Richard Boyd Barrett urges end to income limits on social housing

I move the Abolition of Income Limits Social Housing Bill. Now, why should we remove the income limits for social housing? I want to argue that there are many good reasons to do it, and to do it urgently. Every single week, every month, every year, there is a constant and growing flow of households who, having waited for years on housing lists, sometimes just before they are about to be allocated a house, sometimes waiting in excess of 10 years, are thrown off the housing list, because they got a pay rise, they got an increment, they got a promotion. And they get punished for that by getting taken off a housing list that they have been on, sometimes for maybe a decade or more. And then, in many, many cases, they are left completely in limbo, because their income is now too much to stay on the housing list, after being on it all those years, but too little to get a cost rental on income grounds, too little to get an affordable purchase home on any of the government schemes, and way, way too little to pay the extortionate rents and house prices that are out there in the market. So, you get punished for getting a pay rise, getting a promotion, by being absolutely screwed on the housing front. In some cases, I have come across people who are actually left homeless and trapped in emergency accommodation, because there is no chance they can ever get a social house because their income is too high. This is also leading to segregation. When government policy is supposed to be about sort of mixed tenure and they go on about it, in reality, your failure to raise the income thresholds mean that every single year, social housing has become more segregated to those on the lowest incomes. So, concentrating the people on the lowest incomes, essentially ghettoising them. That also creates a problem for local authorities, for the government, because it means the rental revenue that's coming in is less and isn't enough to maintain the social housing. Now, are what we are saying, is it unrealistic to do? Well, no. As Luke French, a transition year student from St Andrews, who was in my office last week, did the research, and he was looking at Vienna, where their thresholds mean that 75-80% of people are eligible for social housing. In Sweden, there are no income limits at all. In Denmark, no income limits at all. Anybody can access social housing. If their income goes up, then the rent they pay goes up. It means we don't have segregation, there's not a stigma attached to social housing, there's a large amount of revenue currently going into the pockets of corporate landlords, who are profiteering from the housing crisis, coming back to the state to maintain and build social housing. So, it is win-win-win for society, for those that need housing. Of course, to build this level of social housing, we need the state to start building, and that's why we're a state construction company. But this is something, this is a bill the government should support. Deputy Murphy. Oh, it is a bill of service. And that's how it années 1, not only one feels a cloud of money as a symbol, but you want some sort of legislation against the cashstat CAD iy, which we have spending on on the list. I was looking atеты-plus years ago. I am going for the next day of the day I have to pay some money if I should, I will pay my bills, at day now. I didn't know that the plants have my enough money. How that have money can be to pay for resources but press the j gland and earn from it, I will pay my money in the utility.