UNISON’s case for the full devolution of housing benefit has been supported by the respected think tank IPPR. Scotland needs all the policy levers to effectively address our housing crisis. The command paper ‘Scotland in the United Kingdom: An enduring settlement‘, (love an optimistic title!) sets out the legislative provisions to enact the Smith Commission […]
Posts Tagged ‘Housing Benefit’
The case for fully devolving housing benefit to the Scottish government
Feb 3rd, 2015 by Dave Watson.
The illogical callousness of the bedroom tax is totted up in ruined family lives
Jul 10th, 2013 by Michael Meacher.The latest data from 107 local authorities shows that 86,000 households have now been forced out of their accommodation to look for 1-bedroom homes, but only 33,000 have become available in the past year. The pressure points vary regionally. In Rochford, Essex, for example, 100 social housing tenants were driven out by the benefit cuts, […]
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Busting the myths of the bulging benefit bill
Jan 21st, 2013 by Meric Apak.We hear so much of the “bulging benefit bill, so I’d like to deal with a couple of anomalies in the simplistic media analysis that surrounds this. The housing benefit bill is certainly huge. The Government’s choice of dealing with this is through austerity, and they thus burden inner city councils with the fallout. Councils […]
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Welfare reform: now Ed’s on side, keep the pressure on
Dec 13th, 2012 by Meric Apak.In October 2013 the biggest change to the benefits system since 1945 will begin. The changes are profound. Over 1 million people will be affected in the first 6 months alone and by the time the new system is fully in place, in 2017, it will be relied on by as many as 6 million […]
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For the Tories, housing is just another market chip
Nov 13th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.A right to decent housing does not exist in the Tory lexicon. Three Tory measures in the last few weeks are now exposing the ruthlessness with which a rigged market is cutting swathes through the housing needs of all the most vulnerable groups within the population. First, housing benefit is being abolished for all persons […]
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Housing benefit: the scandal and the myth
Oct 16th, 2012 by Richard Johnson.George Osborne and David Cameron’s call to end housing benefit for people under the age of 25 is the latest move in a government so right wing that it would make Margaret Thatcher blush. In an interview with James Naughtie on Radio 4’s Today programme this week, David Cameron set out to explain why he […]
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Cameron’s extremism is inviting an explosion on the streets
Jun 25th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.No-one forgets that the poll tax was the trigger that brought down Thatcher. Then a Tory government was pushing its ideology to extremes – a flat-rate tax system, a brutal destruction of manufacturing industry, defenestration of the trade unions, a blindness to community and altruism in favour of selfishness and individualism, a deliberate huge wedge […]
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Why under 25s need housing benefit
Jun 25th, 2012 by David Osler.Perhaps the most depressing aspect of David Cameron’s ‘no housing benefit for under 25s’ outburst this morning is the underlying assumption that everyone in that age group has a warm and loving middle class family home, in which they could live happily if only they had not decided to strike out on their own. Let me […]
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Cap rents not housing benefit
Nov 3rd, 2010 by Jon Lansman.The way to cut housing benefit payouts is to increase the supply of affordable, social housing and cap all rents, social and private. Labour is missing its target because it is focusing on the wrong one. For a long time, housing benefit has allowed unscrupulous landlords to charge inflated rents for low quality housing. The […]
