Clause 33
Welfare Reform Bill
4:30 pm
John Penrose (Weston-Super-Mare, Conservative)
I should like to press the matter a little further. We have discussed, particularly in the debate on the single room rent restriction, whether rent officers are getting their decisions right in all cases. There was much disquiet in that debate about whether they are setting single room rent levels correctly. It was felt that there could be a vicious downward spiral: the level was set too low, which led to shortfalls in claimants’ benefits, which in turn they had to make up. That also had a negative knock-on impact on the supply of suitable properties, which made it harder for rent officers to determine what the correct rent level should be.
One obvious way to deal with some of these problems and allow a degree of external verification and audit, and justification as to whether the rent officers are getting such decisions right, is to increase the amount of transparency. We could shine a little more sunlight into potentially murky corners by ensuring that rent officers show their workings when they take the decisions about the local housing allowance in any one area. I am sure that it is germane and important for the single room rent restriction, but it will be important in respect of many other classes of property.
As the earlier amendment about the single room rent restriction was not agreed to, my suggestion is an alternative way of dealing with the problem—a point that I was making at the time of that earlier debate—and it would be tremendously beneficial. I see no downsides in making the information available to the public and to all interested parties, so that they can check that the decisions are justifiable. In the spirit of open government, I therefore hope that the proposal will be relatively easy for the Under-Secretary to agree to.