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Thousands of Scottish households worse off by £64 a week due to UK welfare cuts
Families in Scotland who have been affected by the UK government’s housing benefit cap are worse off by £64 a week, new data from the Scottish government has revealed.
According to the Scottish government’s third annual report on welfare reform, 3,320 Scottish households had their benefits capped as of May 2019, with an average of £64 per week, or £3,320 per year, being capped for those claiming housing benefit.
Introduced in 2016, the housing benefit cap limits the amount households can claim, and is currently set at £384.62 per week for couples and single-parent households in Scotland.
The report also looks into the impact on Scottish people of the four-year freeze to Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates, which are used to calculate how much housing benefit people who rent in the private sector receive.
It shows that Aberdeen City and Shire is the only area where LHA rates have kept pace with the lowest 30th percentile of rents on any size of property since the freeze.
Before the freeze, LHA rates were set to cover the cheapest third of rents within government-defined Broad Rental Market Areas.
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The largest gap between LHA rates and private rents is in Lothian where families experience a shortfall of £89.69 on a three-bed property and £114.31 on a four-bed property.
The report also shows that rent arrears on all council properties in Scotland was £74m in March 2019, up 14% from £65m the previous year.
While the Scottish government said rent arrears are difficult to directly attribute to one cause, it singled out Universal Credit as a reason for increased arrears.
The report referred to a 2019 survey from the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations (SFHA) which found that the total arrears for tenancies claiming Universal Credit was 37% of the total rent due for those tenancies, compared with 21% for tenancies not claiming Universal Credit.
In November the UK government announced that the benefit freeze would end in April, from which date working-age benefits will rise at the rate of the Consumer Price Index of Inflation.
Scottish housing minister Kevin Stewart said: “UK government welfare cuts are squeezing more families into poverty and leaving them struggling to afford appropriate accommodation.
“As the private rental market becomes increasingly less accessible to those on low income, cutting housing benefit by £64 per week for some families puts them at risk of homelessness.
“The UK government must act urgently to reverse these cuts and support those renting in the private sector.”
A Department for Work and Pensions spokesperson said: “Since 2011 we have provided around £1bn to local authorities to make Discretionary Housing Payments, and in 2020/2021 we will make an additional £40m available.
“The UK government continues to spend around £95bn a year on working-age benefits. Meanwhile, Scotland has significant welfare powers and can top-up existing benefits, pay discretionary payments and create entirely new benefits altogether.”
