The benefit cap referred to by James in your series The Heat Or Eat Diaries discriminates against those forced to live in private rented accommodation because of the scarcity of social housing (I was too ill to work – the Tory benefit cap left me and my children with £50 a week to live on, 29 June). Renting privately is almost always more expensive and less secure. The local housing allowance is another cap that sets the maximum rent that benefits will cover for renting from a private landlord.
The absolute scandal is that these two limits (the benefit cap and local housing allowance) are unrelated. So if you rent from a private landlord and are subject to the benefit cap, you will almost certainly be much worse off than if you rent from a council or housing association. The benefit cap is set regardless of the local housing allowance in the same area, meaning that, like James, private renters have almost nothing left to live on once rent is paid.
In this situation, people are completely stuck, unable to feed and clothe their children, let alone pay utility bills, and are ineligible for social housing because they are already housed and social housing is in such short supply.
The benefit cap and the right to buy are pernicious policies that push families into expensive private accommodation they cannot afford.
Sorrel Brookes
London
• It was heartbreaking to read the article by James. I’m afraid things were little better when Labour was in power. My family and I were left high and dry when our benefits were suspended after a kangaroo court of a medical assessment, following a workplace accident. Thanks to family, we were spared the worst of what always threatened to become a desperate situation, but so many don’t have that option.
Why did Labour not roll back previous draconian legislation when it had the chance? Would it do so now? I’m not convinced.
I am not suggesting that benefits must always be granted without question, but what is gained by exposing vulnerable people to arbitrary processes designed not to help but to further exacerbate hardship? Why is the system concerned more with punishment and penny-pinching than helping?
Andrew Harrison
Holmfirth, West Yorkshire
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