Today the Work and Pensions Minister Rt. Hon. Iain Duncan Smith MP and 
the Shadow Work and Pensions Minister Rt. Hon. Douglas Alexander MP clashed on the government’s proposals for transforming the level of housing benefits.
Under the coalition’s plans, housing benefit will be slashed by ten per cent for those who have been unemployed for over twelve months. In an attempt to save £2 billion by 2014-15, Housing benefits will be capped at £20,000 per year.
IDS explained that the criticism from Labour in the lead up to the debate had been nothing short of “manic rabble rousing…that frightens rather than informs”.
He went on to say:
“The debate has gone too far…
The spirited exchange comes on the back of last weekend’s benefit reforms that would see the long-term unemployed enlisted to carry out menial services within their communities.
The main issue of debate centres around the perception that poorer people will be driven out of our cities where rent prices are proportionately higher and they will not be able to keep up with rent payments once their housing benefit is cut.
It has also been suggested that the reforms will be the precursor to an unprecedented boom in homelessness.
The Coalition plans have evoked a hue and cry not just from the Opposition but also within the Conservative Party with Mayor Boris Johnson saying:
“We will not accept any kind of Kosovo-style social cleansing. You are not going to see on my watch thousands of families being evicted from the place where they have been living and have put down roots”
On Sunday, further criticism came from an unexpected source, the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams also expressed his concerns on BBC radio West Midlands;
“This could lead to a kind of social zoning, where middle class areas get more solidly middle class and other people are pushed out to the edge.”
Shadow Work and Pensions Minister Douglas Alexander cited these criticisms as evidence that the coalition government’s plan was wholly defunct:
“They have so far been unable to get their own backbenchers to agree a position on housing benefit and have therefore been forced into the highly unusual position of not tabling an amendment that explicitly endorses their present proposals.”
Vehemently refusing to give way, Mr Duncan-Smith proclaimed it was the previous Labour government’s lack of social housing development that had ultimately forced his hand. we need constructive dialogue….”
However, Simon Hughes MP, the Liberal Democrat deputy has ensured the debate will run and run as he later stated that the cuts in housing benefits was not a plan that he could support.
Source: Parliament UK (TV)
http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=6830&wfs=true
