Mark Isherwood
Shadow Housing Minister Mark Isherwood has accused the First Minister of maximising the pain of the ‘bedroom tax’ for political gain.
Speaking in the Chamber this week, Mr Isherwood challenged Carwyn Jones over the Welsh Government’s failure to take action to mitigate the impact of the removal of the spare room subsidy.
He said: “Of course, Labour introduced this policy for housing benefit recipients in the private rented sector in 2008. However, Department for Work and Pensions guidance was issued to every local authority in March 2011, and again in July 2012, on discretionary housing payments. It said that disabled people who were in adapted accommodation or were reliant on local support networks should be prioritised for discretionary housing payments.
“We know that Welsh Government figures show that only three out of 22 local authorities had spent even half of the discretionary housing payments halfway through the financial year, even though unspent money has to go back to the Treasury at the end of the year. Why is that, and what are you doing to ensure that that money is going to where it should be going, rather than being returned to the Treasury?”
The First Minister replied: “Well, it is a matter, of course, for local authorities to ensure that they get the money out of the door, as they have been asked to do” and spoke of increased demand for discretionary housing payments
Mr Isherwood added: “I asked him about supply, not demand, which has inevitably increased after the reforms took affect. Once again this lazy First Minister is passing the buck, doing nothing and maximising people’s pain for party political gain. It was his Government that delayed action, only announcing investment for a small number of one and two bedroom properties and looking to the private-rented sector to tackle homelessness months after the changes took affect, after having slashed social housing for over a decade as waiting lists and homelessness mushroomed.
“Meanwhile discretionary housing payments budgets given directly by the UK Government to Welsh Local Authorities have been increasing, but almost three years after guidance was issued to them by the Department for Work and Pensions, too many who should have received help were denied it and too much money to fund this help was not allocated.”
