Government Cuts Mortgage Support

The amount of money struggling homeowners can claim to help them meet monthly mortgage repayments is to fall in July, after the government cut the interest rate used to make the calculations. Currently homeowners entitled to support for mortgage interest (SMI) can get help with monthly payments on a mortgage worth up to £200,000 based on an interest rate of 3.63%. But following a sharp fall in high-street mortgage rates, the rate will be reduced to 3.12%. SMI is a means-tested benefit that can be claimed by people receiving income-based jobseekers allowance, employment and support allowance and pension credit. It is designed to cover a borrower’s interest payments to their bank or building society, but not the original capital they borrowed. It is currently claimed by 161,000 people. Read more on the This is Money website.

Pensioners Hit Hardest By £9BILLION Welfare Spending Cuts

Savage spending cuts will soar to nearly £9billion a year, hitting pensioners hardest, a shock report reveals. The study shows PM David Cameron has broken his pre-election pledge to protect the elderly, with a quarter of welfare cuts falling on pensioner households. The Tory-led Government’s biggest cut is a £3.8billion-a-year reduction in pension credit, which tops up weekly income to a guaranteed minimum. Other cuts include a £138million-a-year reduction in the value of attendance allowances – paid to those who look after relatives – and £340million off disability living allowances for OAPs. A large chunk of the losses comes from switching the inflation measure used to set benefits each year from the Retail Prices Index to the lower Consumer Prices Index. Read more on the Sunday Mirror website.

Housing Benefit: Pension Credit – Parliamentary Written Answer

Ann Coffey: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions pursuant to the answer of 29 February 2012, Official Report, column 393W, on housing benefit: pension credit, whether the transitional protection also applies to couples where one member is above pension credit qualifying age but the couple will not receive pension credit in April 2013.

Steve Webb: In April 2013, when the under occupation measure comes in, the size criteria will not apply where one of a couple is over state pension credit age, whether or not they are actually in receipt of pension credit.