Emily Thornberry – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Emily Thornberry on 2015-12-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what information his Department holds on the number of (a) local authorities and (b) housing associations which had planned, prior to the announcement in paragraph 1.125 of the Spending Review and Autumn Statement 2015, to raise rents above any of the relevant local housing allowance rates between 2016 and 2020.

Brandon Lewis

The Department does not hold information about the individual rent setting plans of local authorities or housing associations.

At Budget 2015 the Government announced its intention to reduce rents for housing association and local authority tenants, by 1% a year, for four years, from April 2016. This will help protect social tenants from rising housing costs, whilst protecting taxpayers from rising costs of subsidising rents through housing benefit. We expect local authorities and housing associations to be planning on this basis.