§ Mr. Nealeasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he intends to make changes in the housing benefit scheme.
§ Mr. NewtonAfter the changes announced earlier in the year—including the high rent scheme changes—the Government do not intend to make any changes of substance in the housing benefit scheme pending the outcome of the independent review of the scheme.
The November changes include a special increase of 50p in the child's needs allowance which, with the normal up-rating increase, will raise it from £11.95 to £12.85 and make it a higher proportion of a married couple's basic needs allowance than ever before; but we will not be proceeding in advance of the review with the further increase of £1 previously proposed for April 1985.
We are, however, proposing to close an unintended loophole in the Housing Benefit Regulations which allows a grown-up son or daughter living at home to receive a rent allowance for the rent element of any board and lodging payment made to his or her parents. People living in their family's household have never been regarded as having any liability for rent or rates in their own right; and neither 382W Friend the Minister for the Arts to the Chairman of the Education Science and Arts Select Committee on 31 July last.