Housing benefit bill rises to nearly £20 billion.

HammerSmashedFace

Good old Labour, don't ya just love the way they keep helping 'hard working families'.

The Government estimates it will pay out £19.6 billion in housing benefit during the 2009/10 financial year, according to figures slipped out on the Department for Work and Pensions' (DWP) website.
The year-on-year rise, of almost 15 per cent, is the steepest for more than 15 years. In 2010/11 the bill is expected to rise still further, to £20.8 billion.

The leap in handouts will add to pressure on Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, as he attempts to rein in public spending across the board. It comes after the Government promised last month to crack down on excessive housing benefit claims.
Despite repeated pledges by politicians to overhaul Britain's welfare system, the DWP expects its total benefit expenditure to climb to almost £150 billion this year – the combined cost of the education, defence and transport budgets – as more people become unemployed and start to claim.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/recession/6924122/Housing-benefit-bill-rises-to-nearly-20-billion.html

kabayiri

Identify all the people who set the budget for this area, and fire them.

There are ways they can address this issue. We all know that. I don't seem to recall tent villages and slums on my way to work in the 90s. We clearly managed on less then.

The power makers just don't have the b*lls to make the tough decisions. So why should we pay them.

drc

When the idiots 'running' the system are placing couples with 8+ kids who have never contributed to the system into million pound houses that cost over 1.5k per week in rent alone it is not surprising this benefit has increased. Housing benefit should be capped and families should be moved to cheaper areas to house them rather than being housed in central London because their friends or family live there.

1984ReturnsForReal_2

Lucky interest rates are so low..

Coincdence?

I think not...

wageslave

If we have to have hand out this kind of money to keep a roof over peoples heads then rents are too bliddy high.

Just whose pockets are we actually lining here?

1984ReturnsForReal_2

wageslave wrote: »

If we have to have hand out this kind of money to keep a roof over peoples heads then rents are too bliddy high.

Just whose pockets are we actually lining here?

Mostly the banks.

& if interest rates went up so would the amount of money paid to them.

bambam101

We're in the middle of a recession, with people being made redundant and being laid off, what did you all expect - for housing benefit payments to go down! Next year it will raise again.
And its still a small figure compared to what we've baled out the banks with, after they played casino economics with all our pension funds.

michaels

bambam101 wrote: »

We're in the middle of a recession, with people being made redundant and being laid off, what did you all expect - for housing benefit payments to go down! Next year it will raise again.
And its still a small figure compared to what we've baled out the banks with, after they played casino economics with all our pension funds.

Latest estimate for the cost of bailing out the banks 10bn cf 20bn pa on housing benefit?

Of course a lot of this is bailing out the banks so that they don't have to repossess and write down and by supporting house prices it also benefits banks bottom line and capital.

1984ReturnsForReal_2

bambam101 wrote: »

We're in the middle of a recession, with people being made redundant and being laid off, what did you all expect - for housing benefit payments to go down! Next year it will raise again.
And its still a small figure compared to what we've baled out the banks with, after they played casino economics with all our pension funds.

Good post..

But a small point for you.

Banks didnt play casino with your pension funds. Banks gambled with money that in reality didnt even exist.

Your pension fund management company gambled with your pension & to be honest they have come out quite well considering.

Most people would of only lost 12-18months "growth" & if the management company was clever they could of easily added 20-30% on its value in the last 6 months..

bambam101

michaels wrote: »

Latest estimate for the cost of bailing out the banks 10bn cf 20bn pa on housing benefit?

Of course a lot of this is bailing out the banks so that they don't have to repossess and write down and by supporting house prices it also benefits banks bottom line and capital.

I agree it had to be done to save the banks from sinking and us the country with it. But it cost us £850 billion (so far), and most of this damage was caused by 5000 people who work in one square mile of central london. So compared to paying housing benefit to millions of people, I know which makes my blood boil more.

http://www.inthenews.co.uk/news/finance/taxpayer-bank-bail-out-has-cost-850-billion-$1344998.htm

captainhaggis

wageslave wrote: »

If we have to have hand out this kind of money to keep a roof over peoples heads then rents are too bliddy high.

Just whose pockets are we actually lining here?

Vicious circle though, isn't it?

The landlords know the state will pay so they keep the rent high. The state needs (or misleads itself in to believing it needs) the property and so is prepared to pay whatever it takes to secure it.

As a poster above said, it's time housing benefit was capped per family, regardless of the size of that family, and it's CERTAINLY about time we started utilising - atleast for those families without a working parent (and there are plenty of them) - the tens of thousands of abandoned homes in former mining towns, military bases and otherwise unoccupied areas.

I'd rather see government money ploughed into regenerating these areas and the homes within them than see the money spent on, as in the example above, 1,500.00 a month grand homes in the centre of London, for the first option would also help those home owners in the area by increasing the value of the property they've worked hard to own.