From 7 November, according to DWP calculations, 88,000 families, each with three or more children, will lose an average £60 per week in housing benefit because of a reduction in the Overall Benefit Cap (OBC). When the OBC was introduced in April 2013 it was set at £26,000pa; it will now be cut to £23,000pa for families living in London, and to £20,000pa for those living outside. 80% of those affected will be single parent families (67% women, 13% men). Some larger families will lose all their housing benefit.
There are some exemptions: where the parent(s) qualify for working tax credits (ie, work more than 16 hours a week if single, or more than 24 hours a week if a couple); where the family receives carer’s allowance, or where one of the family members is on a disability benefit. However, those in receipt of Employment Support Allowance in the work related activity group are not exempt even though they are incapable of working. Nor are single parents exempt, even if they have a child aged under three and are therefore not required to seek work.
The effect of the housing benefit cut on these families, the poorest in the country, will be immediate. Half live in private rented accommodation: no private landlord will accept tenants who demonstrably cannot pay their full rent. Families will be subject to court proceedings or summary eviction, and forced into emergency accommodation. The costs of this will fall on local authorities. Families in social housing will not fare much better. A single parent with four children in social housing on Merseyside for instance, will lose £70 of £100 weekly housing benefit. In three months he or she will have exceeded the eight weeks’ rent arrears which will trigger court action by the housing association. A single parent with three children in private rented accommodation will lose £30 a week, and eviction may come sooner. 2,000 families on Merseyside will be hit, and 1,000 in most London authorities.
The government claims that that the reduction will encourage more parents into work. Yet all it will do is terrorise single parents into accepting casualised, poverty pay conditions at best, and destitution at worst. The 88,000 families include more than 300,000 children: it means that over 400,000 people may face eviction within weeks of the implementation date, with many children being taken into care. The discretionary housing payment budget allocation of £22m this financial year for those subject to the reduced cap is a drop in the ocean: together, the families will lose over £100m in benefit in the five months to April 2017. Emergency accommodation, already inadequate, will be swamped. Homelessness will soar. The vast majority of Labour MPs support the OBC because more than two-thirds of the electorate want it. Neither Jeremy Corbyn nor Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Debbie Abrahams mentioned it in their Labour Party conference speeches, let alone opposed it – just six weeks before its introduction. This is one of the most vindictive attacks on the poor to date, and socialists must organise with those families who want to resist its appalling, punitive impact.
Robert Clough
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! 253 October/November 2016
