Daily Archives: 14 October 2013

Benefit tourism claims: European Commission urges UK to provide evidence

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24522653

The UK government has consistently declined to provide evidence to support its claims about “benefit tourism”, the European Commission has said.

Jonathan Todd, a spokesman for Employment Commissioner László Andor, told the BBC that the Commission had been asking for about three years.

He “sincerely hoped” that ministers would set the record straight, he said.

But No 10 said there was “widespread and understandable concern” over people coming to the UK to access benefits.

The Commission’s intervention follows its publication of a report claiming that jobless EU migrants make up less than 5% of those claiming social benefits in most of the EU member states studied.

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Bedroom tax: ministers ‘overstated likely savings by a third’

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http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/oct/14/bedroom-tax-ministers-likely-savings

Analysis suggesting savings could be £160m less than official projections of £480m dismissed as ‘vested interests’ by employment minister

The government faced fresh calls to overhaul the unpopular bedroom tax on Monday, after new research into the first five months of the scheme suggested ministers may have significantly overestimated the savings it is likely to generate.

The analysis – which ran real data collected by four housing associations since April through a model used in 2012 by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to assess the likely impact of the policy – found that savings were likely to be £160m less than the official projections of £480m for the first year.

But employment minister Esther McVey dismissed the findings, which she claimed reflected the housing associations’ “vested interests”.

Despite heavy criticism – the Labour party has vowed to repeal the bedroom tax and opinion polls suggest it is unpopular – ministers have persistently argued that it was essential to push ahead with the policy, officially known as the spare room subsidy, to bring the UK’s soaring housing benefit bill under control.

But Monday’s report, written by Professor Rebecca Tunstall at the University of York’s centre for housing policy, says flaws in the DWP model means that it is likely to have overstated the likely savings by a third.

Tunstall said: “The savings estimated by DWP assume that of the 660,000 households affected, none of them will move to a smaller home, but we know from our own research that over a fifth want to downsize to avoid the penalty.

“Tenants are already on the move, and with nearly half of those who have chosen to stay already in rent arrears, we can only see that figure going in one direction.”

In particular, the DWP appears to have underestimated the number of tenants who move from social housing into private rented housing in order to avoid the bedroom tax penalty. Rents in the private sector can often be double those in social housing, therefore generating higher housing benefit payments.

The DWP estimated that between 10% and 30% of social housing tenants would move into the private sector. But the research suggests that figure is likely to be nearer 41%.

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Forcible relocation of vulnerable women and children

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Let’s call it what it is – they have no option but to be moved hundreds of miles.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/oct/14/young-single-mothers-focus-e15-newham-rehoused

Young mothers evicted from London hostel may be rehoused 200 miles away

Image of Newham mothers facing eviction

Twenty-nine young single mothers facing eviction from the UK’s largest hostel for homeless young people in London have been told they may be rehoused as far away as Manchester, Birmingham and Hastings as a result of cuts and welfare reforms.

The exodus, which represents potentially one of the largest displacements of vulnerable people since the coalition’s social security reform programme began, was triggered after housing support funding for young parents at Focus E15, a specialist hostel in east London, was cut by Newham council.

The mothers and mothers-to-be – all under 25, many of them teenagers – have been served with eviction notices by the housing association that runs the hostel. They have been warned that the scarcity of affordable homes locally means they may have to move to temporary accommodation between 70 and 200 miles away from their home borough.

Newham council said that although it would do everything it could to rehouse the women locally, the pressure of welfare reform coupled with high housing demand meant it would have to look outside the borough.

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Ed Miliband shifts Leftwards at conference but Rightwards in the PLP

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Ed impressed me at his conference. Looks like he’s two-faced in the tradition of Labour party leaders: They tell you what you want to hear. Original with comments is at: http://www.leftfutures.org/2013/10/ed-miliband-shifts-leftwards-at-conference-but-rightwards-in-the-plp/.

What sort of party does Miliband really want? The signs are confused because his radical stance at conference in taking on corporate power has now just two weeks later been followed by a distinct turn to the right in the reshuffle. How a programme of transforming capitalism is to be carried through by a Labour front bench which is largely made up of people wholly opposed to any such project is hard to see.

The Opposition shadow cabinet plus attendees is now composed of 12 Blairites, 4 Brownites (who together make up a majority), plus 9 centrists, and 6 on the left or left-inclining. Ed Miliband has constantly asserted that he wants a united party which balances the various factions and interests. In no sense can this reshuffle be said to achieve this. Leaving aside the centrists whose politics cannot readily be identified, the right outnumbers the left by almost 3 to 1. That is contrary to Ed’s instincts proclaimed at conference, contrary to the balance within the Labour Party as a whole, and contrary to the spirit of a shared unity which Ed professes to believe in.

One wonders who actually made the selections. What role was played by Ed’s office which is almost unanimously Blairite or right-wing? Who decided to drop Diane Abbott, a candidate for the leadership in 2010 and one of the small minority on the left who remained in the shadow cabinet?

Who decided to remove Lisa Nandy, one of the very few on the left in the 2010 intake and perhaps the most prominent, from her shadow responsibility for child care policies at which she was performing so well?   Who decided to drop or move such prominent campaigners as Chris Williamson and Jack Dromey, and why?

Of course it is true that Miliband demoted three prominent Blairites, but they were replaced by persons of similar ilk. It is also true that the reshuffle in the junior ranks overwhelmingly favoured the Blairite faction whilst not one of the 2010 left intake was singled out for the front bench. This whole picture leaves a puzzling impression, that Ed Miliband’s political instincts are quite radical, yet in the PLP he errs towards placating the dominant faction, even though that makes it difficult if not impossible to achieve his political ambitions. It is hard to understand how he thinks he can achieve his vision when he suppresses or marginalises the very people who can create the political space for him and who would support him when times get tough, as in politics sooner or later they always do.

Labour will be tougher than Tories on benefits, promises new welfare chief

 

Labour will be tougher than the Tories when it comes to slashing the benefits bill, Rachel Reeves, the new shadow work and pensions secretary, has insisted in her first interview since winning promotion in Ed Miliband’s frontbench reshuffle.

The 34-year-old Reeves, who is seen by many as a possible future party leader, said that under Labour the long-term unemployed would not be able to “linger on benefits” for long periods but would have to take up a guaranteed job offer or lose their state support.

Adopting a firm party line on welfare, the former Bank of England economist stressed that a key part of her task would be to explode the “myth” that Labour is soft on benefit costs, and to prove instead that it will be both tough and fair.

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