PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Social Rented Housing: Housing Benefit (3 February 2020)

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what savings have accrued to the public purse as a result of the removal of the spare room subsidy; and what estimate his Department has made of the administrative costs of that policy since its introduction.

Asked by:
Sarah Owen (Labour)

The Removal of the Spare Room Subsidy (RSRS), introduced in 2013, encourages mobility within the social rented sector, strengthens work-incentives and makes better use of available social housing, while providing fairness to taxpayers on expenditure on Housing Benefit.

The policy has saved over £2 billion since its introduction in April 2013. A breakdown by financial year is provided in the table below:

Total Estimated Housing Benefit RSRS Deductions, 2013/14 to 2019/20 (£m pa)

2013/14	2014/15	2015/16	2016/17	2017/18	2018/19	2019/20
385	365	355	335	320	288	290

Notes

1. Deductions figures do not take into account any additional savings due to behavioural change before/after the policy has been introduced, for example moving to a smaller property to avoid a deduction.

1. Figures do not include claimants on Universal Credit (UC) with a removal of the spare room subsidy (RSRS) deduction, as these data are not currently available.

In terms of the cost of administering the RSRS, funding was made available to local authorities (LAs). Information is published in Housing Benefit subsidy circulars available on Gov.UK.

To date (2019/20) administrative funding for the RSRS policy has been around £68m (which includes funding for the administration of Discretionary Housing Payments associated with the introduction of the RSRS policy).

Answered by:
Will Quince (Conservative)
12 February 2020