Welfare Reform Bill

When I spoke during our last consideration of the Lords amendments to the Bill, I expressed concerns about this policy, particularly about the changes to child maintenance payments. I am pleased that there has been some movement on that front, but I find myself once again in support of their lordships. I am sorry about that, because the ministerial team is one of my favourites. I will not tell you which is my least favourite, Mr Speaker, but people can guess. The amendments are less perfect than the original set, but the reasons for that have already been explained. As I said last time, when we talk about people's homes, we need to remember that they are exactly that—people's homes, not just a public asset that we need to release for others. We all have constituents who have problems with being in houses that are not suitable for them and want bigger homes, but I am not sure that this measure is necessarily the right way to deal with that. In my constituency, one of the biggest problems of under-occupation relates to older people. That age group is completely exempted from the measure. Staff time will be focused on dealing with the problem before us, and that could detract from the work that can be done in helping and encouraging older people into more suitable housing, to free up bigger houses. The amendment is imperfect because it is restricted to people in receipt of certain benefits, and I would have preferred it to be more widely constructed. When I spoke to a constituent about this a week or so ago, her explanation of why she needed another bedroom brought it home to me that, as I said, these are people's homes and not just public assets. She said, ““My kids have moved away, but they come and go. They sometimes come back home because relationships break down, and so on, and having the space there for them is very necessary.”” She added that her husband snores a lot and she likes to kick him out into the spare room, but I suspect that that is not necessarily a reason to allow people to have extra housing. It is important to remember that nowadays people come and go and relationships are flexible. Like the shadow Minister, I was concerned to hear the ideas about how people can find extra funding. It is not practical to expect people to take in an additional lodger, and in the case of many social housing landlords that would not be allowed anyway. I will again support the Lords on this matter, with apologies to my colleagues on the Front Bench. They have entirely the right reasons for taking the policy forward, but in policy making we always have to consider the law of unintended consequences. When I served for 10 years as a councillor in the city of Hull, we had a large council estate where there was a huge problem with people under-occupying homes, and it was incredibly complicated and difficult to deal with. It is a fallacy to think that we will suddenly be able to move all these people out into more suitable accommodation.