relationships to each other) and the number of bedrooms actually available to the household."Source: Figures on under-occupation are taken from Table 6: Overcrowding and Under-occupation by Tenure' from the English Housing Survey, 2008-09."