Legal challenge to cuts

Symon Hill reports

Conflict over cuts to housing benefit is set to move to the courts.  The Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) has launched legal action against the government.

CPAG, which was set up in part by Quakers, argue that government proposals will lead to ‘social cleansing’.  On Monday, they began proceedings for a judicial review – a process by which a court considers whether the government has broken the law. 

Ministers have capped the level of housing benefit per household and restricted the maximum household size regardless of the number of people living there.  The measures will come into force on 1 April. 

Opposition to the cuts has so far been based on general moral concerns rather than legal arguments.  Now CPAG’s lawyers will argue that the changes are contrary to the fundamental purpose of housing benefit as a national scheme to prevent homelessness. 

CPAG’s Alison Garnham said they aimed ‘to protect Britain from becoming a country where neighbourhoods that have been open to all families to live in for generations become more like a private members’ club’.

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