Owen Smith – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Owen Smith on 2015-11-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the reasons for the increase in the number of in-work recipients of housing benefits in the last five years.

Justin Tomlinson

Under this Government the number of out-of-work Housing Benefit claimants has fallen and one key reason for this is that they have made the positive move into work. In this way it is unsurprising, therefore, that the number of in-work recipients of Housing Benefit should rise.