The abolition of housing benefit for the under-25s would be the coalition’s most irresponsible cut yet, inevitably leading to a sharp rise in homelessness. With George Osborne nonetheless expected to confirm the move in his Autumn Statement on 5 December, 13 charities, including Barnardo’s, the Teenage Cancer Trust, Crisis and Shelter, have written to today’s Times (£) urging the government to think again. They warn that the cut will “take away a vital safety net for young adults who lose their job, experience domestic violence, become ill or disabled, or who are themselves bringing up children. And it will penalise working young adults with low earnings.”
The latter point is an important one. Osborne and David Cameron have consistently sought to portray housing benefit as a payment for the unemployed, with the Prime Minister recently stating: “if you’re a young person and you work hard at college, you get a job, you’re living at home with mum and dad, you can’t move out, you can’t access housing benefit. And yet, actually, if you choose not to work, you can get housing benefit, you can get a flat.”
What Cameron either doesn’t know or won’t say is that nearly a quarter – 23.2 per cent – of working age claimants are in employment, with 93 per cent of new claims between 2010 and 2011 made by households containing at least one in-work adult. Those who claim housing benefit do so to compensate for substandard wages and/or extortionate rents. If Cameron wants to “tackle” the welfare bill, he should seek to increase the former and reduce the latter.
The letter goes on to note that while the PM “suggests that young adults who fall on hard times should move in with their parents… for many, this is simply not an option and could place them at risk.”
It states: “Their parents may be violent or abusive, or may have thrown them out because of their sexuality, or relationships may have broken down. Some will be young people leaving care. What’s more, many under-25s are already parents themselves. If they fall upon hard times they cannot be expected to squeeze their own young family back into their childhood bedroom.”
Quite so. Of the 381,000 under-25s who claim housing benefit, 204,000 (54 per cent) have children. Cameron has at least pledged to exempt those who are leaving care or those who have suffered abuse from the cut, but he has said nothing to suggest that it will not apply to those with children. Thus, as the letter concludes, “It will blight the future of some of our poorest and most vulnerable young adults and that of their children. We urge the Government to reconsider.” Let us hope it does.
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