Emily Thornberry – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Emily Thornberry on 2015-12-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate he has made of the number of (a) social and (b) affordable housing tenants who will be affected by planned caps on housing benefit in the social sector in (i) 2018-19, (ii) 2019-20 and (iii) 2020-21.

Justin Tomlinson

The introduction of Local Housing Allowance limits to social sector tenants in receipt of Housing Benefit or the Universal Credit houisng element will only apply from April 2018, where new tenancies have been taken out or renewed after April 2016.

Tenants who take on a new tenancy or renew a tenancy will have the opportunity to consider whether they can afford to take on the property before committing to it. Because of the element of choice is it not possible to accurately estimate the number of (a) social and (b) affordable housing tenants who will be affected by this measure.