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Rent Officers (Housing Benefit Functions) Amendment (No. 2) Order 2008

My Lords, they currently do not; that has never been one of the considerations. I will come on to address that point in a moment. The central point I need to make is that the amendments we have made to this order are not as a result of a policy change; we are merely ensuring that this legislation reflects our policy intention. I accept the House of Lords’ judgment that we did not get the legislation quite right, but I firmly believe that we have made the right decision in laying these amendments. It is right that we should seek to stabilise the order to enable rent officers to continue with their role effectively. I shall now try to deal with the range of questions that were posed to me. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, each made reference to the shortened consultation period. I know that the consultation period we undertook in advance of laying the amendments was not as long as we would normally commit to but, of course, the department does not have a statutory obligation to consult on amendments to orders, although we recognise the importance of working closely with our key stakeholders. As I said, we wanted to stabilise the order as soon as possible, and the consultation we undertook was to ensure that we had the right wording to reflect our intentions, not because we were making a change of policy. All noble Lords who have spoken made reference to the Shelter report and the question of a review. We will be conducting a full evaluation of the LHA against the original policy objectives and examining the experience of fairness, choice, personal responsibility, improved administration and reduced barriers to work. This will include the analyses of rent officer data and trends in LHA rates. It will also consider the experiences of a range of stakeholders—claimants, landlords and voluntary groups—in its operation. The noble Lords, Lord Kirkwood and Lord Skelmersdale, raised the issue of employment. As they will know, we are currently conducting a radical and far-reaching review of housing benefit. This review provides us with an opportunity to consider all aspects of the LHA. We will be consulting more widely on the review later in the spring. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, asked about conducting an analysis of the Rent Service database to evaluate fully the extent of problems with affordability experienced by claimants. I think the expression was, ““Are we sweating the database?””. We are analysing Rent Service data and monitoring closely trends in LHA rates as part of the evaluation of the first two years of the LHA’s full rollout. The noble Lord asked about identifying neighbourhoods, localities and local authorities with particularly high or low rents of affordability for LHA claimants and putting into practice suitable ways of mitigating this. He referred to working more closely with local authorities, landlords and advice agencies as part of the formal review of BRMAs. It is part of the Rent Service’s usual business to keep these areas under review. We are aware of a number of areas, such as Cambridge—every noble Lord who spoke referred to Cambridge—where there are concerns about access to affordable accommodation. The Rent Service has already engaged with Cambridge City Council and other local authorities in the BRMA to review the area used. The noble Lord, Lord Best, referred to the Shelter research. We are already aware of the concerns about the effect of the BRMA for Cambridge, which is why we are engaging. I stress that the assertion that broad areas are inevitably bad should be contested. Obviously, the higher rent areas that are included in the area bring up the median for rents in the poorer areas, which means that there is more support for poorer people in those areas. It is not just an issue of excluding people. I of course reject the reference to ghettos with regard to local housing allowance claimants. Reluctance to let people who are in receipt of LHA have lettings is an important issue. We believe that the research was not comprehensive, and the views of landlords varied according to the area. We do not have data available at this stage but, as I said, we are reviewing the LHA over the first two years of its operation. Employment has already been touched on. Because the definitions are trying to reflect the housing market, employment has never historically been included in that equation. As part of our full-blooded review of housing benefit, we have an opportunity to consider that more fully. The noble Lord, Lord Best, was kind in his remarks about the effort that went into introducing the LHA, the pathfinder project, the evaluation and the associated transparency. In response to his request, of course I am happy to meet with him and colleagues, together with my honourable friend Kitty Ussher, who is the Minister with more direct responsibility for this issue. We will certainly contact his office to set that up. The noble Lord also touched on large areas and small areas, as did other noble Lords. The areas need to be large enough to reflect the generality of the market, including a variety of tenures, property types and sizes, while allowing access to facilities for shopping, banking, health and education. Setting very small areas could increase the rates of allowance in some parts, while reducing them in others. Small areas may not reflect the size of the local housing market. Moving back to smaller areas would have a detrimental impact, we believe, on poorer areas. The noble Lord referred to rent officer inconsistency. We believe that rent officers are professionals, working for not only the Rent Service but also the Welsh and Scottish devolved Administrations. It is important to have a consistent and even approach, and we need to ensure that that is the case. The noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, asked whether all advertised properties in an area are included in the database. Rent officers gather a wide range of evidence, not only from advertisements but from actual letting detail as well. We believe that they have a solid base for their judgments.