to think the south east has started to expel the poor

[ubik]

www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/feb/13/london-council-relocation-benefits-cap

Basically Camden Council cannot cover the housing benefit for these families due to government cap on benefits. These families would have to find an extra £90/week to make up the shortfall. As I understand it, there is nowhere in the south east cheap enough for these people to live.

So they are considering moving them to a cheaper region up north, hundreds of miles away from their families, schools, jobs, friends, neighbours.

I find this incredibly depressing as someone who grew up in a normal family in London.
Is the south east expelling the poor?

Why are rents so high in London in any case.

Because it's one of the most expensive cities in the world! Depending on which index you read it's sixth, or sixteenth.

There are jobs there, transport there. About 40,000 new homes are needed there every year.

There are 5.1m households in London. I wonder where they would all go if they didn't live in London?

So it's so expensive that people have to be subsidised by the rest of the country to live there.

So it's so expensive that people have to be subsidised by the rest of the country to live there.

No. Taking Camden as an example, 90% of the population do not claim Housing Benefit - as illustrated in my earlier post.

In fact London and the South East contribute almost 40% of total UK tax revenue. You can read about that here.

Well, see it this way - the only other option is to let house prices crash (yes, crash not just "slump), so that it would be more affordable to live in the South.

How many Mumsnetters would like that?

It's not this government's problem that Gordon Brown broke his promise below:

"I will not allow house prices to get out of control and put at risk the sustainability of the future." He said mentioned that the UK should not return to the "instability, speculation and negative equity" of the 1980s and 1990s.

Promises. Pah!

I'm only about a fifth of the way theiugh, and have to go to sleep, but already I'm reading a major misapprehensiin. The point has probably been made already - if so then apologies - but people are talking like £2000 is the de facto amount families receive, or will receive. It is not. It is a maximum amount, and if people are moved to cheaper areas there is certainly no way a normal sized family would be receiving anything like that amount, if they even are at present.

Sorry for typing, on phone.

And Julesnobrain, the £2000 maximum is most certainly not just for housing!

Julesnobrain, your name seems an apt choice given your post - It is not £2k for housing, it is £2k maximum claim for all benefits.

London can and will have plenty of people living there on low wages. The vast majority do and will live in council and housing association housing.

The minority will live in private rentted accommodation below the cap. Most of it isbelow the cap.

The tiny monority above the cap are generally living in accomodation that is simply not worth the rent paid! But the LLs can charge it because the HB will pay it. Once the cap is in place I suspect the LLs will lower rents below it as, frankly, they just won't get it from non HB renters!!!! No one will pay that money for those properties.

Camden are assuming that the public are stupid and will believe this crock!

wordfactory - The private rented sector is no longer a "minority". In London a quarter to a third of ALL households now live in the private rented sector. Nationwide the number of households living in the PRS is now equal to the number of households living in the social rented sector. By 2020 it will be one third of all households in London. This sector needs much better regulation and equality because it will be huge.

Just where are all the households currently renting because they will never be able to afford a home be living when they are too old to work? The government is going to have a MASSIVE problem and the housing benefit bill for all the younger generations priced out of social housing and owning a house is going to be huge. But they are putting it off for a government long down the road to deal with, as usual.

Orwellian we are specifically talking about London, in particular the inner city, as posters were saying there will be no one left to do MW jobs. I wa spointing out that the majority (and three quaters is a majority, sorry) live in council and HA owned property.

That leaves a quarter in private rents. Most of these are below the cap.

So the cap will not affect the majority of renters in London.

Wordfactory, it is currently not extended to all areas. If it is extended it will affect many more areas and thus many more people.

Yes, yellow and I do feel for the families who need to move, but I think the LLs who rent these above cap properties, should no longer be able to sit back and take their rent.

If they want big sums they need to make their properties top notch and find tenants who can pay it (but will be a lot more demanding)...or they will have to accpet that these properties are not worth the rent they're charging and drop it to below the cap!

I really don't see why the tax payer should subsidise the landlords. And I say that as a landlord.

Rents are high in London because house prices are high. Buy to let is only a small part of the reasons why, and housing benefit an even smaller reason.

A cap on housing benefit is a no brainer, and should help curb rental inflation on the fringes.

To echo janey earlier yellow, green etc

The benefits cap is £24000 per annum ( actually higher than this in real terms once other fringe benefits are factored in) So what's that? - the equivalent of at least 30k gross salary. I don't see how anyone in their right mind can argue against a cap which is significantly above the average earnings.

This is not the south expelling the poor. This is some common sense that the welfare state is there to protect people from staving on the streets. Yes it's not perfect but you can't have families on benefits 'earning' more than the average John. The answer is building more social housing and then not letting people buy it at highly subsidised rates to remove it from the system. There are plenty of areas in London where people can and do support families on that income.

Re the slum photo. Disgusting, occupied by illegals with no access to welfare state. That is why we have a benefits system and why we should be fierce in its protection and that means ensuring the man on the street deems it fair. At the end of the day most of us here on this thread pay our taxes to support benefit claimants. I am one and I wholly support both the benefits system and the cap. One reason we are civilised is that we do look after our neighbours in need but we need to be pragmatic about what is fair and equitable. I can't afford to live in many areas of London. That's life !!

chandelina I think so.

It's always worth asking why these LLs don't rent their big expensive houses to non HB tenants...

Julesnobrain - if your answer is building more social housing and ending RTB, why are you supporting movng families out instead?

I don't disagree with the cap (at the moment housing benefit goes into the pockets of rich landlords and anything that will stop this is good). However, there really needs to be a complete change to our cultural thinking in the UK regarding housing. If we are going to have a massive private rented sector then it needs to be better regulated, have much better standards, with much better security of tenure and much more consistent rents/rent increases (e.g. no room for retaliatory evictions when a tenant complains about something needing fixing or the landlord just wants to increase the rent). There is no reason why it couldn't be done (see Berlin and New York) but the political classes will not do it because the whole economy is based on a transfer of wealth from the younger generations to the property classes who have the money and the power. This will only change when the younger generation votes en masse for change and the equilibrium can no longer be sustained.

YABU. Expelling the poor would be grabbing the homes that they've legally bought and claiming it for redevelopment. Removing or refusing to subsidise their housing in expensive areas just makes sense, especially if they do not hold key but low-paid jobs (eg teaching, nursing etc).

HB is rarely paid direct to landlords now unless special circumstances. The landlord is a business, people can either choose to rent his property or not. HB is the tennants claim regardless of what it is spent on, its not the landlords claim.

People all over the UK have to live in areas they can afford, this is no different. If people want to truly stay they will move slightly out of area or take a second job etc.

The cap is ridiculous anyway, £500 a week just being handed to people! Tax free so over £30k gross for doing nothing. Thats not a basic welfare state to provide food and shelter but a generous lifestyle choice that some who work full time wont ever earn. Voters are fed up of people getting far more money and a better lifestyle on benefits than they get doing the right thing and financing themselves.

People will still work for NMW in Camden like students and those who dont rely on benefits as this is a second income in the house etc.

When you are dependent on someone else, then you have already surrendered your choice.

This country is going to hell in a hand cart, too many people depending on the State to fund their lifestyle.

I blame Nu Labour.

Rhiannon - thatwill not be necessary now the government gives them free labour. Also with 3m unemployed, someone will always work for low wages.

am I the only one that is amused that this was on the wright stuff this morning?