The Government has confessed to having no estimate of the number of people unable to meet their housing costs due to the freeze on housing benefit rates.
This revelation was made by the Work and Pensions Minister, Mims Davies MP (pictured), in response to a parliamentary question.
As claimants of the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) face a third consecutive year of frozen payments in cash terms, housing support provided by the Government does not reflect current rental prices. Instead, they remain linked to market rents as they were in 2019.
A recent analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates that rented households receiving the LHA will get an average of £50 a month less in benefit support than they would have if rates had risen in line with rents.
Ben Beadle, chief executive of the National Residential Landlords Association, expressed his dismay at the government’s apparent complacency: “The NRLA is appalled at the government’s complacent attitude. Amidst a cost of living squeeze, we need to do everything to support the sector and often vulnerable tenants in accessing the housing they need.”
“It beggars belief that ministers have frozen vital support for many renters with no idea how many will be unable to afford their housing as a result.”
Beadle urges the government to lift the housing benefit freeze as a matter of urgency.
