Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Best, and my noble friend Lord McKenzie, as well as to the Minister, for their replies. The noble Lord is betting the bank on landlords cutting or controlling rents in the future. We are seeing caps on housing benefit in total, as my noble friend said, and a reduction in financial support for rent to levels of 30 per cent rather than 50 per cent of private rent averages. This will be lifted only by CPI, which is well below everything that we know has been happening to rent levels. Leaving aside the caps at the top end, which is a central London problem, we find that both factors—the reduction to 30 per cent on the one hand and the uplifting only by CPI on the other—will bear heavily down on what tenants can afford to pay for the rent they are expected to face. Therefore the Minister is betting the bank on landlords cutting their rent accordingly. I am sure that in some places they will; I am sure that at the bottom end of the market, where anyone who is not on benefit does not want to live, they will have to cut to fit. We can be fairly sure that some of the grottiest, poorest and most sub-standard of housing may remain available to tenants as a result—but even that will become reduced in supply if, as we fear, the gap between what tenants are able to pay and what landlords can get on the open market widens. The Minister is betting the house on the fact that it will not widen. If he is so confident, he can afford to track it. If he is right, I will be genuinely pleased. I want tenants to have decent accommodation, as we all do, at an affordable price; we do not want to see hidden subsidies going to landlords unnecessarily. Why is he hesitant to track it? We want the information. He needs the information to see whether his policy is right. He must get that research loop back into his policy. He says it can be reconsidered after 2014-15; all we are asking is that it will be reconsidered after 2014-15. Will he take that on board? If he does not, how can he justify calling his policy evidence based if he does not have the evidence because he has failed to collect it in time for us to reconsider it, if necessary, in 2014-15?