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Rented Housing: Rents

Volume 467: debated on Thursday 15 November 2007

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what assessment she has made of the impact of her policy of rent restructuring. (164195)

No formal assessment of the policy has been made since the recommendations of the three-year review undertaken in 2004, which made three recommendations:

higher bedroom weights for three- and four-bed properties, and new, higher weightings for properties with five and six (or more) bedrooms;

from April 2005, using the same formula for restructuring local authority rents as that which is currently used for restructuring RSL rents, and adopting the RPI as the inflation measure used in calculating local authority rent increases.

local authorities should ignore the downward limit of RPI+ 0.5 per cent. minus £2 per week on rent changes, in order to achieve restructuring on all properties for which rents need to fall by 2011-12. The Housing Corporation should also encourage associations to do the same, where their finances permit.

After further consultation with stakeholders, these recommendations were implemented in full from 1 April 2006.

The Government wish to see the policy implemented for a period of time before considering a formal assessment.