Government in disarray as housing benefit row continues
Thursday, 28 October 2010 4:47 PM
By Ian Dunt
The increasingly bitter row over housing benefit reform hits the Commons today, just as it caused significant splits in the Tory party.
David Cameron and Boris Johnson, the two most recognisable Conservatives in the country, entered into a bitter war of words today, after the London mayor branded the policy "Kosovo-style social cleansing".
He told the BBC: "The last thing we want to have in our city is a situation such as Paris where the less well-off are pushed out to the suburbs.
"I'll emphatically resist any attempt to recreate a London where the rich and poor cannot live together.
"We will not see and we will not accept any kind of Kosovo-style social cleansing of London," he continued.
"On my watch, you are not going to see thousands of families evicted from the place where they have been living and have put down roots."
The prime minister's spokesman quickly said he did not agree with what Mr Johnson said "nor the way he said it".
Business secretary Vince Cable accused Mr Johnson of using "inflammatory language that would help no-one".
By the afternoon, Mr Johnson has furiously rowed back on his original statements, insisting that he was taken out of context.
"I do not agree with the wild accusations from defenders of the current system that reforms will lead to social cleansing," Mr Johnson said.
The use of the word 'cleansing' was significant, after deputy prime minister Nick Clegg reacted so angrily to it on Tuesday when it was employed by shadow justice minister Chris Bryant.
"To refer to cleansing would be deeply offensive to people who have witnessed ethnic cleansing in other parts of the world," he said.
Meanwhile, Ed Miliband issued a plea to dissenting Liberal Democrats to join the opposition in voting down the measure later, in a sign that Labour believes the issue is serious enough to prompt a fracture in the coalition.
"They are honourable people," he told the Mirror.
"They are in politics for the right reasons. I hope they will vote with their consciences when it comes to issues like housing benefit.
"They [the government] are cutting the housing benefit of poor people in an unjustified way, they are going to potentially make people lose their homes. That is not what they came into politics for. I hope they will vote with their consciences."
Meanwhile, shadow work and pensions secretary Douglas Alexander was meeting housing associations and charities to establish how to progress with the issue.
The plan would impose a £400-a-week cap on housing benefit for four-bedroom homes and cut the benefit by ten per cent if the claimant had been out of work for over a year.
The government says it is unfair to ask taxpayers to subsidise the rent on homes in areas they cannot afford to live in themselves.
But critics say the move could affect tens of thousands of people in the inner cities, where rents are disproportionately high, including several working families who would be forced to move their children from school and break their connections to their area.
Tensions in the government do not just come from Lib Dem backbenchers. Tory MPs with London constituencies are wary of what the move would do to their constituents.
London has been at the centre of the row because suitable accommodation below the level of the cap will be difficult to find. Analysts expect up to 82,000 people to be evicted from their homes if the move is implemented in the capital.
Speaking on the Today programme this morning, housing minister Grant Shapps admitted there would be problems but he insisted that some of figures being floated around were not accurate.
"I don't deny that some people may well need to move," he conceded.
"Not tens of thousands. The impact assessment says there are about 17,000 people in London whom the cap would affect. Rather than some of the catastrophic predictions that have been made, what's much more likely is that rents will start to fall.
"We think this is a matter of fairness. People on housing benefit shouldn't be put in a position that is better than those who may be working and paying 100% of their rent themselves."
The government's room to manoeuvre on the issue was drastically reduced yesterday when the prime minister appeared to commit himself to the current plans in a stormy PMQs session.
Pressured by Mr Miliband on whether he would consider adapting elements of the policy, Mr Cameron replied: "We are bringing forward our plans for housing benefit reform.
"We are going forward with all the proposals we put in the spending review."
Mr Miliband replied: "The whole House will have heard the prime minister has dug himself in."
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