(2) what estimates he has made of the percentage of claimants subject to the local housing allowance who will experience a restriction in their rent as a consequence of the application of the allowance, broken down by bedroom entitlement.
No such estimates have been made.
The local housing allowance is being applied to new housing benefit claims in the deregulated private rented sector. Current claimants will not be moved to the new scheme unless they break their claim or change address.
We cannot estimate how many people will experience a restriction in their rent as a consequence of the local housing allowance because we do not know in advance what their accommodation choices and hence their contractual rent will be. Consequently, we do not know how their rent will compare with the local housing allowance rate appropriate for them.
The allowance is a more transparent way to calculate housing benefit entitlement. As a result, claimants should find it easier to shop around to find a property which has a rent set at or below the appropriate local housing allowance rate. The extent to which they do this will determine the proportion of claimants who have their rent restricted. In the Pathfinder areas the percentage of claimants with a shortfall fell from 59 per cent. to 40 per cent.
We will be monitoring the number of cases with excesses and shortfalls as part of the two year review of the national roll-out of the local housing allowance.