---

Housing Benefit (Amendment) Regulations 2011

My Lords, I am very pleased to join in this debate initiated by my noble friend Lord Kirkwood. I declare an interest as chair of First Wessex Housing Group, which has a number of shared-accommodation facilities, and I am also chair designate of Housing 21. Sadly, this is an example of government spending cutbacks whereby the broadest backs are not assuming the biggest burden—probably the reverse. Among the 62,000 people who it is thought will be affected by these changes, there are a lot of very vulnerable people. The fundamental problem is that we simply do not know how many. I accept that this is a tough decision in very tough times, and there are a number of positives in what the Government have done. The transition period is obviously very helpful, extra money has been provided for discretionary housing payments and certain of the exemptions have been widened—although we have heard my noble friend Lord Kirkwood’s reservations on those. It is probably also true that, in these tough times and in the current climate, it is inevitable that we probably have to encourage older children to stay at home with their families. Obviously, people in the private purchase market are having to do that as well. However, one of the problems is that we are often dealing here with families of children where the family relationships have broken down. There are a number of negatives to this change. First, as I mentioned, we simply do not know who these people are nor, as a result, do we know how they will adapt. What we do know is that there are certainly some very vulnerable groups here, as my noble friend Lord Kirkwood mentioned, including people with mental health issues and drug addiction issues, young offenders and people trying to regroup from broken marriages and broken relationships. We also simply do not know what pressures on other areas of the public purse will result from these changes. Finally, there is a great shortage of shared accommodation in certain areas, especially in rural areas. One thing that has not been anticipated is the further market pressures that will result. For example, one of the hostels that I am familiar with is designed to encourage young people to become independent in the community and to get their own accommodation. By increasing the pressure in the marketplace from those aged between 25 and 35, we will make it much more difficult for landlords to accept people who are under 25, who are much more difficult to deal with, so landlords will go for the older people. That will mean worse problems in that market as well. One of the principal objectives of the change is to improve work incentives. We know that, day by day, those options are drying up. In the current climate of no growth, it will be extremely difficult. I accept that the changes made by the regulations will almost certainly go through, but the Government should further examine whether 30 would have been a better threshold than 25. We should have looked at extending the transition. Some of the increases in costs, particularly in London, are staggering and may be as much as £100 per week. People in London will have to find an extraordinary amount of money unless they change their circumstances. Even elsewhere, the average amount is £50—in Winchester, as my noble friend Lady Thomas, said, it is £56. These are significant sums for people to find at a very difficult time with the labour market in the state that it is. I hope that the Government will make sure that local authorities once again face up to their responsibilities and help in this area. I hope that, if we end up overspending on the discretionary housing payments, which I well expect, the Government will match that. The Government should also encourage more development by housing associations of shared accommodation simply to increase supply. This is very difficult legislation which is hitting people who are particularly vulnerable and least able to speak up for themselves. That is why I am speaking in this debate.