Member's statement: Local Housing Allowance

Member's statement by Ms Kellie Armstrong on 23 June 2026.

MLA

Ms Kellie Armstrong

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

23 June 2026

Type

Member's statement

Business

Members' Statements

Heading

Local Housing Allowance

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5636713

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Mr Speaker, I do not know whether you have noticed, but the cost-of-living crisis no longer seems to dominate our headlines in the way that it once did, but, for many households in Northern Ireland, it is a daily reality. Families continue to pay rising food costs; energy bills remain significantly higher than pre-crisis levels, thanks to the activities of war; and increasing rents in the private and social rented sectors are hammering lots of families. For many people, wages and benefits are simply not keeping pace with the cost of living. That is why the local housing allowance is so important. The local housing allowance determines the maximum amount of housing support available to people renting in the private sector through housing benefit or universal credit. While rates were reset in April 2024 to reflect the lowest 30% of local market rates, the Westminster Government subsequently froze those rates for 2025-26 and confirmed in January that they would remain frozen for 2026 and 2027. The Resolution Foundation has highlighted the consequences of that approach. As rents continue to rise, housing support is falling further behind actual housing costs, and its analysis shows that rent increases have already significantly outpaced household incomes. Across the UK, nearly half of private renters receiving universal credit no longer have their full costs recovered. For Northern Ireland, where private rents have risen sharply in recent years and too many households already struggle with fuel, food and childcare costs, that freeze places additional pressure on families who have the least room in their budgets to absorb it. Every pound spent covering a rent shortfall is a pound that cannot be spent on heating a home, feeding a family or supporting children's opportunities. If we are serious about tackling poverty, reducing homelessness and helping working families through the continuing cost-of-living pressures, housing support must keep pace with housing costs. The Westminster Government's decision to freeze the local housing allowance risks pushing more households in Northern Ireland into hardship. The bookies' favourite for Prime Minister is Andy Burnham, and I draw the House's attention to the fact that, as mayor, he called for local housing allowance rates to be unfrozen and to be increased. If he becomes Prime Minister, perhaps he can change something that Westminster imposed on all of our families who are in poverty. At a time when so many families are already stretched to breaking point, the Government made a bad choice, and I hope that they will rectify that.

416 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 16:07 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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