Welfare Reform Bill

Sadly, my hon. Friend’s experience is all too common in all too many parts of the country. I understand that there are some good rent officers. I am yet to find one, but I am told that they do exist. The simple fact of the matter is that this system affects millions of people’s lives. It affects the amount of housing benefit or local housing allowance that people can get. Rent officers operate under a regime of secrecy, unaccountability and serious inconsistency, as my hon. Friend said, and there can be no challenge to the decisions at which they arrive. Amendment No. 70 would bring transparency to the system. It would require a rent officer to publish the data and evidence on which his calculations were based. It would also allow the Secretary of State to make directions about how that evidence should be collected, assessed and used. In this day and age, to have a public official with such incredible powers, yet subject to no public scrutiny at all, is just plain wrong. I accept that the amendment might not be perfectly worded, although I think that it is pretty good, and I look forward to hearing the comments of my hon. Friend the Minister. Amendment No. 67 addresses the antisocial behaviour aspects of the Bill that relate to sanctions on housing benefit. I have to say first—I have made this point several times in the past and although no one has listened, I hope to carry the day—that it is plain wrong and a massive injustice that there is a sanctions regime that applies to only one type of tenure in the housing market. As everybody knows, on virtually every housing estate in the country, two thirds of the old local authority stock has been sold. If two neighbours are found guilty of the same antisocial behaviour, but one is an owner-occupier, and the other is a tenant, the tenant could lose his home and 100 per cent. of his housing benefit for up to five years, but there would be no sanction whatever against the owner-occupier, and that is not right. I accept that the proposals in the Bill are to be piloted—God help the 10 pilot areas—but a serious rethink of the principles underlying the measure is needed. I utterly opposed the proposals in 2003, and the Government saw sense and withdrew them. I accept that the proposals have been revised and refined, but they are still simply wrong. I remind hon. Members that if a person’s behaviour does not change in the first four weeks after the original possession order, there is a 10 per cent. reduction in housing benefit. Between five and eight weeks after the order, there is a 20 per cent. reduction, and after that, for up to five years, there is a 100 per cent. reduction. The person gets nothing. Of course, if the housing benefit officer thinks that that will cause hardship, the 100 per cent. rate can be reduced, but it is evident that it will cause hardship. If someone is on income support and is entitled to 100 per cent. housing benefit, but instead they get nothing, they will obviously be in hardship. That is not to undermine in any way the serious implications of antisocial behaviour. We have all seen, experienced, and had to deal with it, and most of us welcome the legislative action that the Government have taken. However, let us be fair: there is a personal responsibility on the individual who causes the antisocial behaviour, whether they be a householder, a parent, or an older teenager, but there is a responsibility on the state, too. If we reach the stage at which a family has been evicted for antisocial behaviour, the mechanisms that we have put in place, and the state, have failed in dealing with the family and its problems; we need to recognise that. The 100 per cent. reduction in housing benefit for five years is an abuse of human rights. The amendment, which possibly does not go far enough, would limit the 100 per cent. reduction to 12 months. I hope that we will hear co-operative words from the Minister on that amendment. I now turn to the amendment on the single room rate, which was so ably moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love). I understand, but I do not agree with, the philosophy behind the single room rate, which is that it is not right that someone can leave school at 18 and go straight on to benefits and enjoy a lifestyle that is not available to people who are in a similar situation, but are in work. However, the reality is that most people to whom the single room rate or the shared room rate applies are not in that category. Most of them have, at some time, been in care. I know that people under 21 are excluded if they have been in care, but when they are 21 and one day, the regime applies. All the evidence about people who have been in care shows that they remain vulnerable long after they turn 21. A large number of the people affected have disabilities. Severely disabled people are exempt from the single room rate, but disabled people are not, but where do we draw the line between disabled and severely disabled? People make those decisions every day, and they affect people’s lives. People who have been in drug, alcohol or substance abuse programmes and ex-offenders are affected, too. Those two groups—people who come out of prison, and people who have been through detoxification programmes—were, under one part of the social security system, given the community care grant, because we recognise that they are in a difficult situation. They need resettling in society and they need help to get over their problems. Under another part of the system, however, we tell them that they will have restricted housing benefit, which means that they can only live in accommodation that is at the allowance rate that has been set, but in most places, that is not available. In addition, people who have been in care until the age of 21 are exempt, but most local authorities do not make that information available when someone makes a claim. It is almost by accident that they discover that they are exempt. Similarly, local authorities do not state in the information that they issue that severely disabled people are exempt. If someone forgets to state on their claim form that they receive higher-rate disability living allowance, they are overlooked and they receive the single room rate. Too many of those things are subject to individual judgment. Some authorities attempt to deal with the problem by making discretionary hardship payments, but many authorities do not spend anything on such payments. Some of them publicise the payment, but others do not do so. Once again, there are different attitudes in different parts of the country.