Benefits argument is not over
Disputes over housing benefit follow the spending review.
As Alex Attwood prepares to put forward Northern Ireland’s case against housing benefit reforms to the Minister for Welfare Reform, the Coalition Government is under pressure from Liberal Democrat and Conservative backbenchers over the matter.
Social security is technically devolved but policy mirrors Great Britain to ensure parity across the UK. Assembly Welfare Bills therefore closely resemble their counterparts in Parliament
The housing benefit reforms, which could apply to Northern Ireland if passed in Parliament, are as follows:
• from 2013 household welfare payments will be capped for those renting in the private sector on the basis of median earnings after tax for working households;
• those on jobseekers’ allowance for over a year will have their housing benefit cut by 10 per cent from 2013;
• from April 2012 the shared room rate in local housing allowance will be extended from under 25s to all single claimants under 35, meaning approximately 88,000 people across the UK will be restricted to the rate for a single room in a shared house, rather than the rate for a self-contained one-bedroom property.
Three days after George Osborne announced his spending review, which included a 50 per cent cut to the English social housing budget, the Liberal Democrats’ deputy leader Simon Hughes said the housing benefit plans were “harsh and draconian” and that he didn’t think there would be a parliamentary majority in the House of Commons.
Some Lib Dem and Conservative MPs are understood to have met with Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith to discuss their concerns. The BBC has reported that Duncan Smith has met with London mayor Boris Johnson over fears that the cap on housing benefits will force poorer people out of London and other cities. However, a Downing Street spokeswoman told the BBC that the Government was “absolutely committed” to the changes that were announced.
During the Assembly’s debate on the spending review on 25 October, Margaret Ritchie said that “the Tories were elected to reduce the deficit and having announced how they propose to do it, they won’t drop it just because we don’t like it.”
She did believe that “it may be possible to secure improvements around the edges of the published settlement [such as] latitude in how welfare reform is implemented here, guarantees on policing and security costs, access to end year flexibility and more freedom to borrow.”
Social Development Minister Alex Attwood told agendaNi that he is seeking derogation for Northern Ireland and wants the Government to recognise regional differences. “The argument about housing benefit is far from over,” Attwood claimed.
“The London media are reporting a backlash is developing among Liberal Democrats. The concern highlights that
I am right to keep making the argument with the Westminster [Welfare] Reform Minister Lord Freud about the severity of proposals.” One of the points Attwood has made is that Northern Ireland doesn’t have the same excessive rents costs as in England, particularly in London. He will meet Freud for the third time on 8 November.
