Why does this government have a Housing Minister?

The June Budget announced a number of changes to Housing Benefit, aiming to save £1.8 billion from the £21 billion a year spent on it. Yes, that's twenty-one billion pounds every year, between 4.7 million claimants. Why so high, you might wonder. That would be because it rose with housing costs, which have vastly inflated in recent decades as supply fell further and further behind demand. To reduce this burden on the public purse, say the coalition, we will make these changes:

1. Capping Housing Benefit payments to £250 a week for a one-bedroom flat, £290 for a two bed, £340 for a three bed and £400 a week for a four-bedroom property. This is a maximum, not the amount that most people will get. For much of the UK, the caps are reasonable (at the moment anyway), but in almost all of London rents are far higher than that.
   
   
2. Changing the way that payments are calculated, using the lowest 30% of rents rather than 50% as is currently the case. This amounts to an absolute cut in Housing Benefit.
   
   
3. Adjusting Housing Benefit to inflation using the Consumer Price Index rather than the Retail Price Index. The difference - the former doesn't include housing costs, which have caused the Retail Price Index to be consistently higher. Levels of Housing Benefit will no longer have any connection to rises in actual rents.
   
   
4. Cutting Housing Benefit by 10% for people on Job Seekers Allowance for more than 12 months. Presumably to 'encourage' them to find employment.

The more that I think about these changes, the more outrageously regressive I find them. The reason that the government pays Housing Benefit is that in the UK we supposedly believe that shelter is a human right. The proposed reforms will cause Housing Benefit to trail further and further behind housing costs. It will no longer be a safety net. Homelessness is going to rise, and fast.

If people can't get into social housing, and Housing Benefit isn't sufficient for them to afford private rental, what are they supposed to do? Where are they supposed to go? In effect, those entitled to Housing Benefit (working on a low income, unemployed, retired, or unable to work) will be priced entirely out of the South-East of the United Kingdom.

I am not exaggerating. The Chartered Institute of Housing calculates that these reforms will price Housing Benefit claimants out of all private housing within a decade. They are so concerned that they've started a campaign against the changes.

The National Housing Federation calculates that just the proposal to cut Housing Benefit by 10% for people on Job Seeker's Allowance for more than a year will cause 202,000 people to face almost inevitable homelessness.

And what is the response to this from our Housing Minister, Grant Shapps?

I refer you to the excellent theyworkforyou.com, which keeps track of what our representatives in parliament are talking to each other about.

The Labour MP for Westminster asked Mr Shapps What discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on the effect on housing and levels of homelessness of the proposed reduction in housing benefit levels?

His response is that he has set up a cross-ministerial working group and has increased the existing discretionary fund to tackle homelessness.

That is a shockingly brief, offhand, weak, and ineffectual answer. It is clear that the Housing Minister has no conception of the disasterous effects that Housing Benefit reforms will have. Those on low incomes will be excluded from London and much of the South-East, effectively forced to migrate North-West, where lower employment and economic stagnation have kept house prices low. Keyworkers like nurses, carers and firefighters will be priced out of half the country.

Has there been any consultation on these changes? No.

Has the government conducted an assessment of the impacts? No. I can't find it, and I've got a lot of experience locating things on government websites. In any case, the month between election and budget was insufficient to properly examine the impacts of huge changes like this.

Undoubtedly the Housing Benefit system inherited by the coalition was in need of reform, to reduce costs and make it fairer. These reforms, however, will penalise the most vulnerable people in society, worsen poverty, and further entrench regional wealth disparities. They mark a return to Victorian notions of the undeserving poor, who are merely lazy rather than trapped by economic circumstances. The changes will increase the number of homeless people and drive others to crime in order to pay their rent.

4.7 million people are going to struggle to keep a roof over their heads. I am enraged that a Housing Minister who claims to be a long-term campaigner for the homeless is so unconcerned about this that he thinks setting up a working group is an adequate response.

Why does this government have a housing minister? I honestly don't know. At the moment the post looks like a complete waste of public money.