Re: Oooh, look. Half a million more people claiming housing benefit under coalition.
 

Exactly! If they were reducing the spend on housing benefit then the lefties would be moaning about that. Can't please some people :(

Re: Oooh, look. Half a million more people claiming housing benefit under coalition.
 

Just goes to show what a bunch of hypocrites and chancers they are.

Re: Oooh, look. Half a million more people claiming housing benefit under coalition.
 

The Lefties realise that much of that Housing Benefit ends up in the pockets of landlords. Landlords that support Right wing policies and politicians.

Re: Oooh, look. Half a million more people claiming housing benefit under coalition.
 

Is anyone actually complaining about increased benefits? The way I have read the report and the complaint is the lack of affordable housing. I don't think any of them want housing benefit to be cut and the people receiving it made homeless.

Re: Oooh, look. Half a million more people claiming housing benefit under coalition.
 

If thats the case then the articles headline should be changed to reflect that instead of saying:
"Half a million more people claiming housing benefit under coalition "
:shrug:

---------- Post added at 14:38 ---------- Previous post was at 14:34 ----------

I suppose that we could ban buy to let mortgages. That would stop a lot of landlords being able to buy houses to rent out.
Of course, that would stop a lot of property sales, for lack of buyers. That would mean that many owners would become accidental landlords.

Re: Oooh, look. Half a million more people claiming housing benefit under coalition.
 

IIRC Flyboy was a landlord and didn't support the Tories. ;)

He was odd though... :)

Re: Oooh, look. Half a million more people claiming housing benefit under coalition.
 

Increasing the housing supply is the best way to fix this imo. We're not building enough homes and all Government policy thus far seems to be geared towards maintaining the market as it is but using Government money to get more people onto the flyaway train. Either though help to buy, the new homes discount or whatever else they're cooking up.

All of them are ultimately the Government subsiding the rise in house prices by ensuring the demand is there. If they increased house building and got rid of the subsides then the housing benefit may be reduced. However that would be either because house prices have stopped increasing or even fallen.

Re: Oooh, look. Half a million more people claiming housing benefit under coalition.
 

I agree that building more houses is the answer (or stop letting in so many people would help as well)
Trouble is that everyone wants to live in the south east and we have got far too many here as it is hence the high prices and groaning infrastructure.

Re: Oooh, look. Half a million more people claiming housing benefit under coalition.
 

Yeah we need to do better in promoting investment and business in the North. I think London & the South East would be helped if we didn't have every new development being taken up by luxury apartments marketed as investments to wealthy investors from abroad. I could understand Westminster and Hyde Park getting luxury developments but Stratford? Hackney? East London? It's getting insane.

Maybe London needs to have more powers devolved so it can concentrate on it's unique problems and allow Parliament to address the wider country. That said I don't have confidence in London's governance to assume they won't want to continue things as they are anyway.

Re: Oooh, look. Half a million more people claiming housing benefit under coalition.
 

They are moaning because the HB bill is going up despite more people being in work(according to government figures) which means that wages have dropped and more people are on lower wages putting them into the 'in work benefits' bracket ,which to be quite honest is absolutely shameful. If people can't work and earn enough to support themselves without relying on state benefits then something is very wrong.

Re: Oooh, look. Half a million more people claiming housing benefit under coalition.
 

So even "hard working people" claim benefits.

and some of them seem to forget that fact.

some of them claim more benefits than somebody that doesn't work.

and they seem to forget that too.

Re: Oooh, look. Half a million more people claiming housing benefit under coalition.
 

Indeed , Labour has a lot to answer for .

Re: Oooh, look. Half a million more people claiming housing benefit under coalition.
 

I know.
but they'll be back in soon to sort it all out, Marty.

Re: Oooh, look. Half a million more people claiming housing benefit under coalition.
 

I thought the purple one was going to win and then fix the country before dinner :)

Re: Oooh, look. Half a million more people claiming housing benefit under coalition.
 

InBecause the Government have allowed rents to rise so much that 25% of private tenants are now on Housing Benefit. This costs the taxpayer more as it has meant that, despite their cuts, the Housing Benefit bill has ballooned under the coalition.

The main beneficiaries of this situation are the people that Taf has outlined below:

Indeed. So, if you think about it, who is it that is REALLY sponging off the taxpayer?

This and the fact that rents have been allowed to spiral out of control. As a resukt, many people who managed without Housing Benefit are now eligible to claim.

True. In fact much, much more is paid out in benefits to those in work than out if work.