The article revolves around mothers who live in Westminster being forced from their homes due to new caps on housing benefit and, most importantly, how this affects the children who will have to suffer moving home and changing schools. My reaction to news is often either fury or complete apathy. But this article left me on the fence. Firstly, why are low income families living in Westminster in the first place? As many people have responded in the comments beneath the article, there are huge numbers of people who earn a respectable wage who cannot afford to live in Westminster. £30,000 per annum is very well paid by many people's standards, including my own, but it is not enough to live in Westminster, where you look at paying upwards of £2000 a month for a studio flat. So how are women working part-time or who are unemployed managing it? The answer must surely be enormous housing benefit payments.
Is this fair? Many people say that it is not. That single unemployed mothers being subsidised by the state to live in central London is unjustified and unfair to the rest of the people who work full-time and have to commute to central London. My housing benefit is capped at £85 per week, which is nowhere near enough to fund my own flat anywhere near central London. So why on earth are these women receiving several times that amount to pay for central London homes? The answer is again an obvious one; because they have children. Which raises even more questions about the fairness of paying millions in benefits to mothers who cannot afford their own children in order that they may live in the most sought after areas in the country, at the expense of taxpayers for whom living in Westminster remains a dream. Simply put, it isn't fair at all.
But a more appropriate response would take into account their individual circumstances and how they have come to live in Westminster, and central London on the whole, in the first place. To return to my original question, clearly there was a time when such class restrictions were not in place, when affordable (council) housing was available in these areas. One notion which is rolling around my head as I write this is the contradictory nature of such acts as these changes to housing benefit. It is the Conservative party who are implementing this wave of what can arguably be called social cleansing. To say that they want rid of the unwashed poor from the Conservative mecca of Westminster is not so farfetched. But it must be taken into account that they are claiming to be solving a problem; a problem which they created in the first place.
The Right to Buy scheme which Thatcher enforced in the 80s sounds like a great idea. Giving council tenants a right to buy their properties at a discounted price. But what does that lead to? To those tenants then selling on their properties to private landlords who hike up rental prices and charge double, triple or more what the original tenants were paying the council. I speak from experience, since both of my parents lived in council properties which they then went on to buy and sell at a profit. And there are countless instances of this happening accross London. Trellick Tower (see image) in the London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea was built in the 60s and consisted entirely of council flats, but due to redevlopment and gentrification schemes many of these are now private flats costing upwards of £1500 a month, which is likely significantly higher than what your neighbour is paying the council for the same apartment. Giving council tenants the choice to buy their homes is a nice idea, but realistically the only thing it serves to achieve is a decline in council housing and a rise in private rentals, which are far more expensive.
The Conservative philosophy is apparently to privatise everything, regardless of the consequences and repercussions (those can be dealt with later). But privatising council properties has led to private landlords charging exorbitant rents which will subsequently lead to the gradual rise in both the number of housing benefit claimants and the amount that they are claiming. And now it is poor tenants who are suffering for the Tories' lack of judgement. Whether or not it is fair that single mothers should enjoy the benefits of living in central London is almost irrelevant when you consider that the properties which they rent are most likely situated in ex-council blocks. Meaning that the rent that they now pay is probably many times what it was originally. How can a flat in Westminster rented out at £200 a week by the council be sold to a private landlord and then rented out at quadruple that price without any changes being made to the property itself? How is that justifiable? When landlords can charge just under £40,000 a year for a tiny damp flat in an ex-council tower block filled with broken furniture, the problem is clear: privatisation. The question of why single mothers are living in central London is no longer the most important.
The article almost makes out that this is only the case in Westminster. That any other London borough would offer an abundance of affordable housing. But this is simply not the case. My current flat is located in Southwark, close to central London, and costs £1000 a month. I would not consider this affordable, but I do live near central London. However, my last flat was in Lambeth, close to the border of Croydon, where inner London becomes outer London, a 90 minute bus journey into the city centre, and yet it cost the same price as my current flat. To say then, that this problem is restricted to Westminster, or even to central London, and that these families could move to another borough and choose from any number of affordable options is overly simplifying the matter, and has little credibility.
Rent in central London is extortionate, that much is true. But council housing is almost non-existant, meaning that affordable housing in any part of London, or indeed any part of the country, is becoming increasingly difficult to find. There was a Dispatches episode on the affordable housing debate which showed that Manchaster and other large cities in the UK have this problem; masses of private high-end apartments being built but little or no affordable ones. There is very little demand for high-end property at the moment. The new developments being built often remain unfilled for months or years following their completion. And yet continue to be built. On the other hand, the waiting list for council properties getting longer and longer, and yet there doesn't seem to be any inclination to build more of these. Gentrification is nothing more than social cleansing; forcing low-income families out of the cities towards the outskirts. The Conservatives are benefiting twofold from this; saving expense through cuts to housing benefit, and moving the undesirables out of London to make way for the rich. This affinity for wealth and disgust for poverty belongs to the 19th Century and not modern day liberal (supposedly) Britain. But rather than getting better, the situation seems to be worsening. The government should be taking measures to alleviate this dissonance between the classes, but instead they are further widening the gap.
The cause of the problem is being wholeheartedly ignored. What is needed is not a cap on benefits but a cap on rents, as well as the creation of affordable homes. As long as there is such a high demand for council properties, and as long as landlords are free to charge such ludicrously high rents, there is a need for housing benefit. Slashing this will save some money, but it will not fix the problem in the long term.
Saving money is what this is all working towards. The Conservatives say that we must take austerity measures to decrease the deficit, but how much are we hearing about rich families who are struggling to cut down their spending? That's right, zero. The opposite in fact, since bankers are still receiving thousands in bonuses. While the rest of the country is forced to live frugally, the rich are somehow exempt. Every household which is feeling the squeeze of the cuts right now is a poor one. Poor to begin with, and now struggling even more. But how much money is this benefit cap really saving? Skimming off a little from housing benefit payments will not save very much comparatively. But it will ruin people's lives. Greater taxes on the rich could save twice as much, and they would not even notice it.
I am not one to take the side of people with children, and I would mostly agree that people should not have children which they cannot afford. To an extent I disagree with the concept of child benefit, because I think that people should make a responsible decision on whether they can afford to raise a family before they do, rather than relying on the state to support them later. But however I may feel about people's lifestyle choices is besides the point. "To live in Westminster is a privilege, not a right" is a statement which both angers and saddens me, because I do not believe that any city in the UK should be completely off-limits to anybody but the uber-rich. This is a complacent and conceited remark that condones class segregation.
The women mentioned in the article have the luxury of living in Westminster, and I, like many, am rather envious of that fact. But do I think that they should be forced to move miles away to the outer boroughs? No. They are being treated unfairly by the government, and that is the brunt of the matter. Regardless of circumstances, they are not to blame, and yet they are being punished. It is a cruel irony that the families being forced out of their homes right now are paying the price of Thatcher's failed privatisation schemes of the 80s. The money being saved by these changes does not justify such social cleansing. What we are seeing is a complete denial of the issue at hand; affordable housing. Inevitably, competition between private landlords will always lead to rises in rents, and more people will need to resort to housing benefit, it is that simple. Not to mention the links with rising unemployment and wage cuts and freezes. It would make more sense to buy back these buildings to be used once again as council properties which do not require such heavy subsidies. The benefit cap is merely a placebo. Unless affordable housing is created, the problem will not go away.
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