h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

well, hello

I have kind of got off on a tangent on the benefits thread, I know that is the done thing on h2g2 but now I have written a long post it kind of feels like thread hogging so as I wrote it of the back of your post.I thought may as well stick it here. Don't feel obliged to reply.

I think my comment is fair. That the social, employment and welfare reforms were benefiting more people overall and in a way that wouldn't have been happening under an alterative conservative government. So that might account for less 'noise'

I don't think that your comment is necessarily uncalled for, of course, the opposition are going try to make political capital out the bedroom tax but I don't think it is just that.

Out of interest, not as a defender of the Labour party as I have no particular alliegances I have googled around the changes to housing benefit under the labour party, to try and accertain if they were are 'drastic' as the Condems

Are you talking about the 2008 changes?

The biggest issue I am coming up with was with the change to direct payments to tenants rather than to landlords.

Landlords did not like this, it made the risk of arrears and abscondment higher. Because of this some had terminated contracts because of arrears that wouldn't have otherwise happened and others were less inclined to let to HB claimants because of that risk.

Neither did the majority of tenants like this change foisted upon them


I am really not coming up with anything that yells to me that these changes were as drastic as the ones that are being proposed now.

Even as a starting point the criteria for getting social housing would make those that do, as a group overall, more vulnerable than those in the private sector. Saying that as a general observation only

I have a general knowledge only, and have been googling just because I got interested in somehow measuring the two objectively Any links you can throw my way about how those changes had an impact on downsizing and increase in rent payment I'd be interested in.

Also I'm not sure I am quite up to speed, but there is a more drastic difference in a flat cap of HB amounts as proposed by this government, than the one of an 'average rent' from the last one? And that this one has gone further by setting the 'average rent' as not a medium but at the lowest 30%?

hmm well, sorry long post,

I sometimes get my wording wrong and don't mean to be so confrontational - sorry if it comes across that way.

As I understand it, the "Bedroom Tax" first appeared in the Welfare Reform Act 2007 and started to be felt through something called the Local Housing Allowance in 2008 which set out how many bedrooms would be covered by Housing Benefit for people renting from private landlords.

I think what we are seeing is an attempt by government (of whatever stripe) to get people out of social housing and into the private sector, hopefully to eventually join in the mortgage merry-go-round. Part of this involves encouraging people to take responsibility for paying rent themselves (hence Housing Benefit no longer going to landlords). There is certainly a mentality that once you're in a council house you can relax, you have a house for life and government doesn't want that. I think they want to transfer all social housing over to the private sector (for a big fee of course) and thus absolve themselves of the responsibility and costs of housing people. Our economy is firmly grounded around house-buying now, with people borrowing and spending huge amounts of money on private housing stock. If government can somehow create the conditions whereby all but the very poorest can join in, it adds millions of new players to the property game.

Look at this article in the Express, talking about Labour's pledge to build 200,000 new homes. http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/431833/Labour-will-build-200-000-homes-annually-to-relieve-Britain-s-housing-crisis They're not talking about social housing, they're talking about private houses. Note the comment from the Homeowners Alliance - "Owning a home is becoming a privilege that only the most affluent can afford - something must be done"

I think it's really important to realise this is a cross-party ambition. If one side is bashing the other over it, it behoves us to look closely at what alternatives they are offering.

Hi swl

Thanks for the reply You didn't sound confrontational.

I agree we need to look at what both sides are proposing. I would hope that should Labour get in they would just reverse all of the changes that have been made to HB, not just the bedroom tax part of it.

And just consider the universal credit a non-starter

Shifting people out of social housing into the private sector doesn't make much sense to me, the government are still going to be responsible for paying housing benefits and rents in the private sector are higher.

I think that were significant differences in the LHA reforms, firstly that social housing was excluded from these changes, that extra bedrooms for equipment, for children where parents had shared access were justifiable. Also if there was no other suitable accommodation in the area HB would be paid for a larger property.

Also that shift from average rent to the lowest 30%, keep them poor people in their place.

There was a bedroom cap, of up to five bedrooms, which is now four but there was no flat cap on the level of rents that would be paid in the same as there is now.

Interesting what you say about the mentality of settling into a council house.

This is somewhat anecdotal. One of the big barriers to work was the benefit trap. In- work benefits did make big steps to alleviating this particulary for families

So I live in an area that has a mix of privately owned, rented and social housing and is an area that has high levels of deprivation as they say.

When the in- work benefit changes came about the people in social housing benefited the most because of the lower amounts of rent they were paying and that difference was quite substantial.

Rather than settling into council/social housing people were more able to get back to work, having been 'untrapped', they did just that