Opposition Day — Application of Housing Benefit Cuts to Supported Housing — 27 Jan 2016 at 15:50

The majority of MPs voted in favour of planned housing benefit cuts applying to those in supported housing.

The motion rejected in this vote was:

  • That this House
  • believes that the Government’s planned cuts to housing benefit support for vulnerable people in specialist housing, including the elderly and people who are homeless, disabled or fleeing domestic violence, risk leading to the widespread closure of this accommodation;
  • notes the concern from charities, housing associations, councils and others across the country about the severe effect of these cuts;
  • further notes that supported housing has already suffered as a result of Government spending cuts and policy decisions;
  • notes that the planned changes will apply to all new tenancies from April 2016;
  • notes the clear evidence that the Government’s proposal to mitigate these cuts with discretionary housing payments will not work; and
  • calls on the Government to urgently exempt supported housing from these housing benefit cuts and to consult fully with supported housing providers to safeguard this essential accommodation.

The housing benefit cuts referred to appear, according to the debate, to be the Autumn 2015 spending review announcement to:

  • cap the amount of rent that Housing Benefit will cover in the social sector to the relevant Local Housing Allowance, which is the rate paid to private renters on Housing Benefit.

and the Housing Benefit changes in the 2015 summer budget which included:

  • Ending automatic entitlement to Housing Benefit for out-of-work 18-21 year olds
  • Reducing social sector rents by 1% each year for 4 years from 2016-17
  • Limiting backdating awards to 4 weeks
  • Changing Mortgage Interest support from a welfare payment to loan

Debate in Parliament | Source |

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Party Summary

Votes by party, red entries are votes against the majority for that party.

What is Tell? '+1 tell' means that in addition one member of that party was a teller for that division lobby.

What are Boths? An MP can vote both aye and no in the same division. The boths page explains this.

What is Turnout? This is measured against the total membership of the party at the time of the vote.

PartyMajority (No)Minority (Aye)BothTurnout
Con285 (+2 tell) 0087.0%
DUP0 5062.5%
Green0 10100.0%
Independent0 2066.7%
Lab0 182 (+2 tell)079.3%
LDem0 4050.0%
PC0 30100.0%
SDLP0 30100.0%
SNP0 38070.4%
UKIP1 00100.0%
UUP0 1050.0%
Total:286 239082.0%

Rebel Voters - sorted by party

MPs for which their vote in this division differed from the majority vote of their party. You can see all votes in this division, or every eligible MP who could have voted in this division

Sort by: Name | Constituency | Party | Vote

NameConstituencyPartyVote
no rebellions

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