Hon. Members agree that there are serious problems when payments of housing benefit rise so high. We disagree on our analysis of how it came about and what we should do about it. Unless we tackle the underlying issues, we will simply trim the edges, to the detriment of many households and families. As the Office for Budget Responsibility says in its review of spending on benefits and pensions, the main drivers for the increase in housing benefit are increases in rents and the number of people on low wages who have to claim housing benefit to make ends meet. The OBR was concerned that those two things would continue to be drivers in the coming decade unless action was taken. There is very little—I would say virtually nothing—in the steps that the Government have taken since 2010 to tackle those problems. Indeed, they may have made them worse.
We were told by Ministers during the passage of the Welfare Reform Bill that the private rented sector had become so intrinsically dependent on the housing benefit market that rents would fall as a result of the changes. Rents have not fallen. In many places, they have risen considerably above inflation. That is certainly true in my city, in the city represented by the Chair of the Select Committee and in London. The DWP accepts that this is the case. For the private rented sector, it has introduced additional payments in some areas to top up the local housing allowance—after it previously made reductions—because it accepts there is a growing gap between the actual rents available to people who want to rent and need housing benefit, and the payments they would otherwise receive. The promises that rent would fall as a result of the policy have not come about. I hope that in looking to see what savings are supposed to have been made, those additional payments will be factored in.
We are repeatedly told that this policy is about saving money. I think the Minister from a sedentary position said, “Oh, it’s about £1 million a day,” but that was based on the Government’s original statement that the policy would save about £500 million a year. Other experts said, at a very early date, that it would be lucky to be somewhere nearer £350 million, and that does not take into account the very high cost of discretionary housing payments, which are a cost to Government and so detract from any savings made. It is therefore not correct for the Government to say what they say.
For individuals, households and families, the impact is extremely serious. This is not the same, as is often said, as what happened previously in the private rented sector, dating back to about 1998 when size was taken into account. This is an impost on people now, whether they can move or not and whether there is anywhere for them to move to or not. One of the amendments tabled during the course of the Welfare Reform Bill by the Opposition—it was followed up through the House of Lords and incorporated into a private Member’s Bill that was not allowed to progress in this House recently—proposed that if people were offered a suitable alternative house and did not take it, then the cut in their benefit
could apply. For many people, however, that just is not practical. I have just checked yet again, as I do constantly, the number of houses available for social rent in my city. This week, there were 54 in the whole city. Of those, 31 were one-bedroom, but eight were sheltered. The people affected by the bedroom tax are by definition under pension and retirement age, and so would not qualify for those eight.