During Levelling-Up Questions today, I raised with the Secretary of State how housing benefit, which has been frozen since 2020, now completely fails to match the cost of renting in Bristol.

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism looked at the advertised rents for 363 Bristol properties and could only find one that was covered by the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rate, making Bristol the least affordable major regional English city for renters.

The Minister at least said the Government is keeping the LHA rate under review and he would be willing to look at evidence from Bristol, so I will be following this up with a letter appealing for a rise very soon. See here for the original story from The Bristol Cable , which gave rise to my question.