A report by officials at Westminster council says the effects of the cap could lead to thousands of primary school children moving schools and vulnerable adults, including elderly people with dementia, being forced to move out of the borough.
A second report by the authority also nails the Conservative myth that many council and housing association households are living in subsidised accommodation and earning more than £100,000 a year. It could not find a single council tenant in Westminster and only 26 housing association tenants in this category. The officials – using Department of Work and Pensions data – say Tory-controlled Westminster will be the worst affected borough in the capital, but a similar situation is likely to be replicated in other authorities.
Some 6,234 households living in the private rented sector in Westminster receive the benefit. More than 5,000 – 81 per cent – currently pay rents above the new cap levels. The Government will save £40 million in benefit payments to tenants but the council will receive only £1.1 million from ministers to cover hardship payments for the worst cases. Some 4,000 children and young people live in the affected households.
Officials say: “Making an assumption that all family households with a greater than 20 per cent reduction in housing benefit will move from the borough, Westminster could possibly see around 17 per cent of primary school age children move. Up to 43 per cent of the primary age school population in Maida Vale might be affected and 34 per cent of 11 to 13-year-old pupils living in Bryanston and Dorset Square.”
Social care cases will be affected – the report says 50 of the 102 children thought to be at serious risk of harm could be forced to leave the borough – making monitoring by social services difficult. Some 313 vulnerable elderly people, including 42 people over 80, some of them with dementia, could be forced to leave. Another 30 with serious mental problems could have to move.
Paul Dimoldenberg, leader of the Labour group, said: “These thoughtless and callous cuts will ruin the lives of many people. These are heartless and mean-minded proposals which should be withdrawn immediately.”
