Question reference: S5W-19890
- Asked by: Michelle Ballantyne, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
- Date lodged: 13 November 2018
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Current status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 27 November 2018
Question
To ask the Scottish Government by what date the Universal Credit flexibility in Scotland that allows the mitigation of the so-called spare room subsidy at source will be fully operational.
Answer
We are committed to abolishing the bedroom tax at source as soon as possible using the Universal Credit flexibility powers, however, we are disappointed that the UK Government made the decision to delay the ability for us to do so.
UK Government have confirmed that they will now not be able to implement the solution through the Universal Credit (UC) system before May 2020. We will work with DWP to deliver this as soon after this date as we can.
We will continue to mitigate the bedroom tax through Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs) until abolition and expect to spend £51 million this year to achieve this.
We are also calling on DWP to take active steps with us to support Local Authorities with the administration of DHPs, which has the potential to become more difficult as UC rolls out, to ensure that around 70,000 households affected by the bedroom tax will continue to benefit from the additional support the mitigation provides.