Member News
By Margaret Hodge MP - 13th October 2010
Margaret Hodge MP writes for ePolitix.com ahead of her Westminster Hall debate on housing benefit and local authority budgets.
This debate is about the government's plans to slash housing benefit for the poorest families.
The government's fig leaf for their plans is that the reforms will help to drive down rents in the private sector but the question I will be asking is where is the evidence for this claim?
The truth is that the evidence points in the opposite direction. Research by London Councils shows that landlords will not reduce their rents in line with the cuts, while the Greater London Authority and housing experts have warned that landlords could move out of the housing benefit market altogether.
Coming on top of cuts to the child tax credit and working tax credit, the maternity allowance and the Child Trust Fund, this is part of an attack on low income families that will push more children into poverty.
In parts of London poorer families will be completely priced out of the private rented sector. As many as 82,000 households could be forced to relocate to the suburbs and outer boroughs in what is a shameful attempt at social engineering and political gerrymandering.
Last week, a senior civil servant working in housing was quoted in the Guardian saying: "I have been in housing for 30 years and have never seen anything like this in terms of projected population movements... In many boroughs in inner London in three or four years time there will be no poor people living in the private rented sector."
In parts of London the diversity and social mix which have always been a hallmark of the city will be lost.
And this population movement will place unacceptable pressure on local authorities in the poorer outer boroughs, like Barking and Dagenham which I represent, where services are already badly overstretched.
I and many other MPs know that housing benefit needs to be reformed but it has to be done fairly and done in a way that doesn't damage our communities.
I think the government has got this badly wrong and many people will suffer as a result.
I hope this debate will expose just how ill-conceived the government's proposals are and get ministers to think again.
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