CutsCheck: concessions on housing benefit cap?
Concessions are being prepared by the government tonight I understand, after Conservative MPs expressed concern about the forthcoming housing benefit cuts. Around a dozen Tory MPs representing London seats met this afternoon in Westminster to air their grievances over the planned housing benefit cap. They want special measures for the capital – either a delay in the introduction of the cap (currently scheduled for April) or a higher cap, I’m told.
Under plans announced in the Budget, housing benefit is to be limited to £400 a week for a four bedroom house, or £290 for a two bedroom flat. But because housing costs in London are so high, rents in many parts of the city exceed that. So there are fears the poor will be driven out of the centre. Labour says it amounts to social cleansing (you can watch the Commons ding dong today on the subject at the bottom of the page). Some Tory MPs fear the opposition may have a point.
One told me: “It’s pretty important that Iain Duncan Smith [the work and pensions secretary] realises that London is going to need some kind of transitional arrangements – an elongated time frame for London or a higher cap. We are going to be packing trains full of the poor and most disadvantaged and packing them off to outer London.”
Some councils are booking bed and breakfast accommodation on the coast to house people who are driven out of their homes.
Two other Tory MPs demanded concessions for London at the meeting. The party’s deputy chairman Michael Fallon, who also attended, will now pass their concerns back to ministers.
Tonight, though, an aide to the welfare secretary insisted their appeals will not fall on deaf ears. She said: “We are absolutely committed to reform of housing benefit. What we want is for people to engage in constructive dialogue. We are happy to look at options with regard to certain areas of London to make sure that no one is unfairly targeted. We understand all the human consequences of these policies.”
Watch this space (and Cathy Newman’s report on the topic for Channel 4 News below).
There are 17 comments on this post
I Just wanted to say I`m Disabled and suffer from cerebral palsy and I`m 43 years of age. I Live on My benefits and my illness is becomming Progressively worse and the worry and stress these cuts have caused me are surreal and what gets me is I`m entitled to these benefits and have been all my life, so what right have these people got to slash my benefit or upset my life. The housing benefit is the same…
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As much as I do appreciate the concern people have, and there is no doubt a serious issue around affordable housing, I have some sympathy for the view that non-benefit claimants, like myself, have had to move in order to find work and to find suitably priced accommodation. If by moving the claimants can find work, even if they are further from family and friends, this could be more beneficial to the quality of their life in the longer term.
Otherwise, there is an incentive for people to stay on benefits as they get better accommodation in a more central location than people who are working – that seems very bizarre!
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The problem with cutting housing benefit is that one will have to make up the rest of the money towards the rent or mortgage per month illegally!! Therefore more people who are on benefits will surely do work on the side leading to mass benefit fraud worse than it is already!! There are thousands out there who cannot get a job to cover rent or housing costs so they remain on benefits almost indefinately!! Go in to any Job Seekers Allowance department and just see how much per hour firms are offering, 5,7 pound at the most before tax! I was earning 5 pound per hour 30 years ago!! Just look at the prices for everything around us, its a complete joke against these p-ss poor wages firms are offering!! I really cannot see how Cameron is going to sort it, its a serious problem!!!There is just NO incentive for bums or indeed even unemployed potentially hard workers to find a job when they simply are going to be worse off financially when doing so!! Crime will zoom up and policing costs as well if they cap benefit as some of these people are going to be hundreds worse off per month!!
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Don’t understand why people assume that only those that don’t work claim housing benefit?
Plenty of working single mothers, like myself, who are earning up to £30k have to claim HB to make their family’s ends meet!
Do you think single parents library workers, nurses, midwives, bank clerks, housing advisors, shop assistants etc are earning enough to pay their rent?
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I agree, cases should be studied individually so that only thr deserving get housing behefits.
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I am retired and claim housing benfit in an outer London borough to pay rent to a private landlord for my flat. If they go ahead with the cuts I will be unable to pay my rent. What will happen to me? I am not of working age so the idea of encourging people back to work doesn’t apply to me.
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Wouldn’t an easier solution be a rent cap on private landlords? This would contain the cost of housing benefit or reduce it accordingly. Why should private landlords be subsidised by the State?
