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Housing and Planning Bill

Paul_Treloar_AgeUK
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Came across a good blog on the progress or otherwise of the rather controversial Housing and Planning Bill.

http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/the-better-part-of-valour/7014864.blog?utm_source=Housing60&utm_medium=email&utm_content=article_link&utm_campaign=H60

Can’t profess to have followed all of this particular piece of legislation but it does feel like there is an unstated ambition running throughout to reduce social housing provision as much as possible for as many people as possible.

Paul_Treloar_AgeUK
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Meg Hillier, chair of the public accounts committee was even blunter: “The approach to paying for this policy seems to be entirely speculative. On the basis of evidence heard by our committee, there are no costings or workings out,” she has said. “We are not talking about a ‘back of an envelope’ calculation – there is no envelope at all.”

The wheels are finally coming off this half-baked, ideological housing bill

Article looking at Public Accounts Committee report on Housing Bill, which in and of itself is quite unusual as the committee only usually looks at policies already implemented, rather than ones yet to come.

Rehousing Advice.
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The passage of the bill has really been overshadowed by the pact between Housing associations and the Government. Whether the financial wheels come off the Bill will in part depend largely on if the government and Housing associations can now deliver on their privately agreed deal.

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This House of Commons Library briefing papers provides detailed information on all the amendments (both government and non government) made to the Housing and Planning Bill during its Committee, Report and Third Reading stages in the House of Lords.

http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/CBP-7562

[ Edited: 29 Apr 2016 at 05:01 pm by shawn mach ]
Paul_Treloar_AgeUK
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Pay to Stay will only apply to the taxable income of the main two earners. Tax credits and benefits including child benefit, DLA and PIP are excluded from the calculation and anyone on housing benefit or receiving the housing element of universal credit will be exempt. The minister confirmed yesterday that this covers people who become eligible for housing benefit because of the higher rent as well as existing claimants.

From Inside Housing blog Price to pay

This has me utterly baffled. Tenants earn enough in previous tax year such that Pay top Stay rules applied by local authority and their rent is increased accordingly. Because of this rent increase, they are now able to make a claim for housing benefit because of their higher rent. Because of their higher rent, they are exempt from the Pay to Stay rules and their rent goes down again? Am I reading this wrong - do they simply mean that the HB payments are exempt from the next year’s calculation, rather than, as worded, “anyone on housing benefit or receiving the housing element of universal credit will be exempt”?

Confused of Cornwall.

Paul_Treloar_AgeUK
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So the Bill finally received Royal Assent yesterday and will now come into effect.

Good round-up blog from Shelter here, with this rather bleak warning:

Indeed by our reckoning, half of the people the government intend to help will over time be left with nowhere left to live but an increasingly unstable, expensive private rented sector, with increasing numbers holed up in temporary accommodation.

The problems for the Housing and Planning Bill are really just beginning…