David Cameron today dismissed speculation that the government would climb down over its cap on housing benefit, despite claims that the policy could drive 200,000 poorer people out of major cities.
The prime minister made clear his determination to stand firm on the controversial proposals at prime minister's questions.
His comments came as Labour stepped up its campaign against the decision to cut housing benefit for people who have been out of work for 12 months and lobbied Liberal Democrat MPs concerned by the plans.
Cameron dismissed accusations that he was "out of touch" and made it clear that the coalition was "sticking by" its proposals, insisting it was not "fair" that claimants lived in properties that many workers could "only dream of".
He insisted there was "no reason" why anyone should be made homeless as a result of the changes, and said there were plenty of jobs for those out of work for more than 12 months in high-rent areas such as London.
The prime minister admitted to MPs that welfare reforms were "difficult", but said they were necessary to protect other areas of spending, such as schools and the NHS, from austerity cuts.
The coalition announced a range of housing benefit changes via the June emergency budget and last week's spending review, including limiting housing benefit for a four-bedroom home to around £400 a week and cutting payouts by 10% when people had been on jobseeker's allowance for more than a year.
Cameron stressed that the cap would still leave claimants able to receive around £20,000 a year for housing.
"We are going forward with all the proposals we put in the spending review and the budget," he told the Commons.
"I know you don't like the answer that we are sticking to our policies – but we are sticking to our policies.
"The point everyone in this house has got to consider is: are we happy to go on paying £30,000, £40,000, £50,000? Are constituents working hard to give benefits so people can live in homes that they can only dream of? I don't think that is fair."
Opposition to the coalition plans is mounting, with the Lib Dem deputy leader, Simon Hughes, criticising the proposals as "draconian" and saying ministers would have to "negotiate" to get parliamentary approval.
The Labour frontbencher Chris Bryant yesterday told MPs the housing benefit cuts would lead to "cleansing" of poorer people from areas with high rents, such as London, while some Conservative backbenchers with urban constituencies have also voiced concerns.
Today, Ed Miliband used PMQs to hit out at the prime minister over the plans, which the Labour leader described as "a complete shambles".
Cameron was also confronted by Bob Russell, a Lib Dem backbencher, who warned that the proposals were "no laughing matter" for the thousands of children who faced the prospect of homelessness as a result.
Miliband referred to the unease over the policy as he told Cameron: "Isn't the truth the prime minister just doesn't get it? He is out of touch – other people will pay the price for his cuts. Isn't it time he thought again on housing benefit?"
He added that Cameron had "dug himself in" over the 10% cut and asked what advice he would give to a family facing "such a large drop in their income".
The PM told him: "We will be having, in the work programme, the best and biggest programme to help those people back into work."
The prime minister referred to the situation in London, where he contrasted the 37,390 people who had been on jobseeker's allowance for more than a year and would be affected by 10% housing benefit cut with the 30,000 new vacancies which he said arose in the capital each month.
"That is 400,000 vacancies a year – we want to get those people back into work," he said.
Miliband fired back that 500,000 workers in the public sector alone were expected to lose their jobs as a result of the cuts.
"It's clear that your policy on housing benefit is a complete shambles," he told Cameron. "In London alone, councils are saying 82,000 people will lose their homes. They are already booking the bed and breakfast accommodation."
He pressed Cameron on how many people he expected to lose their homes as a result of the policy, to which the prime minister replied: "If you are prepared to pay £20,000 in housing benefit, there is no reason why anyone should be left without a home."
The Department of Communities and Local Government is to grant £10m from its homelessness budget to councils' funds in the Greater London area to help households affected by housing benefit changes.
Funding may be used to provide financial advice, renegotiating rents and, where necessary, helping people to move to more affordable accommodation.
The money will go to town hall discretionary funds, which can be used in special cases. Authorities could dip into the pot if, for example, a family's rent was more than £400 but one of their children attended a local special school.
Cameron faced further Commons pressure when Russell, the Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester, urged him to "look again" at the changes.
