Housing Benefits Hit a Nerve Across the UK Causing Outrage
The housing benefits bill is on track to reach 30 billion pounds per year by 2020. Don’t stand to close to anyone who opposes the bill though. There is enough outrage running throughout the UK now to risk taking one on the chin. The mammoth amount burdening the country by the year 2020 was announced last night. Despite attempts by the Government to put a cap on claims, the bill is set to raise at an unrelenting pace.
Although the Chancellor, George Osborne, has 11 billion pounds in benefit cuts scheduled, he is looking for another four billion pounds in savings off of the roughly 190 billion pounds per year welfare bill. This new forecast is compliments of Policy Exchange, a social policy think tank with close ties to Downing Street. The Policy Exchange deputy director and principal researcher, Natalie Evans, commented on the welfare bill, saying: "The UK needs to tackle spiraling housing costs in order to cut housing benefits in a radical way. It’s no good fiddling around with a system that already costs £20billion a year. Instead, we should be looking at ways of making sure the bill doesn’t get any bigger. We need to cut the cost of housing so people aren’t reliant on benefits." The average estimated yearly rise is 4.5 per cent, as discovered by Policy Exchange. This forecast is based on consistent yearly four per cent increases in social housing rental costs. Additionally, it is based on five per cent increases in the private rental sector.