New bid to attract 500 signatures as petition gathers momentum
Hundreds give backing to housing benefit campaign
More than 300 people backed Inside Housing’s What’s the Benefit? campaign within three working days.
A total of 379 people have now signed a petition supporting the campaign and it has also attracted 225 followers on social networking site Facebook. A number of high profile backers have also signed up including Green Party leader Caroline Lucas, economist and Inside Housing columnist Tim Leunig and MP Glenda Jackson.
The campaign originally aimed to attract 300 signatures on its petition to the government but this is now being increased to 500 - the level needed for an official government response. It has three main aims: a parliamentary inquiry into the potential impact of the changes; for 500 people to sign the petition voicing concern about the government’s plans; and for readers to devise alternative solutions to reduce the £21 billion housing benefit bill that will be presented to government ahead of October’s comprehensive spending review.
Ms Lucas said she backed the campaign because ‘the government’s housing benefit proposals overwhelmingly penalise the poor’.
‘They’re likely to make thousands of people homeless, as cuts to housing benefit combine with increased repossessions and higher unemployment,’ she said. ‘I would, therefore, strongly endorse the call for a parliamentary inquiry into the impact of the changes, and absolutely support the wider What’s the Benefit? campaign.’
MPs clashed over the issue during a heated debate at Westminster Hall this week. During the debate, MP Andrew Slaughter praised the campaign and warned the proposed changes would lead to a marked increase in homelessness.
Oliver Heald, Conservative MP for North East Hertfordshire, said that housing benefit recipients should not expect to get fully subsidised accommodation if they have large families.
Mr Heald argued that ‘people with large families need to get a bit more realistic about what the way of the world really is’.
Answering questions in the debate, Steve Webb, minister of state for pensions, argued proposals to change the way local housing allowance is calculated - so it is based on the bottom 30 per cent of rents rather than the median - were based on the amount of rent that an ordinary person in a low-income job would normally pay.
‘If you take a low paid job, you do not have unlimited choices,’ he said. ‘You can’t live anywhere you like, you can’t live in as big a house as you like. Why should those people who take a job in the 30th percentile be in a less favourable position than those who are unemployed?’
Campaign backers
Gill Perkins, head of communications, Homeless Link:
‘Plans to introduce a 10 per cent cut in housing benefit for people on jobseeker’s allowance for more than a year don’t take account of the particular needs of the most vulnerable.
This may result in an impossible choice for charities - taking a 10 per cent drop in rents or evicting tenants into homelessness.’
Carol Roper:
‘Unless you are trying to create ghettos along the lines of French banlieues, you won’t introduce these changes to housing benefit.’
Tim Leunig, an academic in the department of economic history at the London School of Economics:
‘The housing benefit bill does need to be brought under control - and there are abuses here and there. But the only humane and cost-efficient way to reduce spending on housing benefit is to allow more houses to be built, so that housing becomes cheaper.’
Eric Tranter:
‘Many pensioners are dependant on housing benefit, council tax benefit, state pension and pension credit, myself included.
Having paid income tax and national insurance contributions throughout my working life, I don’t now expect to be threatened with the possibility of losing my home because of the proposed change in housing benefit arrangements.’
Glenda Jackson, Labour MP for Hampstead and Kilburn in London:
‘I absolutely support the campaign. The government needs to consider the impact of these changes: we cannot have a situation where people are forced out of the city of London.’
Get involved
We want your suggestions for alternative solutions to reduce the housing benefit bill so we can present them to the government before the autumn spending review. Here’s how to get involved with the campaign:
- Email your suggestions for fairer housing benefit reforms to editorial@insidehousing.co.uk
- Join our backers by emailing a picture of yourself and a line explaining why your support What’s the Benefit? to editorial@insidehousing.co.uk
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Readers' comments (20)
Anonymous | 16/07/2010 10:14 am
This is an important issue and I’d like to see more government funds spent on keeping the wider community together not just for those on housing benefits. I was forced to move about 12 miles away to a much poorer area because I couldn’t afford to buy a home in the area I’d been brought up in, I had to move away from my family and friends. I’d like to see money given to those in the private rented sector and for home owners so they can stay in their communities. Why should they be expected to leave their communities any more than those on Housing Benefits.
(If you’re wondering I’m being sarcastic. Much like everyone else those on housing benefits need to be realistic and adjust to the situations we all face, the budget cuts are going to affect us all.)
However I would say that there should be exceptions to the new housing caps for the most vulnerable like the elderly. Families with no working parents, working age people etc have no need to living in expensive areas.
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Sidney Webb | 16/07/2010 10:22 am
If rents are capped instead of benefits there will not need to be exceptions to defend the vulnerable, and the scale of savings to the taxpayer will be vastly more Mr/Ms A.
