Helen Hayes – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Helen Hayes on 2015-12-01.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the effect of freezing local housing allowance on working families in privately-rented accommodation.

Justin Tomlinson

As Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation levels are close to zero, the impact of freezing Local Housing Allowance rates will have no impact in 2016/17 when compared to the counterfactual of uprating by CPI. (In future years, 30 per cent of the savings from the ‘freeze’ will be used to create further Targeted Affordability Funding to help those areas where rent increases are causing a shortage of affordable accommodation.)