Housing benefit changes will force 80,000 people to leave their homes in London, Z2K believes. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images
The coalition’s decision to break the link between the cost of renting and housing benefit payments is being challenged in the high court.
In its claim Zacchaeus 2000 Trust (Z2K), a London-based charity, will argue that “unlawful and undemocratic” changes to housing benefit will force at least 80,000 people to leave their homes and establish new lives outside the capital.
Last year the coalition’s welfare reforms – which take effect in April – linked housing allowance, for the low-paid living in private rented homes, to consumer price index (CPI) inflation rather than actual rents. Shelter had warned the government: “Linking CPI to local housing allowance would make a third of local authorities unaffordable to low-income households by 2023″.
This effect has been compounded by the chancellor’s autumn statement, which said that from 2014 the payments would no longer be linked to inflation but capped “at 1% in the two years after that”. With charities already warning that “deepening benefit cuts” will have a dramatic impact on homelessness, lawyers acting for Z2K says that the new mechanism to calculate local housing allowance is unlawful as it is ultra vires – outside of the power of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) – and in breach of the Equality Act 2012.
Until the end of March this year, housing benefit was calculated at a local level by expert rent officers who made reference to market rents and re-calibrated the rates on a monthly basis. The new uprating system throws these mechanisms away in favour of annual re-assessments based on CPI.
The CPI is a measure of inflation that relates only to goods and services and specifically discounts housing costs, meaning the government has severed the link between housing need and local rents.
Z2K says a “rent officers’ skills and market expertise have been abandoned in favour of assessment by a rudimentary process of number-crunching, having a disproportionate impact on claimants who live in city centres, especially in London, who, as a result of these benefit reductions, are likely to have to move from their homes into new areas with lower cost housing”.
Rosa Curling from solicitors Leigh Day, representing Z2K in its legal bid, said: “We believe this crude mechanism brought in by the coalition government in April this year is unlawful. It could lead to many people being forced from their homes and away from jobs, schools and loved ones. It deprives rent officers of their adjudicative functions and we believe it is in breach of the Equality Act.”
A DWP spokesperson said: “We are confident we acted within our powers in making the Rent Officers Order 2012.
“Reform of housing benefit is absolutely necessary to contain massive rises in spending and protect the necessary safety net.”
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This Social Cleansing Pahlava which Smacks of Eugenics has Gone on For
too Long
We Need the Con Dems Out of Office and We have since Day 1 of Infamy
May 11th 2010
It makes my Blood Boil with Absolute Rage to Hear of the Bone Headed
and Degrading Suggestion that the Poor should be Deprieved of Cash
with Electronic Pahlava Cards Instead
It is Politicians who have been Far Worse Scroungers
Considering how much Money Bloody Politicians have Claimed in Expenses
it Really Takes the Biscuit and is Diabolical and Evil
Will the People of this Country just Continue being Docile Supine
Idiots or will they Bloody Wake Up Demand Enough is Enough and get
the Con Dem Boneheads Out of Office ?
BROKEN BRITAIN UNDER TORIES
What is the difference between Cameron’s Britain and Hitler’s Germany as both are known as Dictatorial ,Hitler created infrastructure and employment .In today’s ‘modern’ Britain what do the general populace have to show for Government Policy – Unemployment ,a policy of Eugenics ,control of what we eat ,control of what we see and read ,control on where we live ,control over whether we smoke and/or drink .Education (indoctrination) we were all and still are taught Hitler was a despotic madman .Cameron is doing the same in this Country what Hitler did in Germany ,what is the Liverpool Care Pathway but Eugenics pure and simple advocated by the Royal Family .These things take a lot of digesting because of the years of lies and deceit ,very unpalatable but still raw facts ,individuals will come to realise this when in 2013 the full force of all the Welfare measures are in place and as well as Bedroom Tax a proportion of Council Tax will be demanded from benefits .FACT.
http://www.brokenbritainundertories
BROKEN BRITAIN UNDER TORIES RE: BEDROOM TAX
Having watched ‘Pats Petition’ being debated in Parliament it was farcical ,the Labour MP who brought it up did not present it as the worded petition we all signed and it took Cameron approximately 1 minute to dismiss it ,so much for Petitions .We all agree that the Government are acting inhumanely and immorally ,in certain circumstances you have to fight fire with fire .We have two basic scenario’s .Councils cannot rehouse all those tenants that the Bedroom Tax applies to and cannot afford it .Those that will pay it because they are too attached to their homes and will not move although it will be a struggle .What happens if you all collectively refuse to move and refuse to pay the Bedroom Tax.
The Bedroom Tax will have to be reviewed because Local Councils would throw the ball back into the Governments hands .The Poll Tax caused riots and was amended ,riots engage violence ,non compliance is a legal method of showing discontent .How did women eventually receive the vote .What about the Jarrow March .ACTIONS speak louder than words .The by word for 2013 should be NON COMPLIANCE ,they don’t have enough bailiff’s or court time to deal with just one forum all at once never mind other groups .
http://www.brokenbritainundertories.com