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Welfare Reform Bill

I think that I have dealt with that. There are other changes, including the consumer prices index uprating, in the Bill. We must get to grips with the housing benefit system, which ran out of control under the previous Government. I have a deep suspicion that they knew that before they called the election, and I sense that there were big differences about whether they would do something about this. Over the past 10 years, overall spending on housing benefit has almost doubled from £11 billion to £21 billion, which is a huge increase. I accept some of the arguments about the reasons for that—the fact, for example, that house building fell to a record low, and more and more people had to be moved into the social rented sector—but the reality under the local housing allowance regime was that we lost control of spending. We have therefore introduced a number of changes to the local housing allowance, including a move to annual uprating in line with CPI. Restricting uprating should enable us to keep downward pressure on rents. Only if an increase in local market rents exceeds the annual rate of CPI will the restriction apply. That will also be an important step towards the integration of housing support with the universal credit. We accept that those changes will not be easy for some people, which is why we want to provide a great deal of transitional protection. Essentially, we have put up a total of about £190 million to smooth the transition to those measures for those who are most likely to be deeply affected. That includes £130 million in discretionary housing payments, £50 million to assist people with housing advice and removal costs and £10 million for homelessness prevention, particularly in London. That, coupled with the other changes that we have already made through regulations, where we are looking at making direct payments to those who are able to lower their rents and at delaying the point at which the measure comes in by some nine months, was a product of listening to people's main concerns and trying to ensure that what we bring in is doable and manageable by councils.