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Housing Benefit

Indeed, and there is the same situation in my constituency, where there is a housing shortage. Even people who work in the oil industry—a fluid population that comes temporarily to work in the offshore sector—have great difficulty in finding housing. There are jobs in certain areas and people flock to them, but those people often cannot take up the employment, because they cannot find accommodation. Those people are in the private rented sector and can afford fairly high rents, and their situation probably has more to do with rent inflation in Aberdeen than with anything that has happened as a result of local housing allowance. The Government have sometimes given the existence of the local housing allowance as a reason for rent inflation in the private rented sector, but in certain areas it has nothing to do with the allowance, simply because there are not enough LHA claimants to have that kind of market effect. One aspect of the housing benefit reforms that we congratulated the Government on is the fact that disabled people who need a non-familial person to stay overnight will be able to claim housing benefit to cover the extra room required for that carer, which is, in itself, a good measure. It was a recommendation made by the Select Committee in the previous Parliament, and I have to say that the then Labour Government did not agree to implement it. However—there is often an ““however”” in all this—as a Committee we realised that even if the person looking after a disabled person is a relative who does not need space in the house, there might, for example, be a need for more space for wheelchairs, or an extra room for dialysis machinery. Disabled people need large houses, for which they would not qualify on the basis of their family size, for all sorts of reasons. I was disappointed by the Government's response on that issue:"““Housing Benefit is not designed to meet every individual circumstance and it would be complex to introduce different rules for the situations such as those described by the Committee””." That is poor, because council tax benefit and the tax itself can take account of people who need extra room. If someone can prove that they are in a bigger house than they would otherwise occupy because they need extra room for a wheelchair, the local authority places the house in a lower council tax band. That is quite simple and straightforward, and it is not particularly difficult. I am disappointed that the Government have not recognised that such extra space might be imperative for disabled people. It is doubly imperative that the Government recognise that, because the proposals also introduce an under-occupancy rule, of which disabled people could fall foul simply because they occupy a house that is bigger than the one that they would need on the basis of the number of people in their family. The Government also completely miss the point of the Committee's recommendations regarding the possibility that someone with a disability who has had their house adapted has to move because they do not qualify for a house of that size, or because the house is too expensive. Their house, whether in the private rented or social rented sector, will no longer be covered by housing benefit. The Government's response is, ““Well, we've got the nine-month transitional protection,”” or ““There might be something in the discretionary housing payment that can be used.”” The Government's response suggests that disabled people will be able to move just like everyone else. Well, the answer is, ““No they will not.”” It is incredibly difficult, as it is, to get accommodation; it is almost impossible to get accommodation that is already adapted; and it is very difficult to get accommodation that can easily be adapted. For someone who has already spent a lot of money—out of their own pocket or through facilities grants—not only on making their home accessible, but on adapting the bathroom and kitchen and doing all the other things that need to be done, the Government are saying that it will somehow be okay, because if housing benefit is changed such people will be able to move and replicate those facilities somewhere else, but only in a smaller house or a cheaper area. That is not possible, and a lot of disabled people will be distressed by what I see as complacency by the Government. I know that the Government say that all that will be covered by the discretionary housing payment. In fact, their response to our report seems to say that the payment will be a panacea. I came across mentions of the payment so often that I counted them, and it appears 20 times in a relatively short document. The discretionary housing payment will be the solution 20 times—it is mentioned three times on page 11 alone. So, £190 million is going to go an awfully long way and do an awful lot, and I am fairly sure that the Minister himself recognises that it is not elastic and will not cover all that the response says that it will.