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Housing Benefit

Volume 170: debated on Monday 2 April 1990

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51.

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will increase housing benefit in real terms in the next financial year.

The uprating of housing benefit and community charge benefit personal allowances and premiums takes effect in April 1990 and will take expenditure on those benefits to more than £6·3 billion in the financial year 1990–91. Expenditure on comparable items in the current financial year is estimated at £5·6 billion. In April certain premiums are being increased above the amount required to maintain their value in real terms; these are the family disability, disabled child and lone parent premiums. In October, the lone parent's earnings disregard is to increase from £15 to £25, and a carer's premium is being introduced.

The recently announced increases in the capital limits, to £16,000 for housing benefit and community charge benefit and to £8,000 for income support and family credit, also take effect from April. The change will benefit up to a quarter of a million people at a new cost for social security benefit estimated at £120 million a year.