Government looking to avert mass evictions
Over the last few weeks the UK government has announced a number of changes to housing benefit in the UK which will have a material impact on up to 1 million families. Such is the potential danger of massive evictions in the UK that Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, has intervened directly to request that funding is made available to various boroughs in the capital to allow them to assist those who have been inadvertently affected.
The proposed changes to housing benefits were in theory targeted towards those at the higher end of the spectrum who are claiming thousands and thousands of pounds a year for enormous properties. These benefit payments are perfectly within the current regulations although nobody can quite understand how the benefits system can support a house which may be worth in excess of £1 million!
However, on the flipside of the coin the vast majority of those who are claiming housing benefits for larger houses have paid their fair share of tax in years gone by. Is it really right to reduce the support offered by the state because of their personal circumstances?
The reduction of housing benefit was always going to be a very difficult subject for the UK government and this is certainly proving to be the case.
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