Welfare Reform Bill

I agree with all right hon. and hon. Gentlemen who have spoken, with the exception of the Minister. As I understand it, the Government's justification for prosecuting the bedroom tax against even very vulnerable people is that it will free up social housing and relieve the shortage. If that is the case, someone in a constituency such as mine—where 8,000 people are on the waiting list with no possibility of being housed in the private sector because of costs—should welcome such provisions. However, we know, because no alternative properties are available, that this is in fact simply a cost-saving measure. As for the idea of a property being empty for 20 years, as the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) described, properties are not empty for 20 minutes in Hammersmith before they are snapped up. Everything that this Government are doing, whether it be the cuts to the social housing grant, the changes to affordable rents—I should say that the affordable rent at 80% of the open market value of a four-bedroom property in Hammersmith would require an income of £96,000 a year—the changes in homelessness legislation or the provisions of the Localism Act 2011, weakens the security and provision of social housing. What we are discussing is another measure to make social tenants second-class citizens and social tenants on benefit third-class citizens. If I may do so in just one minute, I would like to give as an example my own local authority—a Conservative-controlled local authority and the favoured local authority of the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. In the last two weeks it has given approval for more than 3,000 new houses to be built. Not one of those 3,000 properties will be a new social home for rent; rather, they are replacing 750 good-quality homes, which are in the process of being demolished, so we are already seeing downsizing at work. The authority received £100 million for that demolition from the property developer and another £100 million was received for selling off 300 good-quality social homes on the open market by auction, and it is building 25 new council homes. However, even though those council homes are on estates and will be low-cost homes that therefore could be rented, they will all be for private sale.