Labour backers urged to fight benefit cuts
Former housing minister Yvette Cooper has called on Labour supporters and members in every part of the country to campaign against the planned changes to housing benefit.
Ms Cooper, speaking at an Ed Balls leadership campaign event in London yesterday evening, said the proposed government plans are a ‘savage and deeply unfair attack on some of the poorest people in the country’.
‘It will be deeply unfair in terms of increasing poverty, but also in increasing homelessness, increasing temporary accommodation and it will end up costing all of us more,’ she said. ‘It won’t help reduce the deficit, it will actually push up social costs and financial costs.’
In June, chancellor George Osborne announced plans to limit local housing allowance to between £250 and £400 per week depending on property size. LHA rates will be set using the bottom 30 per cent of rents, instead of the median, from October 2011 and will be linked to the consumer price index instead of the higher retail price index. Benefit will also be cut by 10 per cent for applicants who have been claiming jobseeker’s allowance for more than a year.
Ms Cooper, a former housing minister and chief secretary to the Treasury, said the changes are likely to lead to 100,000 people in London being unable to pay their rent.
A total of 1,113 people have now signed a petition as part of Inside Housing’s What’s the Benefit? campaign, which is calling for fairer reforms to housing benefit.
See our What’s the benefit? page for more on the campaign or to sign the petition
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Readers' comments (9)
Sidney Webb | 01/09/2010 2:00 pm
Great - what a shame the Labour Party did not feel so minded when the people were fighting the Poll Tax.
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Melvin Bone | 01/09/2010 2:11 pm
'Ms Cooper, a former housing minister'
I thought most Labour MPs had been Housing Minister at one time or another, they valued the post so much it was like a revolving door of Ministers...
'Ms Cooper, a former housing minister and chief secretary to the Treasury, said the changes are likely to lead to 100,000 people in London being unable to pay their rent.'
What ALL their rent? PART of their rent?
The vast majority of this 100,000 in London(London AGAIN!) will just have to cough up a few pounds towards their rent.
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Only One | 01/09/2010 2:18 pm
How can Labour get the country into such a financial mess then complain when an ever increasing benefit bill is unsustainable, and action needs to be taken. I'm sure will soon see Ms Cooper as Shadow Housing Minister such is her interest........
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Sidney Webb | 01/09/2010 2:36 pm
How can any government remove choice of tenure from whole generations and then complain when they can not afford the growing private rents, nor the benefits to pay them.
To lead on from the Poll Tax comment, what a shame the Labour Government failed to see it as important and thus failed to reverse the disasterous housing, economic and social policies of the 1980's. Even worse, what a shame a Labour Government saw fit to extend such injustice, and further remove choice, all for the sake of perpetuating short term financial benefit for the few.
The call to arms for the comrades appears to be too little too late - but perhaps it can be the start of better late than never. Cooper and Co have much to apologise for, and the sooner they do so the sooner they can be a credible opposition. Meanwhile, with the blood of their people still on their hands, their mouthing objection is insulting.
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gordon thompson | 01/09/2010 2:40 pm
Can we let go of the past. I can recitemany things the Tories got wrong in the past - and equally many things Labour got wrong in the past. Its history - and makes no difference now. The point is that the benefit changes will cause hardship - and not just in London - in fact DWP figures show that there are nine or ten areas worse hit by LHA than any London Borough. Also the nondep deductions and 10% reduction in benefits after 12 months will have a serious effect (albeit staggere or down the line). These things are not right - addressing tax evasion has the potential to make much greater savings so the initial focus should be there - or are the 'victims' of such a drive more likely to be Tory supporters.
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Anonymous | 01/09/2010 4:36 pm
Hello Melvin,
"The vast majority of this 100,000 in London(London AGAIN!) will just have to cough up a few pounds towards their rent."
Melvin, we are talking about families up and down the country struggling. Many will be elderly, disabled and unemployed.
Rents will reduce when we build more homes.
The deficit will fall when tax revenues fully recover and more people are in work.
The country wont benefit from reducing rents for already cash-strapped citizens.
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Chris | 01/09/2010 8:18 pm
Yvette Cooper is of course correct, but where is her alternative, and how much different would things be if she were in office instead of Shapps. The policies for housing for the past 30-years have been almost seamless - even the Policy Exchange conceeds that point.
In government Yvette Cooper failed to lead, in opposition she fails to present an alternative. Is there a point to her existance?
Late in the day Brown announced a priority for building affordable homes, welcome but 13-years too late. Today Balls offers a watered down shadow of an idea. The electorate deserve a clear alternative to Mags/Tony/Dave-Nick - its time to break the chain.
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Melvin Bone | 02/09/2010 9:25 am
'Anonymous | 01/09/2010 4:36 pm
Melvin, we are talking about families up and down the country struggling. Many will be elderly, disabled and unemployed.'
I appreciate that, but the headlines make out that these people will get no benefit at all. But the truth is the vast majority will only have to cough up a couple of pounds a week.
The way LHA works the vast majority of these claimants have already benefited from extra LHA allowances that were brought in by Labour over and above those envisioned when LHA first started.
So in effect Labour gave them extra LHA and is now (because of its notorious overpending) taking it back again...
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Anonymous | 02/09/2010 8:13 pm
When the Labour Government announced last year that it was to withdraw any payment of excess Local Housing Allowance above contractual rent, up to £15 per week, there was a rumble of discontent from its own backbenches, led by Frank Field.The new Coalition Government has taken an axe to Local Housing Allowance yet that same Mr Field has said nothing.Couldn't be anything to do with him being given a role by Mr Cameron as Poverty Tsar by any chance.No, surely he couldn't be bought of as cheaply as that , could he.
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