Danny
Alexander: I am grateful to the Under-Secretary for her
reassurance on the transfer ofdata. She answered the point
that I was getting at. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the
amendment. Amendment,
by leave, withdrawn.
Danny
Alexander: I beg to move amendmentNo. 265, in
clause 33, page 28, line 26, at
end add— ‘122G
Supply by rent officers of information to
claimants (1) The Secretary of
State may by regulation make provision about the obligation of a rent
officer to provide information to claimants of housing
benefit.
(2) The Secretary of State may impose on a rent
officer obligations with respect to making available to claimants of
housing benefit information about the basis of calculation of levels of
housing benefit. (3)
Regulations under subsection (1) may require the production of
information or documents used in calculating local levels of housing
benefit.’. I
shall dwell on the point about data for a bit longer. Amendment No. 265
deals explicitly with the provision of rent and the making available of
information that rent officers use in making their calculations. It
would allow for the provision of information to claimants and so, by
implication, make that information available more widely to the general
public. The amendment
and this subject are particularly important, not just in relation to
information on individual LHA rates, but more so to information that
leads to decisions about what constitutes a broad rental market area.
This issue is of concern to Members on both sides of the Committee and
it seems to me that the key issue is this: a decision by a rent officer
about what constitutes a broad rental market locality—to use the
shorthand—has a great impact on people in that area. For
example, would they decide that the entire city of Glasgow should be a
broad rental market area, or would they look within the city and
identify clear local markets where different conditions pertain and
where, in order to maintain the social mix, different LHA rates and
broad rental market areas should be
established? One
could say the same about rural areas. A decision about whether the
whole of Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey should be a broad
rental market area would be of great significance. That is especially
the case because—picking up on a point made by the hon. Member
for Daventry—in rural communities dominated by second homes and
holiday homes, rental prices are likely to be much higher than perhaps
in the more deprived parts of the city of Inverness. So those decisions
can have a real effect on where people can afford to live if in receipt
of housing
benefit. That it is
not possible to understand the basis on which rent officers make those
decisions is a matter of great frustration for many people. The
information that they use to make those decisions is not publicly
available. I welcome the fact that our deliberations have so far been
conducted in a spirit of openness, as was shown by the decision of the
Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform to make available all
documentation on the contracting-out arrangements. It would be in a
similar spirit of openness if the Government were to adopt the
amendment—it is a simple change—or something like it, to
enable greater public access to information supplied by rent
officers. In response
to the previous amendment, the Under-Secretary made the point that
making information publicly available could lead either to people
thinking that they are entitled to a certain allowance or indeed to
some landlords seeking to push up their rents to the level of the local
housing allowance. However, those considerations pertain only to
information relating to the rate of local housing allowance. In any
case, the rate of that allowance in pathfinder areas has been published
already—for example, on the Department’s
websites. Regardless of whether that is the case when the scheme is
rolled out, the rate of allowance for different categories in an area
will be obvious to everyone and so the questions about people thinking
they have an entitlement or landlords knowing what the rate is will
apply anyway. The
information that people will need to help them understand the
considerations taken into accountwhen establishing broad
rental market areas will notbe available. That is critical,
and I hope that the Under-Secretary will make it clear that the
Government accept the need for that information to be available in
relation to the broad rental market areas. Even if the amendment is not
acceptable to her, I hope that a suggestion will be made at a later
stage to enable
openness.
Kali
Mountford: I wish to give my hon. Friend the
Under-Secretary the opportunity to put it on record that she has agreed
to meet me and representatives of CHAS to discuss the proposal and
other matters, so that we can consider whether a degree of transparency
may properly be supplied. There could be dangers in that, as I outlined
at greater length earlier in our proceedings. I am grateful to my hon.
Friend for her acceptance of our concerns and willingness to consider
them further. I welcome this opportunity to put on record my thanks for
her
help.
John
Penrose: I should like to restate my concern about
transparency, but I welcome the Under-Secretary’s comments on
the previous amendment. She has said that she will reconsider the
matter, so I do not intend to make a long speech. I await Report with
interest. By that time, with any luck, she will have had a chance to
reconsider.
Mrs.
McGuire: We are on— [Interruption.] There was
a lack of a gateway of communication network there with the Whip. We
need to get semaphore
working. Many of the
comments that I made on the previous amendment also stand in relation
to amendmentNo. 265. We need to be careful how we put
information into the public domain. I appreciate that, under the
current housing benefit rules, it can be confusing for customers to
work out what their housing benefit will be, and that is one reason why
we are introducing the local housing allowance. We are committed to
publishing the rates for that allowance and the broad rental market
areas every month through the Rent Service. That will assist customers
greatly and allow them to see in advance the maximum level of housing
benefit for a particular size of accommodation and what it will mean
for them. It will provide a more transparent system of calculations and
of giving information to
customers. I assure
the Committee that the Rent Service answers questions from individual
customers about how decisions have been made and the direct impact that
they will have on those people. Of course the service must have regard
to public law requirements such as the Data Protection Act 1998 and the
Freedom of Information Act 2000. To ensure transparency and
accountability, the Rent Service will also publish maps of various
locations on its public website.
I hark back to my comment
earlier that it is difficult to publish some parts of the information
gathered, partly for the reason that I gave earlier—the
distorting effect that it could have on the local market. The data
could also undermine customer confidentiality and have an impact on the
relationship with local stakeholders. With those comments, and with
thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley, whose point I
appreciate and whom I will be delighted to meet, I ask the hon. Member
for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey to withdraw his
amendment.
Danny
Alexander: We might wish to discuss this issue again at a
later stage, particularly the information used to define what a broad
rental market area will be and whether an area should be one. I accept
fully what the
Under-Secretary says about the need to keep personal information
confidential, and I accept the worries about individual cases, but I
see no reason why information on the generic decision about where a
BRMA should be and what will constitute one should not be made public.
I accept that the Under-Secretary wishes to consider the matter
further, and I look forward to the results. I beg to ask leave to
withdraw the
amendment. Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn. Clause
33 ordered to stand part of the
Bill. Bill, as
so far amended, to be
reported. Further
consideration adjourned.—[Mr Heppell.]
Adjourned accordingly at
Five o’clock till Tuesday28 November at half-past Ten
o’clock.
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