Yes the affordability issues effects all tenures, that is why removing the huge housing shortage, and so improving affodability for all, should be a priority. Sustainable, stable communities, where extended family support exists and people have a sense of true belonging have been recognised as contributing to lower needs interms of social support, benefits, health care costs, and adding to quality of life and happiness. If sarcasm is humour then you have managed to state a true word in jest, but perhaps it is just the truth your subconcious is aware of finding a way out.
Cap rents, build homes, restore 'Attlee pride' in Britain!
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Anonymous | 16/07/2010 11:30 am
Please give it a rest PSR, private rents cannot be capped, you want a free market with competion for prices so it must apply to all services including private landlords. If you dont like the price of something then dont buy it!
You can only cap benefits as they are under Govt control and this just means that claimantshave the same problems that those working with mortgages have when mortgage rates go up and their income stays the same. If you cant afford the new mortgage rate, you have to move house or get a new job, this isnt just confined to benefits.
Show some reality please, with some workable suggestions based on things we really can do within the budget constraints we have. It may not be perfect to cap benefits, but something has to be done, we cant all live where we would like to especially at taxpayers expense.
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Anonymous | 16/07/2010 1:42 pm
PSR, I wonder if you understand the statements you are making..."cap rents, build more affordable homes"... Yes and while we're at it, cap the price of fuel, free TV licenses for everyone and more ponies for all our kids to ride...
...well, if we don't have to qualify how these things are paid for or deliverable we may as well all make a wish list!
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Sidney Webb | 16/07/2010 2:47 pm
I've nothing against greater controls on fuel costs. Why should we pay more when raw material prices go down, then even more when they go up? Why should we dig deeper and deeper into our pockets while the company owners record ever higher profits, even through a recession?
Free TV licenses - that would be no TV licenses in reality as even this current government would not be so stupid as to issue a zero fee tax. Why not, it works everywhere else in the world with just a purchase tax.
Do you understand what you are saying dear patronising person without any name?
Who said I wanted a free market - the only freedom in the free market we have is the freedom to be exploted - previously that was called slavery, which at least was more honest.
Yes you can cap rents. A government has the ability to determine policy - that means that if it wants us to all where purple noses then that is the law - of course rents can be capped. They were capped previously, but that was reversed 30-year ago. Were you jumping up and down back then saying - but you can't uncap rents? Where is your logic - you can cap benefits but not rents?
The point is one of fairness and one of controlling the economy. Capping rents would be fairer, deliver more financial gain for the taxpayer, and stabilise the housing market volatitility to the benefit of the wider economy. It is a proven working method, not a wild stab in the dark.
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Anonymous | 16/07/2010 3:17 pm
PSR - Just a quick example for you. I work hard for the next 30 years, pay my mortgage and tax and save a little extra on the side. I decide to buy a 3 bedroom house to let out to provide me with an income for my retirement.
Everything is going fine, i'm achieving full market rent until you and your band of socialist white knights turn up and cap the rent, halving the income that i have worked for. I now can't afford to live despite working for my whole life and paying thousands of pounds in tax.
Why are you so keen on punishing those who plan for the future and rewarding those who do not contribute?
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Anonymous | 16/07/2010 3:36 pm
Dearest PSR, you still haven't clarified how in by restricting the price that landlords will receive for providing rented property this will suddenly incetivise the provision of the same?
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Anonymous | 16/07/2010 4:41 pm
What's the Benefit campaign... reading the forums there seems to be more support for the LHA caps, will Inside Housing provide a campaign/forum/voice in support of the changes to give a balanced view?
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Anonymous | 16/07/2010 4:48 pm
I doubt it. The forums on this website are mainly for socialist rants. At first glance many of them appear to intelligently reasoned. A closer look wil tell you that the only people to benefit from anything propsed on this website are social tenants without consideration for the wider economy or the working population.
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Anonymous | 16/07/2010 4:51 pm
I cannot support this campaign which effectively condemns huge swathes of people to remain on benefits for the rest of their lives by maintaining them in the poverty trap. HB and other benefits mean that people need to find jobs in the top 5-10% of earners to make it worthwhile coming off Income Support and its associated benefits.
Clealry something needs to be done to increase supply to bring the overall level of rents down and reduce dependence on the private rented sector's high rents in some parts of the country.
However, I don't see how these changes should impact on the likes of Eric Tranter unless he is living in a £600 pw property. He may have been victim of some scaremongering? As many, including me, have mentioned here and in other related pages, in the real world most people try and live within their means,including in respect of housing, and do not expect the taxpayer to assist them to live in plushest Kensington or Islington or upmarket areas of other cities.
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