"Earlier, you and the leader of the opposition had fun and games over housing benefit cuts," he said.
"This is not a laughing matter for the thousands of children who could well become homeless. I'm confident that this was an unintended consequence, because the cost of putting children in bed and breakfast accommodation is greater than housing benefit. Will you look again, please?"
Cameron agreed that the policy was an "incredibly serious issue" and said the housing benefit bill was "out of control", up 50% over the last five years for working-age adults.
"The fact is there will be many people working in Colchester, or working in Doncaster, or working in west Oxfordshire, who are paying their taxes, who could not dream of living in a house that cost £20,000 to rent each year," he said.
Douglas Alexander, the shadow work and pensions secretary, said after the Commons exchange that Cameron had "further raised the stakes" and divided his coalition by confirming his policy to hit those who cannot find work by cutting the cash they get to help with housing costs.
He said he had written to thousands of Labour members urging them to join the campaign against the reforms, and had also spoken to Lib Dems MPs in the last few days.
Alexander will hold a summit with representatives of housing organisations and charities tomorrow to hear their views.
He said: "Although he is clearly not listening to the Lib Dems, we are ready to work with all sides of the house to defeat these unfair plans."
But not everyone is opposed. Tory-led Westminster council reiterated its backing for the cap today, saying more than 1,000 households in the area were currently receiving in excess of the limit being mooted.
The authority's housing allowance is currently £1,000 a week for a four-bedroom house and £2,000 for a five-bedroom.
Philippa Roe, who deals with housing issues for the council, said: "The intention of the cap is not to force claimants from central London and other city centres, but to support the reduction of the national housing benefit bill that was spiralling out of control and restrain a system which was driving up and distorting private sector rents.
"Of course, those people who have a genuine need to be housed in their local area, those on low incomes, pensioners who have lived in their neighbourhood all their lives and pupils sitting their exams, should be prioritised."
But Mark Field, the Tory MP for the Cities of London and Westminster, warned that the April 2013 date for introducing the changes could be too soon.
"The speed at which the cap is being put into place does perhaps ignore some of the huge logistical problems for some local authorities in arranging for more accommodation, but also coping with an influx of new claimants," Field said.
The MP added that 80% of the households currently handed the benefit in his constituency were receiving more than the cap level.
Comments in chronological order (Total 507 comments)
Post a comment27 October 2010 12:17PM
Good. It’s about time someone showed a bit of backbone. IDS and the coalition should stand firm on this.
If you want a house in a nice area then I’m afraid you’re going to have to work for it. And, I hate to break it to you, even then you might not be able to. Most people (myself included) working 40 hours per week can’t afford to live in a posh area so why should non-workers get to do it at taxpayers expense?
Furthermore, why would anyone move from benefits into work if they’re currently receiving £400pw plus in housing benefit alone? What kind of salary would be required to beat that? 40k?
Lastly, that £400pw often goes straight into the pocket of a BTL landlord thus pushing up rents for private, working tennants who have to compete with the state largesse.
27 October 2010 12:20PM
The word ethnic, wasn't used.
Not a bad analogy, though, now he mentions it.
27 October 2010 12:21PM
This comment has been removed by a moderator. Replies may also be deleted.
27 October 2010 12:23PM
I suspect that many of the MP's are "concerned about the impact" on their BTL portfolios.
27 October 2010 12:27PM
Although I suppose that MPs are so deluded with their second home allowance of £20,000 that for them it does not seem so extraordinary.
27 October 2010 12:31PM
I welcome the housing benefits reform. Why should those of us livng and paying tax throughout the rest of the country be forced to pay for benefits scroungers and/or immigrants to live in Central London?
27 October 2010 12:33PM
I can't disagree with the proposed cap. 400pw equates to 1733 per calander month. Just to pay rent at this level would require an annual salary of approx 30K and that's without any other expenses such as heat, light, water or telephone. Anyone claiming housing benefit anywhere near the is still going to find that it isn't worth working.
