7. Help with housing costs

The previous coalition government focused particularly on Housing Benefit as a means of cutting public spending. The Housing Benefit 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 government, allied to the failure by successive governments to build enough affordable housing.



The coalition government capped Housing Benefit 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 (see page 86 below); capped total benefits and introduced the “bedroom tax” (or removal of spare room subsidy) for the social housing sector (see page 84 below).



The current Conservative government moved quickly to build on these measures after the 2015 general election, announcing its 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 Local Housing Allowance until 2020. This four-year freeze comes despite the continued spike in private rent prices. In February 2017, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors predicted that rents will increase by around 25% over the next five years. 


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