Housing Benefit - the facts

The number of working people claiming housing benefit has increased by 60 per cent costing taxpayers an extra £6 billion because of David Cameron’s cost-of-living crisis. 

400,000 more working people are claiming housing benefit costing the taxpayer an estimated extra £4.8bn in housing benefit over the course of this Parliament. 

Every single local authority in the UK has seen an increase in the number of people in work claiming housing benefit, the biggest increase in the country was in Croydon which has seen an astonishing 1100 per cent rise since 2010. 

The maths is simple: landlords profiting from ridiculous rents are likely to vote Tory; tenants paying those rents (and going without in other basics to make up the shortfall in benefit) are not.

Labour has pledged to limit rent increases, extend the length of tenancies and stop letting agents charging both landlord and tenants for their so-called services.  The rent-for-profit industry is up in arms.  Yes, in the country which built railways and cars and ships and wove fabric for the world, renting property now counts as an industry.