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aren’t you missing the point? if landlords aren’t subsidized to at least the market level, then they won’t rent to housing benefit claimants and will rent privately, consequently shrinking the available stock pool
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I agree with Gary cap the rents, we are all in this together
why shouldnt private lanlords shoulder some of the costs,
? ? ?
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I used to live in Highbury. I had a fall in my income so….guess what I had to move somewhere cheaper, Walthamstow. I earn my own money and I pay tax. Why should the housing benefit claiments who lived next door to me get to stay and I have to leave? It makes no sense. As a child I moved several times while growing up. So did most of my friends. There is nothing wrong with that.
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Part of this problem is that it looks like private landlords are squaring up for a fight with the Government-the more images we have of the poor and disadavanted being shunted down to the coast the more these landlords will resist any attempt to lower rents.You live at say Reading and commute to work in London everyday-stress,strain and cost-you then find that a house near your work is occupied by a Somali and his family (turfed out of Holland by the Dutch) or someone who has made no effort to work at all.There is a warped view that everyone except the hard working is entitled to benefits as if they are there from birth.About time this all changes.
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Will the Housing Benefit cap be imposed nationally? The reason why I ask is because my local authority already caps Housing Benefit for one bedroom properties at £90 per week, a limit of £250 per week will be a massive increase.
Also, little is being said about the number of single people aged 25-34 who will be turfed out of their homes, one bedroom flats that they moved into while over 25 and will have to move out because they’re under 35. People who may have to move into a hostel. I personally am 33 years old. receive £85 per week Housing Benefit (and pay £70 per week rent) and under the current local rate caps see my benefit being cut not to £70 per week but £42 per week. If I end up in a hostel I’ll be costing my local authority £140 per week, have to pay £40 per week out of my Jobseekers Allowance.
There is no greater disincentive to work then homelessness, if I somehow manage to find work in a shrinking job market while long-term unemployed and homeless I will have to pay that £180 per week out of my salary in full! This effectively removes me from the job market (it is possible to work full time and take home less than £180 per week)
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Frankly Housing benefit cuts will create squatter camps never seen before, better not rent private housing that is too expensive and cut other benefits, people will have a roof over their head and make ends meet on other things
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Another option would be for “unscrupulous landlords” to seek advice on how to register their properties (or sell them on to) hostels, after all, if the one bedroom rate in certain areas of London is £400 per week, how much would a hostel receive? £600? £800? £1000 per week??
If it’s true about unemployed HB claimiants living in properties that workers “can only dream of” then these landlords will be in a bit of bother, they can’t rent to workers, they can’t afford the rent, they can’t rent to HB claimants, their benefits no longer cover the rent, so instead of that nice clean, decent jobseeker trying hard to find work while taking £400 per week from hard working taxpayers, they’ll have a drug addict, alcoholic or ex-convict lowering the value of their street while taking £1000 per week!!
Still, if it lowers the welfare budget…
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Apparently the caps mentioned above will be the highest allowable limits – most authorities will have significantly lower caps (which will get even lower). Currently LAs set the caps at the 50th percentile (i.e. the median) rent for that type of property in that area. The government are intending to reduce this to the 30th percentile (i.e. 70% of private rents for that type of property in that area will be more expensive). As it is, HB only covers rent; and if the rent includes utility bill costs, the benefit you get is reduced to eliminate the theoretical contribution to utility bills.
See also this FactCheck article.
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Let’s face it – dumping HB payers in the outer London suburbs will be anathema to the almost wholly Conservative councils – hence Boris Johnson & these Tory MPs concerns
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To those who say there is a disincentive to work because they will be worse off – welcome to the real world that the rest of us have been living in. I know I am a plum for actually getting off my ass and doing some work when I could potentially have a better life and more income if I did nothing and claimed benefits, but I don’t believe in something for nothing.
And to the lady who talks about 30k? Welcome to the real world love, why should all of us who earn less than that AND pay the taxes that pay for your benefit have to subsidise YOU!?
If you are genuinely ill, I believe society should look out for you, but if you are just lazy, stop leeching off me!
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