27 October 2010 12:40PM
David Laws was committed to capping his housing expenses wasn't he?
How's your wisteria Mr Cameron?
27 October 2010 12:45PM
There is another solution to this.
Rent control.
If you imposed limits on the rents chargable then you would have the double win of reducing the social housing cost and enabling lower paid workers chance to live within a reasonable distance of their job, should that job be in a high rent area.
Similarly by restricting increases in rent to the same rate as the increase in housing benefits (CPI), you remove the danger of enormous social unrest and an increase in crime (as people turn to crime to make ends meet) as time progresses.
Sounds like a win-win to me.
27 October 2010 12:45PM
1970 Labour left the country in the mess
1979 Labour left the country in the mess
2010 Labour left the country in the mess
Can anyone see a pattern here?
27 October 2010 12:46PM
Thanks for the quote.
Is there a Tory racism, that dare not speak it's name, behind some of there policies?
I'm sure they didn't do an equality assessment, but if you hit large poor families, would any ethnic groups be unduly hit?
just a thought
27 October 2010 12:48PM
I hope the housing benefit is reduced year on year to less than a level which working people have to pay for their accomodation.
27 October 2010 12:48PM
MUST STILL SUPPORT LOW PAID IN CENTRAL AREAS
I have seen window cleaners on road with me into London at 5.30 am with ladders on roof ready for action . These guys deserve everything we can give them
HOWEVER the never worked / wont work can be moved out asap .
Many have children who at least will enjoy Hasting far more than say Hackeny while they grow up
That said my birth place was Holand Park Avenue and I do not expect or want to live there and have had to pay cost of travel into London from suburbs We cannot expect cleaners who start early and on £5 per hour to travel in .
27 October 2010 12:55PM
@remusp
"Who will do the cleaning, caring and catering in expensive places if low earners are cleared away?"
Poor dears! The rich that live there - and Tesco Metro etc. will have to pay more for these people so that cleaners, carers and caterers can live there. It shouldn't be up to taxpayers to subsidise this stuff.
27 October 2010 12:55PM
OReally - I completely agree! I haven't heard an opposition argument yet which explains why it is fair for families who are receiving benefits to have a higher income than a family who works. That said, I'd like to hear one because at the moment the argument seems a bit one-sided. Also, aside from the obvious implications for their own constituency voter demographics, I don't understand why the opposition and some elements of the Liberal party feel that although a working family can't afford to live in London, it is social acceptable for someone paid for by the state to live there.
Perhaps these are the people who have missed the scale of the defecit. Regardless of who or what caused it to arise, there remains no cogent argument I know of as to why the state should support those unable to support themselves in the most expensive part of the country to do so.
Living in surburban areas outside of London isn't bad. I grew and lived in one myself for a large part of my life. There is plenty of freshair and opportunity to get outside and enjoy the UK for what it is. Great if you have little to do and can't afford a gym membership! Food is also significantly cheaper - which given the nutritional crisis facing some families on low incomes is worth noting. Finally, while the community I come from is not a wealthy one at all (many people are very poor) the community itself was more cohesive than any I enjoyed in London, as well as being a safer and more enjoyable environment for children than London ever could be.
So, while I know it's not nice that those on benefits might not be able to see family members who live in London, I'm sorry but that's just life. The state isn't here to make your personal life easy. The benefits system is there to help you out when times are tough. I think once people understand this 'change' is fair to everyone (and indeed will encourage those who choose not to work, because it's financially sensible not to bother), our social ethics will change, too.
There are very good reasons why this change in policy is acceptable in my view, for both the disadvantaged and those who support them, but moreover for the betterment of our society as a whole, in the long term.
27 October 2010 12:55PM
I'm no good at these puzzles.
stripes, checks, paisley?
27 October 2010 12:56PM
PS
RE RENT CONTROL
Harold Wilson intriduced a workable Act in 70s which gave security of tenure and fair rents .
