Benefit levels in the UK: Work and Pensions Committee holds session on housing benefit policy
The Work and Pensions Committee’s inquiry into the adequacy of benefit levels in the UK continues with a session focussing on housing benefit policy from the perspective of vulnerable claimants, landlords and letting agents.
Likely areas of questioning
The first panel, featuring witnesses representing renters, homelessness charities and an academic, will consider the impact of housing benefit policy on vulnerable claimants, including individuals living in supported accommodation.
The Committee will then go on to question the second panel, made up of witnesses representing private landlords and letting agents, and an academic who specialises in the relationship between housing and the welfare state, on the availability of affordable housing, how Local Housing Allowance rate calculations could be improved, and the relationship between rent caps and housing benefit.
The inquiry follows the Committee’s cost of living report from July last year which called on Ministers to review the adequacy of benefit levels. The Government responded that ‘there was no objective way of deciding what an adequate level of benefits should be’.