Posted by Jake on Saturday, March 08, 2014 with 2 comments | Labels: Article, Austerity, benefits, Big Society, Graphs, housing, inequality, public sector
Figures from the Office of National Statistics show that while the cost of housing benefit has jumped four-fold in real terms in the thirty years between 1983 and 2013, the actual number of housing benefit claimants has hardly changed.
Sly references by government ministers to Housing Benefits claims in excess of £50,000 a year gloss over two facts:
- Only 1 in 30,000 people have this kind of rent;
- The money doesn't go into the claimant's pockets, but into the pockets of their landlords.
In any case this cost escalation has been a direct result of policies eagerly followed by both Conservative and Labour governments. Since 1980 Local Authorities were required to sell their housing stock under 'right to buy', and were not permitted to build new houses to replace their stock.
House building since the early 1980s has been done almost exclusively by the private sector, including the Housing Associations (which are frequently mistaken as not being private sector). This is shown in the graph below from the National Audit Office:
Resulting in more Housing Benefit tenants moving into private sector housing.
Government figures show the private sector, not including Housing Associations, is on average 40% more expensive than Local Authority housing. Housing Associations are about 15% more expensive than Local Authorities.
Thus in a grand collaboration between left and right:
- Step1: Local Authorities stripped of their housing stock.
- Step2: Housing Benefit Claimants are moved into more expensive private sector housing.
- Step3: Government complains the housing is too expensive, and uses this as cover to cut benefits.
Shame you can't break the figures down further. For instance, London has a higher unemployment rate than Scotland, and with a larger population therefore has more unemployed. A cursory glance comparing Glasgow or Edinburgh's housing benefit rates with Camden or Haringey shows the London boroughs receiving 3 to 4 times the rate of housing benefit from the Scottish cities.
ReplyDeleteAs we're called 'subsidy junkies' by most of the right wing fraternity down south, it would be nice to dispel the myth. With London rents being so much higher, I would presume the likelihood is that a larger percentage of the unemployed claim housing benefit than in other parts of the country ?
If London holds roughly 11% of the UK population, what do you think the percentage of housing benefit allocated to London claimants is ? 20%? 25%?
Your (otherwise excellent) article misses out one more factor which is crucial to understanding the Housing Benefit scam.
ReplyDeleteThe 1988 Housing Act (in force from January 1989) removed Rent Control on new tenancies...meaning landlords could charge "Market Rents" knowing Housing Benefit would pick up the tab.
The Government's response was to clamp down on Tenants rather than landlords....