"Final decisions have not been made" over the decision to pay social housing tenants their housing benefit directly, according to evidence submitted to a select committee from housing minister Grant Shapps. He was one of a number of witnesses to supply evidence to the Communities and Local Government (CLG) select committee report on 'Localisation issues in Welfare Reform'. The committee concluded it was "concerned" about the potential negative impact of direct payments on social landlords and the availability of finance for investment in the social housing sector. In evidence submitted to the committee Mr Shapps said: "We are not proposing to move without evidence and testing out these things, so we are very cautious in our approach to this. Final decisions have not been made in this area at all. [...] but if you believe in Universal Credit [...] you have to find a system of having a single payment in order to support that approach [...] but within an environment where we can reassure the landlords and social landlords that they will not lose out." His evidence, however, appears to contrast the messages coming from Welfare reform minister Lord Freud who has continually repeated his commitment to pay tenants their housing benefit directly from 2013. Read more on 24dash.
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