No money left? Raising the benefit cap would help our families, says council leader
Town Hall faces questions over delays to new hostels
Tuesday, 25th July 2023 — By Richard Osley
Camden Council leader Georgia Gould wants the housing benefit cap lifted
COUNCIL leader Georgia Gould said families would be spared hostels and life in bed and breakfasts if the government lifted the housing benefit cap.
She said a homes crisis which was landing thousands of people in temporary accommodation was “government-made or at least government-sustained”.
Her comments came in the same week that Labour’s frontbenchers at Westminster said that there was “no money left” for some of the commitments the party has previously supported.
In relation to a separate cap on benefits, leader Sir Keir Starmer said he would not scrap the Tories’ two-child limit on financial help.
Labour has not made a call on whether it would increase the limit on housing benefit, which Cllr Gould was referring to this week, but Mr Starmer said that there would be “tough decisions” to make on spending.
Cllr Gould told Monday’s full council meeting that there was a preventable crisis of people suffering from a contracted private rental market with housing benefit not covering even most of the cheapest properties in Camden.
“We have over 160,000 residents in temporary accommodation across London. I think we’ve seen an 800 per cent increase in people living in B&Bs and the driver of this is the housing benefit cap.” she said, adding: “If you lifted the housing benefit cap to include the bottom third of properties, we could house so many of these families and children in proper long term accommodation. This is a government-made crisis, or at least a government-sustained crisis.”
She said she wanted ministers to support Camden’s buying back of flats, as she answered questions from the Lib Dem opposition on lengthy delays to getting new hostels ready.
Lucy Powell says ‘there’s no money left’
Nationally, Labour are steering clear of spending commitments or moves to raise taxation, and there is no promise to restore everything councillors in Camden have blamed on Tory cuts in recent years.
The decision to continue the policy of refusing additional means-tested support to families who have a third child has caused some backstage division, as Labour had previously opposed this.
The party’s shadow culture secretary Lucy Powell said this week: “As a famous phrase would go, there is no money left.”
