MP backs Coalition plan to limit housing benefit

13th November 2010
MP backs Coalition plan to limit housing benefit

It takes the income tax paid by 8 average earners in Sittingbourne and Sheppey to pay off just one family’s £25,000 housing benefit bill, according to new analysis released today by local MP, Gordon Henderson. He believes this is unfair and has backed the Coalition’s plans to limit the amount households can claim in housing benefit.

Spending on Housing Benefit has almost doubled in the last ten years and now costs the tax-payer £20 billion per year. The Government has said it will limit the amount that households can claim in Housing Benefit, bringing the bill back under control and ending the unfair system whereby taxpayers all over the country pay for Housing Benefit claimants to live in houses they themselves could not afford. However, Labour mp's voted against the proposals on Tuesday 9th November.

Labour think it is fair for working families on average incomes in Sittingbourne and Sheppey to foot the bill for some families in central London and elsewhere to spend more than £25,000 of benefits a year on their housing alone.

Mr Henderson said,

“I don’t think it’s fair for working families’ taxes to go towards paying housing benefit bills of £25,000. The Coalition’s reforms are about restoring fairness to a system that was allowed to run totally out of control by the previous government.”

“It shows how out of touch Labour are that they support a Housing Benefit system which makes hard working individuals and families, already struggling to find affordable private rents or pay their mortgages, pay taxes to subsidise people living in properties they themselves could never afford.”