Report (2nd Day)

Part of Welfare Reform Bill – in the House of Lords at 7:00 pm on 14 December 2011.

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Photo of Baroness Hollis of Heigham Baroness Hollis of Heigham Labour 7:00, 14 December 2011

I thank noble Lords for taking part. There are very real concerns, not just for women who are going into an HMO where there may be people who appear to them threatening, but also for those who appear to be the threatening ones, for whom it is also difficult. Both sides find this unacceptable. I am also grateful to my noble friends Lady Lister and Lady Hayter who helped to spell this out.

To some extent, the Minister missed our point. None of us has any problem whatever with people who choose to share. It is fine when you choose to share with people you know or when you have gone through an ad in the local paper and gone in to see them. It is fine if it is a salubrious flat and together you can pool your resources. Some may be in work, some may not, but you can manage the rent. That is fine. That is not what we are arguing about. We are arguing about someone who has lost their job and is in a one-bedroom flat for which they are currently able to pay. After 13 weeks, their HB expires and they are only entitled to LHA at a shared room rent. They are forced, against their will, to move into accommodation with strangers at the very same time as we are expecting them and needing them-and they want-to prioritise their search for a job. It is simply silly to undermine their work ethic and their work efforts. Instead, we are diverting and deflecting them into the search for a home which is safe, salubrious and affordable. This is silly and stupid, which is not a charge I would normally address to the Minister, because he is neither of those things.

On cost, I put it to the Minister that it would be reasonable to assume that a woman who had lost her job as, say, a secretary in a firm that had closed would get back to work within six months if her housing position was unaffected. If her housing situation was affected and she had to go in search of new accommodation, possibly ending up in another area, it might take her 12 months. That is not an unreasonable supposition; six months if we accept my amendment, 12 months in the existing situation. The cost of the extra three months of HB is £1,300, based on the assumption of an extra £100 a week. If, however, she did not spend a further six months on benefit, because she got back into work within six months as opposed to a year, she would save the DWP £3,900. Subtract those two, and the additional savings to the DWP, by supporting this amendment, for that one individual person, is £2,500, and that is before you get money from taxes and national insurance. Multiply that by, say, 15,000 people out of the group of 62,000 and the Government would save an additional £40 million. That is where the savings lie.

You can challenge my behavioural assumptions-that you go back to work within six months if you do not have to find another home and that it takes you 12 months if you do-but, from what I know in my city about how long it takes people to find work as the situation worsens, I do not think they are unreasonable. If the assumption is right, and 15,000 of that client group come into that category, the Government will save an additional £40 million, not halve the savings as the Minister suggested. That is nonsense on any behavioural assumptions. He is assuming that what he is doing will make no difference to people's propensity or ability to come back into work. That is simply untrue, particularly as the economic situation gets worse, and he must know it. He can make savings from the amendment if he chooses to work it through further.

My final point is about safety. A member of my family was in a room in such a situation. There was thumping at his door and he opened it. This person in my family-who is six feet tall and strong-faced, as he opened the door, somebody who was naked with a knife in his hand. Do not tell me it cannot happen, because I know it has and it does. I therefore suggest, on grounds of decency, safety and cost effectiveness, that the Minister consider this amendment further, even if he is not willing to do so today. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 19 withdrawn.

Amendment 20

Moved by Baroness Hollis of Heigham

20: Clause 11, page 5, line 29, at end insert-

"(6) Within one year of these regulations coming into force, an independent research review of their impact shall be laid before Parliament, and such a review to include the effects of such measures on the reduced incomes of social housing tenants and their families, the security of the rent roll of their social landlords, the depletion of tenants' savings, levels of arrears, levels of eviction, any increased homelessness and use of temporary accommodation, the reduced prospects of pensioners for rehousing, and the likely availability of housing stock to meet the new underoccupancy standards, and related matters."