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1694563

registered interest
date	07/03/2024
answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
answering dept id	29
answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
hansard heading	Housing Benefit: Social Rented Housing
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he made an assessment of the potential merits of removing the under-occupancy penalty during the preparation of the Spring Budget.
tabling member constituency	York Central
tabling member printed	Rachael Maskell
uin	17656
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 12/03/2024 answer text <p>No assessment has been made.</p><p> </p><p>The removal of the spare room subsidy (RSRS) policy applies to claims for housing support where the claimant is living in the social rented sector in a property that is considered to have more bedrooms than the household requires.</p><p> </p><p>The policy helps encourage mobility within the social rented sector to make better use of the existing social housing stock and strengthens work-incentives.</p><p> </p><p>There are no plans to abolish this policy and easements are available to support disabled people and carers, the families of disabled children, foster carers, parents who adopt, parents of service personnel and people who have suffered a bereavement. The deduction does not apply to pensioners in receipt of Housing Benefit.</p><p> </p><p>For individuals who may require additional support, Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs) may be available. DHP payments are entirely at the discretion of the local authority and since 2011 the Government has provided nearly £1.7 billion to local authorities.</p> answering member constituency Blackpool North and Cleveleys answering member printed Paul Maynard question first answered 12/03/2024 14:38:37 answering member 3926 label Biography information for Paul Maynard
tabling member	4471 label Biography information for Rachael Maskell

1674179

registered interest
date	29/11/2023
answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
answering dept id	29
answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
hansard heading	Housing Benefit: Social Rented Housing
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate he has made of the amount of deductions made under the Removal of the Spare Room Subsidy to (a) Housing Benefit and (b) Universal Credit claimants in each year since 2013.
tabling member constituency	Glasgow East
tabling member printed	David Linden
uin	4510
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 04/12/2023 answer text <p>Information on the Removal of the Spare Room Subsidy (RSRS) sufficient to produce such an estimate can be found on Stat-Xplore. Stat-Xplore includes the mean of RSRS reduction, the number subject to the RSRS and the number of spare rooms for both Housing Benefit and Universal Credit Housing Element Claimants.</p><p><strong> </strong></p><p>Stat-Xplore can be found <a href="https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/jsf/login.xhtml" target="_blank">here.</a></p> answering member constituency Mid Sussex answering member printed Mims Davies question first answered 04/12/2023 16:13:32 answering member 4513 label Biography information for Mims Davies
tabling member	4640 label Biography information for David Linden

1645680

registered interest
date	19/06/2023
answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
answering dept id	29
answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
hansard heading	Housing Benefit: Social Rented Housing
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of a review of the under-occupancy penalty.
tabling member constituency	Arfon
tabling member printed	Hywel Williams
uin	190042
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 22/06/2023 answer text <p>There are no plans to review the Removal of the Spare Room policy.</p><p> </p><p>The policy applies to claims for housing support where the claimant is living in the social rented sector in a property that is deemed too large for their needs. The policy aims to strengthen work incentives and seeks to encourage greater mobility within the social rented sector.</p><p> </p><p>There are easements to the policy which allow for the provision of an additional bedroom in certain circumstances, such as to support the needs of disabled people. Pensioners in receipt of Housing Benefit are exempt from the policy.</p><p> </p><p>Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs) are available for those who face a shortfall in meeting their housing costs. Since 2011 we have provided nearly £1.6 billion in funding to local authorities for DHPs.</p> answering member constituency Mid Sussex answering member printed Mims Davies question first answered 22/06/2023 15:38:16 answering member 4513 label Biography information for Mims Davies
tabling member	1397 label Biography information for Hywel Williams

