Housing Benefit and Universal Credit — Regular Payments and Penalty for Excess Bedrooms — 12 Feb 2014 at 13:36

The majority of MPs voted against a financial penalty for those receiving housing related benefits on the basis of the number of bedrooms they have. The majority of MPs also voted in favour of housing related benefits being paid at regular intervals.

The vote was on if Ian Lavery MP (Wansbeck, Labour) would be permitted to bring in a Bill; the proposal was made under "ten minute rule"; a slot in the Commons timetable where MPs get ten minutes to propose a new Bill they'd like to bring in (and there's an opportunity for one ten minute speech in opposition).

The text of the rejected motion was:

• That leave be given to bring in a Bill to establish the right of persons in receipt of housing benefit and universal credit in the social housing sector to receive said benefits at regular intervals;to provide that such persons should not be financially penalised in relation to the number of bedrooms in a residence; and for connected purposes.

Details of the full text of the Bill are not generally available at this stage and MPs are voting based on the description of the Bill and following the speech made by the MP proposing it.

The Bill will now be "prepared", there are many further stages for it to go though in Parliament before it becomes law.

Cambridge MP Julian Huppert tweeted^[1] following the vote to say:

• "Labour engineered a vote by shouting against their own motion, otherwise it would have passed with no vote."

MP Chris Bryant raised a point of order following the vote during which he said:

• the Tory Whips were standing outside the Chamber during the Division and persuading Conservative Members not to vote, so we on the Opposition side of the House hope that that means that they have changed their minds and will get rid of the bedroom tax as soon as possible. If they will not, we will.

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• [1] Julian Huppert MP (Cambridge, Liberal Democrat), Twitter, 12 February 2014
• [2] Chris Bryant MP, (Rhondda, Labour), House of Commons, 12 February 2014

Debate in Parliament | Source |