Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville on 2015-12-17.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have conducted a full assessment of the impact of the proposed one per cent cut in rent for social housing tenants on the eight Community Land Trusts (CLTs) that are Registered Providers and whether they will take steps to ensure exemptions for CLTs.

Baroness Williams of Trafford

The Government is committed to reducing welfare spending and is confident that registered providers will be able to adapt and manage these changes. The Welfare Reform and Work Bill provides for registered providers to apply for an exemption from the rent reductions if their financial viability is jeopardised. However, we do not expect providers to budget on the basis that an exemption will be automatically granted, as they should be making all possible efforts to manage the reductions.

The Government has made an assessment of the impact of the rent reduction measures (attached). This is at http://www.parliament.uk/documents/impact-assessments/IA15-006F.pdf.