12. What steps he is taking to ensure that claimants of housing benefit are able to access accommodation in the private rented sector. (902040)

The key to making the private rented sector accessible to all is to build more homes for rent. That is why we are investing in the private rented sector through the £1 billion Build to Rent fund and giving £3.5 billion in guarantees to get builders building—and we will deliver 170,000 new affordable homes by 2015 through this process.

I came across the case of Christina last week. She is a homeless young woman, helped by Centrepoint, the charity. She wants to finish her college course, she wants to get a job, and she wants to move on with her life, but she cannot because no private landlord will take her while she is on housing benefit. Will the Minister now admit that the housing benefit changes are locking people on low incomes, including those who are in work, out of private housing altogether?

If the right hon. Gentleman wants to write to me about the specific individual concerned, I will attempt to address that case, but I reassure the House that we take seriously the need to deliver affordable housing. That is why the Government have clearly laid out that our principal priority in house building is supporting the affordable sector. Indeed, 170,000 new houses will be delivered by 2015, and we will soon announce a prospectus that will deliver 160,000 new homes by 2018. That is our commitment to people such as the one he mentioned.

The Minister and his colleagues have frequently told those who are in receipt of housing benefit and subject to the bedroom tax that they should downsize, yet for many people that means moving into the private sector, which either will not take them or, if it does, charges more rent, so costing the public purse more. Is it not time that the Government abandoned this totally ill-conceived policy?

There are more than 1 million one-bedroom flats on the market at the moment, and the Government are absolutely committed to ensuring that there are more houses out there. Every single penny that we are spending on housing is intended specifically to address that need, to ensure that vulnerable individuals are supported, with £470 million for the homeless and £445 million for transition through welfare reform. We have had to make those difficult decisions because the previous Labour Government failed to do so.