Housing benefit challenge fails

[dipsydoodle]

Disabled families have lost a court challenge to social housing benefit cuts for residents with spare bedrooms in England, Wales and Scotland.

Lawyers for 10 families brought a judicial review over the lower payments for people in homes deemed too large.

They argued that the change, which was introduced in April, breached their clients' human rights.

But the High Court ruled that the move did not unlawfully discriminate against disabled people.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23503095

[LeftishBrit]

1. There are times when I wish I believed in hell for such people

[LeftishBrit]

2. To add - this is very much against the whole Big Society/ family values ideology that the government

claims to support.

A disabled or elderly person may be just about able to manage without much government help, because a relative or friend is able to organize things to come and stay with them a night or two each week and carry out some necessary chores. If they no longer have room to stay, then the individual will depend more on the social services, and may even have to go into a care home.

On a different front, the government fulminates about absentee fathers. Many fathers, despite having broken relationships with their partners, keep contact with their children who visit for the weekend. If they are no longer able to provide a spare room for such visits, then they are more likely to lose contact.


This is not about saving money; it won't - especially as there are not enough single-bedroom council houses available, even if people are able and willing to downsize. It is a mean-spirited, vicious attempt to punish people on benefits, and especially ill or disabled people.

And most of the politicians who support such policies live in pretty big houses themselves - and although they aren't on benefits, the taxpayers are paying their salaries.

[unedited]

3. Conservatives showing their true colours

The whole housing benefit changes are typical of the Tories.

They're not addressing the cause of the housing probem, ie not enough affordable and social housing being built. They're attacking the vulnerable, using the media to blame the disabled for 'taking up space'. How many times have I heard someone arguing the policy isn't fair has the reply come "But why should you have extra rooms you don't need when there are other families who are homeless?" . How is it someone's fault that another person is homeless?

Blame the bank manager in charge of repossessions or a landlord who's evicted his tenants.

It's disgusting, but not surprising. What gets me is how succesful they are at getting away with it.

I could just, JUST about stomach it if a)people with disabilities were excluded from the policy and b)people were only made to pay extra for 'spare' rooms if they'd been offered more appropriate housing and turned it down.

But it's a strategic effort to force long term tenants out of social housing - let's not forget one of the first things they did after getting into office was to decimate social tenants' rights. You now can be forced from social housing if you get a job, or if your personal circumstances change.

The new rules don't apply to tenants who signed their contracts before the laws were changed (I know this because I've lived in a council flat since before the election - and without a spare room thank lord). So they want to get the long-term tenants, with protected rights, to move - and lose their rights.

*shakes fist*