Boris fighting London’s corner on housing benefit cuts? Really?!
Jenny Jones AM, leader of the Green Party on the London Assembly, exposes the reality of Boris Johnson’s claim to be a champion of those hit by Housing Benefit cuts.
housing
Pickles letter to Cameron reveals inconvenient truth on benefits cap
The leaked Eric Pickles letter to David Cameron reveals what we already know: poor families will be forced out of London and the South East by the benefits cap.
Need for affordable credit ‘big bang’ to aid low income communities
Kevin Gulliver, director of Birmingham-based research charity the Human City Institute and chair of the Centre for Community Research, on the need for affordable credit.
On housing, while Ed has got it wrong, Boris has the answer
While Ed Miliband has got it wrong on housing policy, Boris Johnson has the answer, writes Vidhya Alakeson, Director of Research and Strategy at the Resolution Foundation.
Budget 2011: Planning changes: A hidden job killer?
Ed Turner, lecturer in politics at the Aston Centre for Europe, and deputy leader of Oxford City Council, looks at the impact of the changes to planning announced in yesterday’s budget.
Axing of housing regeneration scheme could set communities back a decade
Graham Jones, Labour MP for Hyndburn, reports on why the government’s abolition of the housing regeneration scheme riskes setting back communities by a decade.
Housing – a fault line between London and the devolved bodies
Just days after the government’s controversial localism bill, tenants in Wales and Scotland have received welcome news, writes Ed Jacobs.
Is Simon Hughes Britain’s most confused politician?
Following Evan Harris’s bizarre claim last week that the only way to get rid of fees was to “vote more Liberal Democrats into power”, Simon Hughes yesterday said he “would have liked to have voted against” fees – but didn’t, just as he threatened to vote against the VAT rise in the Budget but failed to do so, and as he threatened to do over the government’s housing benefit cuts.
Coalition’s housing plans will disincentivise aspiration
There is a sound argument to try to support greater mobility in social housing – only five per cent of social tenants moved home over the past year compared to almost a quarter of tenants in the private sector, though it is unclear what an ‘optimal’ level would be. It is also important to emphasise that it is councils and housing associations that will decide the length of tenancies, so the key question is how they will use their new freedoms.
No new social homes planned for at least four years
Our nation faces an unprecedented housing crisis. More than 4.5m people are languishing on waiting lists. Around 2.5m people are living in cramped and overcrowded conditions. And to top it all off, the Government has unleashed a programme of housing benefit cuts that could force hundreds of thousands of people out of their homes, leaving many at risk of ending up on the streets.