Balir embraced the buy to let market ( Bristol ??) and created an army of new Land Lords out to make a killing as well as an easy mortgage market for the sector .
If Harold Wilsons Fair Rent Act was enfored the socail landlords would own all the stcck ot first time buyers would have neen able to buy and not be priced out by BTLS
So you know who to blame .
27 October 2010 12:59PM
This reform is long overdue and requires a firm hand . Perhaps what is missing from the equation is some sort of help for ALL - in the form of tax allowance/subsidy or whatever, for travelling to WORK. The key to all of these reforms has to be that it is worth working and if that involves a longer commute to get from reasonably priced housing to the workplace, then so be it. Its what much of the population do. There was far more scope . Why do teenage single mothers get treated as priority candidates for housing? They should be obliged to remain with their parents or offered places in the - as yet undesigned/unavailable- dormitory /bunk house style of accomodation which could have an annexed creche to care for children whilst the teenage mothers went to work. I am not at all convinced, however, of the proposal to cut jobseeker's allowance progressively. Driving people into poverty will inevitably lead to more crime , more drug abuse and more alcoholism. If jobs are not available , what can people do? If there are fewer prison places, there will even be an incentive as there will be no prospective punishment. A civilised society has to still protect those that fall through no fault of their own.
27 October 2010 1:04PM
Blimey ! I thought it was £400 pcm!
27 October 2010 1:07PM
If that's the case It's hardly going to effect anyone up north.
I live in Edinburgh (which aint cheap) and I charge £400 a month all in inc CTAX, fuel, TV License, phone and broadband
What are you people doing down there!?
27 October 2010 1:12PM
£400 a week is equivlent to £20,800 a year NET salary
Which is roughly £27,500 Gross equivelent salary.
On rent alone !
Of course it has to be capped - we're paying benefit on just rent which is almost the same as the average annual wage.
27 October 2010 1:19PM
I am sure it has not crossed gideon's mind that removing labour voters from central London labour/tory marginals will reduce the need for the liberal smokescreen at the next election.
27 October 2010 1:34PM
I welcome the changes, but it seems that in many cases it is landlords who can be the root cause of the problem. I have been on both sides of the fence as a responsible landlord in the private sector, and as a the tenant of a responsible landlord, but some are are just in it for the free taxpayer's money involved, and know next to nothing about house maintenance, even less the law.
If landlords fail to meet their statutory obligations, then I'm all for local councils taking over the management of their properties, employing acccredited contractors to ensure that the necessary work is done, assessing whether the rent charged is fair, and only passing on any surplus after everything has been done to the landlord.
Irresponsible tenants on the other hand, cause a different set of problems, because if they cause damage and aren't working, it's not worth the expense of taking them to court. This is why it is safer to avoid unemployed tenants. As usual it's the few rotten eggs on both sides that bring the whole business into disrepute.
The trouble is that there has been no quality control in this area.
27 October 2010 1:38PM
OReally
Fair point but dream on if you think £5 per hour pay will go just because there are fewer living in central zone . Reason is we have 10 million not working and open doors to EU so suppy will always satisfy demand
20 years ago Police were classified as low pay but they had massive pay rises and travel warrants to get into town but will never happen in private sector
I am 100% for moving out never worked or newly arrived who have no roots and cannot even speak english
Years ago if you had lunch in the City you were always served by a mum from east end whos husband was a cleaner and good luck to them with a low rent home
Sadly the real mess was created when Labour as a matter of policy left the doors wide open and reinvented the welfare atate as Beneifts heaven in the UK .
27 October 2010 1:43PM
Unemployed People of Hastings:
1> Set up shit B and Bs to take in exiled Londoners
2> Charge tax payer for your new, permanent residents
3> Profit
27 October 2010 1:46PM
Hold on a sec'
Why should the unemployed be allowed to live in Hastings?
27 October 2010 1:46PM
Good and it's about bloody time. It's axiomatic that money should not be taken from the pockets of hard-working people, many of whom (including my family) cannot afford to live in Kensington, to pay for people on benefits to live there.
