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Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Stoneham in his case for transition. My argument is that if we are going to introduce a policy of this sort, we have to ensure that the social and public housing sector is capable of meeting the changes that are being demanded by the policies of this Bill. Three policy ambitions underpin these clauses. The first relates to the inefficiencies in our social housing sector at the moment and the need to make better and more efficient use of our housing stock, bearing in mind that 7 per cent of homes in the social housing sector are overcrowded and 11 per cent are underoccupied. Already, there is a big mismatch. The second is that we want to increase mobility and strengthen the incentives to ensure that people can move within social housing in order to transfer into work. The third is the ambition to reduce the cost pressures on an ever increasing housing budget. We should remember that in today’s terms the budget has, over the past decade, increased from £14 billion to £22 billion a year, at the equivalent rate today. My question for the Minister is: how prepared is the social housing sector to meet these changes in policy? If we follow the logic through, we see that there are only three choices that a tenant can make. The first is to pay the increased rent, which we know will on average be £13 a week for a one-bedroom overoccupier. The second is to occupy the spare room, which means either taking in a lodger or having the children back. I guess that some people would not mind having their children back but that others would not want them back at any cost. Whatever the circumstances, is that a realistic choice for many people? The third choice that people will have is that they can move. In those three choices, what modelling has been done on how many people will make choice one, two or three? The only modelling I have seen has been from the National Housing Federation survey, which is only for part of the country, and they surveyed only 452 people. Clearly, if you are going to have a policy of this sort, the Government must be able to say that they have sought these solutions to ensure that their policy will work.