Rebecca Long Bailey – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Rebecca Long Bailey on 2015-12-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will exempt adults with disabilities whose partner is unable to share the same bedroom due to that disability from the under-occupancy penalty.

Justin Tomlinson

The Courts recently accepted that disability in itself does not mean that couples are unable to share a bedroom and administering an exemption would be extremely challenging.

Instead, to help people with difficult situations, the Government has provided additional Discretionary Housing Payment (DHP) funding. Since the introduction of this policy DHP funding has been as follows:

• £180 million was provided in 2013/14
• £165million was provided in 2014/15 and £125 million in 2015/16.
• We have already announced a further £800 million in DHP funding for the next 5 years.