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Chancellor is urged to scrap benefit cap as one million face homelessness


Leading housing charity Shelter has called on the Chancellor of the Exchequer to use this month’s budget to scrap the cap on housing benefit and ease the upward pressures on homelessness. Local government leaders have joined the charity


in lobbying Philip Hammond for more assistance while at the same time criticising the Government’s plans to fix the broken housing market as inadequate. The Prime Minister promised to address the


shortage of housing by spending an additional £2bn to pay for an extra 25,000 homes for social rent by 2021, although this promise has since been partially qualified by DCLG officials who say the money could also pay for newly built affordable rent and shared ownership homes. Shelter said the extra money was welcome, but it


was a tiny proportion of what was required and would not help one million private renters in immediate danger of homelessness as a result of the benefit cap. Communities Secretary Sajid Javid raised the possibility of £50bn being borrowed for new housing, but the Chancellor has publicly rejected this idea.


CRISIS Polly Neate, Shelter’s chief executive, said “The money put forward is only a fraction of what is needed. Building new homes takes time, and time is not on the side of the million private renters at risk of being tipped into homelessness by the freeze on housing benefit. “Whether a struggling family or a young person


in low-paid work, the freeze is stripping away the help people desperately need to pay their rent. Given the tide of despair faced by hard-up renters, we urge the Government to abandon the freeze on housing benefit or risk making more people homeless.” A survey by Shelter of 3,978 tenants found 79 per


cent of those in work while also claiming housing benefit are struggling with their rent payments. More than half of these “working renters” on housing benefit are worried about losing their homes, while 71 per cent said it was harder to find a decent affordable home now than five years ago. Shelter also pointed to the growing numbers of


people in temporary accommodation because there is insuffient rental housing available and the growth in reports of landlords being unwilling to let to tenants on benefits, as further evidence of the problem. The Local Government Association is concerned


that rising rents have left many people on benefits with large shortfalls in their income, a view supported by a research from the Institute of Fiscal Studies. The LGA has called for the cap on housing benefit to be scrapped before 2020.


action’ to bring to next year’s party conference with a guarantee to ensure every home is fit for human habitation if his party forms the next Government. Corbyn told the Labour conference of plans


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for the reintroduction of rent controls as the current generation of tenants was now paying three times more than its grandparents. Other pledges included: • A “use it or lose it” tax on undeveloped land held by developers; and


• Strengthened compulsory purchase powers. “A decent home is a right for everyone –


houses should be homes for the many, not speculative investments for the few,” Corbyn said. He praised the efforts of Karen Buck MP,


whose private member’s bill – the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Bill has passed its first reading and seeks to place greater responsibilities on landlords to provide accommodation that is both safe and comfortable to live in, while giving tenants greater rights of redress.


REVIEW There was support for the Labour leader from David Orr, Chief Executive of the National Housing Federation, who said: “We welcome the announcement of a comprehensive review into


6 | HMM November 2017 | www.housingmmonline.co.uk


abour leader Jeremy Corbyn has pledged to review social housing policy, promising a ‘radical programme of


Corbyn pledges Labour to ‘radical action’ on social housing policy


© Gary Knight


social housing policy and share the ambition to ensure everyone has a great quality home that they can afford. “It is important that politicians from across


the spectrum are committed to reconnecting with the purpose of social housing and with those who need genuinely affordable housing. Tenants are at the heart of social housing and the communities that housing associations invest in. It is absolutely right that their voices are heard. “But while work on this review is underway,


there are things we can and must do right now – like reallocating the unspent £1.1bn of Starter Homes investment in a new generation of high quality homes for social rent.” However, the Residential Landlords


Association was critical of Corbyn’s speech, with policy director David Smith describing the rent control proposals as an “attack” on private landlords, which would exacerbate current problems by reducing the supply and quality of homes as landlords are forced out of the market. “Instead of attacking landlords who are


helping to provide homes, it would be better to treat them as part of the solution and to supplement their efforts with a sustained and well thought out building programme overseen by government” he added. The RLA has been lobbying both Conservative and Labour to reverse recent budget tax changes on landlords and to encourage their growth as a means of tackling the country’s housing shortage.


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