400 per week is plenty to rent a house in plenty of places from where commuting to London is possible, let alone other less expenzsive parts of the country.
KM
27 October 2010 1:48PM
Let them eat seagull pie.
27 October 2010 1:51PM
@KenBarlow
They can live anywhere they like provided they get a job and pay for it. In the meantime, while the taxpayer is picking up the bill, I don't think it's unreasonable for them to limit their rental cost to 20k per year.
27 October 2010 1:53PM
Lets say you were born in London, Manchester or wherever these housing benefits caps are going to displace people from there homes. Lets say they do a street cleaners job, binmans job, nursery assistant or one of the lower grade pay jobs. In order for those who live in there expensive houses to have expensive houses you need people on the lower scale wages to keep an area attractive by performing essential services to humanity. Displace these people and the lovely hard earned houses in your elitist little enclaves suddenly start falling into a state of disrepair because all the little people have been shipped out of your cosy property club areas. The Coalition (joke) is about to implode in disagreement on this appallingly thought out policy. It is not the answer to a problem. On the contrary, it will be a problem to any future answer. It is simply WRONG (unless you support ethnic earning cleansing which is what this will amount to).
27 October 2010 1:53PM
They'll have a battle on.
(I'll get me coat)
27 October 2010 1:56PM
I think this is the best thing that has happen in years and years.
I just wanted to know if there was any public way of showing support for these changes? I'm very much aware that these policies are being slated in public, but I'd like to show support of what the government are doing.
I'm also tired of working to earn a living and watching people take my contributions when they don't deserve it.
I really hope this is an end to the welfare state. It should pay to work, not pay to be on benefits.
27 October 2010 2:00PM
Whats amazing is that the reason the housing benefit is so high now is due to private landlords who hike the rent up when HB is involved.Many of these landlords are no doubt Tories or Lib Dems.So in reality they have created the situation we find ourselves in today.The HB goes to the landlord not the tenant.If there were a rent cap for every town and city in the UK that would save this government billions and save the poor from being moved on from cities that no doubt some families have lived in for generations.Thats FAIR Ian Duncan Smith not your policies that are ill thought out and muddled togeher on the back of a fag packet.
27 October 2010 2:00PM
@cloudgroover
So you're suggesting that the taxpayer should pay extortionate housing benefit so that rich people can get their bins emptied on the cheap?
I'm afraid nobody has a god-given right to live anywhere. Talk to people in the west country who have been priced out for decades by rich Londoners buying holiday homes. Most workers I know have to relocate several times over their lives.
To call it ethnic earning cleansing is laughable, melodramatic and ridiculous.
27 October 2010 2:01PM
Beware of what you wish for. You might get it.
27 October 2010 2:01PM
Has IDS paid any heed to the social impact of his bean-counting?
WILL all this actually save money to the exchequer ANYWAY? (the experience of similar measures in the 80s would emphatically answer "No!")
All hail the policy of NIP (New Itinerant Poor), and Tenants Under a Coalition Kicking (TUCK)...who said cosmetic changes weren't what this here Big Society is all about?
I predict squatting to be back in fashion this winter.
27 October 2010 2:05PM
*
KenBarlow
27 October 2010 1:43PM
Unemployed People of Hastings:
1> Set up shit B and Bs to take in exiled Londoners
2> Charge tax payer for your new, permanent residents
3> Profit
Yes and far in excess of £400 per week...how the councils will cope is anyones guess.I forsee a massive rise in the homeless.If we are no longer a compassionate and caring society then we can no longer think of ourselves as civilised.
27 October 2010 2:07PM
"I really hope this is an end to the welfare state"
Really?
Have you thought that through?
Like who the f**k is going to change your bedpan when you're 75?
BUPA is it? Murdoch?
27 October 2010 2:09PM
Just found this in the profanisaurus
scruburb n. A less than desirable area to live.
