Thank you to everyone who has contacted me about Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates.

At the Autumn Statement in November, the Chancellor confirmed that LHA rates will rise to the 30th percentile of local market rents from April 2024.

LHA is a critical element of people’s income. But I am concerned the Government has no consistent policy on how it should relate to real-world rents. In 2008, when LHA was introduced, rates were originally set at the 50th percentile of market rents. They were reduced to the 30th percentile by the Coalition Government in 2011, and since then, there have been a series of below inflation-increases and freezes.

Despite rising rents and cost-of-living pressures, LHA remained frozen for the third year in a row in 2023-24.

I share your concern that this has caused hardship for many families. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the decision to freeze LHA in 2023-24 instead of increasing it in line with local rents reduced support by an average of £50 per month for nearly 1.1 million households.

As a result, many people have been forced to make up the difference between their rent and LHA, with reductions in spending on other essentials such as food and heating, or risk getting into rent arrears, which puts them at risk of homelessness.

We see the consequences playing out in our communities with rough sleeping on the rise, growing poverty and homelessness services stretched to breaking point. According to Government data, more than 150,000 households were assessed as homeless in 2022/23, an 8.6% rise on 2021/22 and a 12.1% rise on pre-pandemic levels.

I want to see measures to fix the housing market. I support calls to deliver the biggest boost to affordable, social and council housing for a generation, because I believe a decent, secure and affordable home is the foundation to a healthy economy.

In the immediate term, I urge ministers to fundamentally reform the sector to tilt the balance of power towards renters and make renting fairer, more secure, and more affordable. I have long supported calls for more rights and better protections for tenants, including a ban on section 21 evictions to prevent renters from being uprooted with little notice, and minimum four month notice periods for landlords.

Thank you once again to all who have contacted me on this issue.