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Housing Benefit (Amendment) Regulations 2011

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope, and I am grateful to him for giving us the opportunity to discuss these regulations. I shall speak briefly, which I am sure will be of great relief to the Minister. I am very concerned about the potential implications for homelessness and rough sleeping that the noble Lord referred to, and also about the wider poverty implications, including food poverty. I have been catching up on my press cuttings while I have been away and there is information that more and more people are having to turn to charities for food. I fear that regulations such as this could exacerbate that situation. It is horrifying that in a welfare state we now have so many people turning to charity for their food needs. Like the noble Lord, I welcome the fact that the Government have responded to some of what the Social Security Advisory Committee said with regard to exemptions, but I agree with the noble Lord that that does not go far enough. What he said about complex needs is worth exploring further. I want to draw attention particularly to some of the gender implications of the regulations, some of which the noble Lord touched on. The equality impact assessment shows that women are a minority of those affected. However, the SSAC makes it clear that there are issues here for women. It states: "““Women are specifically affected in two important ways. Pregnant single women””—" to whom the noble Lord referred— "““are restricted to the shared accommodation rate until they give birth, and face one of three undesirable situations. They can move home twice at a time when they may be financially, emotionally and physically ill-equipped to do so””—" we will be talking about the needs of pregnant women in the Welfare Reform Bill Committee tomorrow— "““into shared accommodation and back to self-contained accommodation when the baby is born. They can decide to move into shared accommodation and remain there after the birth of their child. Or they can try to make up the shortfall in their rent. ""The second group of women who are likely to be disadvantaged by the proposals are those escaping domestic violence, who may well find themselves having to live in insecure accommodation, putting them at risk of further abuse by their estranged partner””." With regard to that, earlier research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation showed the real concerns that younger women have about the prospect of having to share accommodation with strangers. Clearly, that is particularly the case where there has been domestic violence. It said that the prospect of having to share with older people was noted to be particularly daunting, especially for female claimants. The Merits Committee had a subheading in its report entitled ““Evidence-based Policy””? The question mark says everything. I do not think that this is evidence-based policy making. The Social Security Advisory Committee report, which is such a Bible on these occasions, stated: "““The proposals that have been presented to us are essentially cuts to the Housing Benefit budget and we do not find the rationale for the change to be either convincing or compelling when set against the potential negative impacts. There is no evidence that these measures will improve work incentives or that those under the age of 35 have similar patterns of housing to those under the age of 25. The evidence from private landlords is that the market for private rented accommodation is buoyant, that few landlords will reduce rents as a result of these proposed measures and that many are increasingly excluding Housing Benefit claimants””." It is not surprising, therefore, that the Merits Committee states: "““DWP has offered surprisingly little evidence to demonstrate the feasibility of its proposal, in particular whether the rental sector has capacity to accommodate the change””." Given what the Merits Committee and the Social Security Advisory Committee have said, I agree with the noble Lord that we should think very hard before introducing such regulations. I remind the Committee that the Merits Committee suggested to us that the may want to press DWP for further information on how the policy will work in practice and on its wider consequences. I hope that the Minister will be able to provide us with that information before the regulations go ahead.