7. Help with housing costs


The Tory-led coalition government focused particularly on Housing Benefit (HB) as a means of cutting public spending. The HB bill may have increased massively over recent years, but unions point out that this is as a result of the Right-to-Buy policy, introduced in the 1980’s under the Thatcher regime, and reinvigorated under the coalition, allied to the failure by successive governments to build enough affordable housing.


The coalition capped HB at a fixed level based on property size; raised the age for those entitled only to the single room rate from 25 to 35; tampered with the calculation of Local Housing Allowance (LHA) (see page 78); capped total benefits; and introduced the “bedroom tax” (or removal of spare room subsidy) for the social housing sector (see page 76).


The Conservatives moved quickly to build on these measures after the 2015 general election, announcing their intention to reduce the Benefit Cap on total benefits for families from £26,000 a year to £23,000 in London and £20,000 outside London, and freeze LHA until 2020. This four-year freeze continues despite the rise in private rent prices. 


Unemployed 18-21-year-olds are no longer automatically entitled to the housing element of Universal Credit (UC) as a result of a change introduced in April 2017 (see Chapter 1), although there are exceptions for parents, those considered vulnerable, and those who could previously afford their rent without assistance.