Child Poverty Action Group Mounts Legal Challenge to Welfare Reform

Child Poverty Action Group has announced that it has issued urgent proceedings for judicial review of two of the cuts to Housing Benefit for private sector tenants due to come into force in full on 1st April 2011:
*Restriction of maximum household size to four bedrooms
*Caps on the amount of Housing Benefit a household can receive
Such changes, say campaigners, will trigger a forced migration of thousands of families – most immediately from central London but thereafter in the rest of the south, as rental prices outstrip the housing subsidy available. The effect would be instantaneous in London, with only 7% of central London available for benefit tenants after the changes come in to force on 1 April – down from 52% the day before. This, says the charity, could mean more than 20,000 children will have to move. The charity's legal argument rested upon two points: that housing benefit was created as a "national system", and that the proposed changes would mean parts of the country would effectively be purged of welfare claimants. Lawyers for the charity pointed out the Department for Work and Pensions had by its own admission not adequately considered the "disproportionate" effect on ethnic minorities and lone parents, 90% of whom are women. Read more on The Guardian website.