Local Housing Allowance – Parliamentary Written Answer

Stephen Crabb: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an estimate of the cost to the public purse of restoring Local Housing Allowance rates to the 30th percentile.

Will Quince: We estimate the cost would be about £800 million in 2020/21, excluding any changes in behaviour by tenants and landlords

http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-question/Commons/2019-10-15/456

Local Housing Allowance – Parliamentary Written Answer

Steve McCabe: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 17 February 2016 to Question 26467, what his policy is on the process by which local authorities should calculate the maximum local housing allowance for properties in their area.

Justin Tomlinson: Local Housing Allowance rates for each Broad Rental Market Area are calculated by the Rent Officer Services for England, Scotland and Wales. Rent Officers collect evidence of achieved rents in each area and use this to calculate the 30^th percentile from a ‘list of rents’ for each property size. This is then used for setting the rates annually in accordance with current Government policy for uprating Local Housing Allowance. From April 2016, Local Housing Allowance rates will be frozen for 4 years. This means that rates will either remain at the April 2015 level or be set at the 30^th percentile from the ‘list of rents’, whichever is the lower.

Housing Benefit – Parliamentary Written Answer

Stephen Timms: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions whether he plans to take account of rent affordability in areas in determining which areas to exempt from the cap of one per cent on the uprating of local housing allowance.

Steve Webb: The Government has set aside £140 million over two years to help people most affected by the 1% cap on local housing allowance uprating in 2014-15 and 2015-16.  Our intention is that this funding will be used to increase the local housing allowance rates in areas where rent increases are causing a shortage of affordable accommodation. We do not know yet which areas will see the largest problems with affordability but will consider the available evidence, including rental data collected by the rent officer to decide how it is targeted.  We are currently considering the detailed policy design and will make further information available in due course.

                                           

Stephen Timms: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions whether he plans to (a) review the effect of changes to the uprating methodology and (b) re-baseline local housing allowance rates in 2015-16.

Steve Webb: Rent officers will publish annually both the new local housing allowance (LHA) rates and the 30th percentile of market rents so a comparison between the two can be made. This will provide transparency to the public and Parliament, enabling the monitoring of any divergences in each broad rental market area, allowing the Government to make flexible decisions about the impacts of the policy as the information becomes available.  The Government is committed to making savings from this measure until 2015-16. Subsequently it has the opportunity to reconsider the policy design, in light of the relationship between LHA rates and local rents.