Sounds like a useful word.
27 October 2010 2:10PM
I predict squatting to be back in fashion this winter.
Preferably in very rich areas....
27 October 2010 2:11PM
Yes. End of welfare state.
Private medical if need be? I'll sort out my own pension too. I'm doing that already.
27 October 2010 2:12PM
I'd recommend Somalia.
Off you toddle, then.
27 October 2010 2:14PM
Excellent performance from Cameron. He has the working public on his side and he knows it
Miliband's honeymoon is fast running out and if he doesnt improve very soon the Labour party will have to face 5 years of backing the wrong horse
27 October 2010 2:15PM
I expect ridicule from you Oreally. I found your opinion wholly distasteful also. Ok, I`ll call it earnings apartheid if it soothes your troubles thoughts. Are you going to be there to tell the 80,000 or so Londoners, some working Mums with a couple of kiddies are moved 100 miles away to a bed and breakfast because politicians have failed to protect them from a greedy overpriced property market not to be so melodramatic and ridiculous? No I thought not. You answer smacks of soundbite delivery with little attention to the finer details of the implications of this policy.
27 October 2010 2:16PM
klang
27 October 2010 12:46PM
to pay for benefits scroungers and/or immigrants
Thanks for the quote.
Is there a Tory racism, that dare not speak it's name, behind some of there policies?
I'm sure they didn't do an equality assessment, but if you hit large poor families, would any ethnic groups be unduly hit?
just a thought
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is you who appears to discriminate based on ethnic background. Why does it matter if certain ethnic groups are hit hardest?
I don't care if they're black or white the current allowances for housing benefit are beyond ludicrous, how could you sit there with a straight face and defend it?
Even a £400 a week cap is barmy, it should be far lower than that.
Typical scroungers, 'it's my right to have as many kids as possible but I don't want the responsibility of having to actually finance that choice'
If you don't fancy working gone are the days where you can have a cosy semi-detached in inner-city London.
I currently live in Archway, North London and some of the families who live near me are in very generously sized houses all paid for by housing benefit.
It is beyond a joke.
27 October 2010 2:16PM
The reason HB costs more than it did is because of greedy speculating landlords and developers use the lack of housing to jack up rents…the government could do something about this rent capping, and ending BTL mortgages.
The government owns 60% of the BTL mortgage debt, so actually it's BTL landlords, not the tenants who are profiteering with state money.
What is going on in this country? Why are people being so pathetic and childish? "oh you shouldn't have that is I can't", "why should I pay for you" bla bla…because we live in a society and depend on each other, that's why…stop attacking each other and blame the people who are still profiting from the mess they created, the rich the top 1000 of who got £77 billion richer last year while you lot were moaning about people getting a few hundred quid off the state.
Wake up!
27 October 2010 2:18PM
Well I am going to tell you that yes. They are currently being paid £30k, £40, £50k per year in rent - even after the benefit cuts they can still claim £20k per year in rent.
Any talk of bed and breakfast is TOTAL SENSATIONALISM. With £20k they can live and live bloody well - live better than most working people - they just can't do it in Kensington or Mayfair or other areas that most hard working people could never dream of living in.
Labour is onto a major loser here as the working public are disgusted with the housing benefit gravy train that has run out of control under Labour largesse.
27 October 2010 2:18PM
fast
"He has the working public on his side and he knows it"
I don't know if Tories are born liars...
I'm a member of the working public, a Londoner, and I don't support these measures as they are quite obviously shit with social and economic costs that haven't been thought through properly.
This is why we have some Tory/Lib Dem MPs urging a rethink rather than everyone just nodding like a wa**ker and shouting "EXCELLENT, FOOL PROOF IDEA DAVE"
27 October 2010 2:20PM
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27 October 2010 2:20PM
Because that has nothing to do with the disproportionately high rent prices forced by greedy landlords on people who need a roof over their head. We are all suffering, workers and benefits claimants alike.
We need rent controls now!