1645681

registered interest
date	19/06/2023
answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
answering dept id	29
answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
hansard heading	Housing Benefit: Social Rented Housing
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the impact of the removal of the spare bedroom subsidy on levels of spending on (a) housing benefit and (b) discretionary housing payments in Wales in each year since April 2013.
tabling member constituency	Arfon
tabling member printed	Hywel Williams
uin	190071
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 22/06/2023 answer text <p>The Department has not made an assessment of the full impact of the Removal of the Spare Room Subsidy on levels of spending on Housing Benefit (HB). We estimate that the Removal of the Spare Room Subsidy (RSRS) policy, between May 2013 and February 2023, has seen deductions from Housing Benefit (HB) expenditure in Wales of £190 million. This is broken down for each financial year below:</p><p> </p><table><tbody><tr><td><p><strong>Financial Year</strong></p></td><td><p><strong> Total RSRS deductions for HB in Wales </strong></p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2013/14*</p></td><td><p>£21m</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2014/15</p></td><td><p>£22m</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2015/16</p></td><td><p>£22m</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2016/17</p></td><td><p>£22m</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2017/18</p></td><td><p>£22m</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2018/19</p></td><td><p>£21m</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2019/20</p></td><td><p>£18m</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2020/21</p></td><td><p>£16m</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2021/22</p></td><td><p>£14m</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2022/23*</p></td><td><p>£12m</p></td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p><p>*These years do not include the full 12 months. 2013/14 excludes April 2013 as there is no data for this month. 2022/23 excludes March 2023 as this data is not yet available.</p><p> </p><p>This estimate is based on those households with the RSRS deduction applied. For a full impact assessment, the behavioural impact of the policy would need to be considered, for example where households with a spare bedroom have moved to a right-sized property.</p><p> </p><p>As asked for the total RSRS deductions are for Housing Benefit only, and do not include deductions for those in receipt of the Universal Credit Housing Element (UCHE). Over the time period shown there has been migration of cases from HB to UCHE, and the majority of new claims for housing support for those of working age will be for UCHE since its introduction.</p><p> </p><p>The impact of the RSRS on Discretionary Housing Payment spending has not been fully assessed. DHP funding has historically been distributed using four funding streams based on DWPs best measures of housing need, these are Local expenditure on Housing Benefit (HB)/Universal Credit Housing Element (UCHE), Local Housing Allowance (LHA) shortfalls, RSRS deductions and Benefit Cap deductions. Although the funding is distributed using this broad methodology, local authorities spend according to their own criteria. As part of annual returns LAs include a breakdown of their expenditure by measure including RSRS, though DHP stats include this breakdown only at national level.</p><p>The overall RSRS expenditure reported to DWP by Welsh Local Authorities between April 2013 and March 2022 has been over £30 million. This is broken down for each financial year below:</p><table><tbody><tr><td><p><strong>Financial Year</strong></p></td><td><p><strong>RSRS Expenditure in DHP by Local Authorities in Wales</strong></p></td><td><p><strong>Percentage of LA’s information is available for</strong></p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2013-14</p></td><td><p>£3,116,498</p></td><td><p>73%</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2014-15</p></td><td><p>£4,427,275</p></td><td><p>86%</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2015-16</p></td><td><p>£3,045,024</p></td><td><p>77%</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2016-17</p></td><td><p>£3,360,025</p></td><td><p>82%</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2017-18</p></td><td><p>£3,062,745</p></td><td><p>77%</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2018-19</p></td><td><p>£3,204,905</p></td><td><p>86%</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2019-20</p></td><td><p>£2,821,180</p></td><td><p>82%</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2020-21</p></td><td><p>£3,702,173</p></td><td><p>91%</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2021-22</p></td><td><p>£4,247,069</p></td><td><p>100%</p></td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p><p>* Monitoring returns were not provided by all local authorities; for those that did, not all could provide the detailed breakdown</p><p>This table shows the expenditure of Welsh LAs on DHPS in respect to RSRS, not what DWP provide to Welsh LAs as a contribution of funding DHPs. DHP statistics are available online:</p><p><a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/discretionary-housing-payments-statistics" target="_blank">Discretionary Housing Payments statistics - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)</a></p> answering member constituency Mid Sussex answering member printed Mims Davies question first answered 22/06/2023 15:42:17 answering member 4513 label Biography information for Mims Davies
tabling member	1397 label Biography information for Hywel Williams