Landlords accuse minister of 'fiddling' housing benefit figures

Thursday, 04 November 2010 12:00

Welfare reform minister Lord Freud has been accused of "fiddling" government figures on housing benefit in order to blame private landlords for rising costs.

The British Property Federation (BPF) has called on the Conservative peer and former investment banker to retract a claim made to a parliamentary inquiry that property owners increasing their rents was the main factor in creating a higher welfare bill for the taxpayer.

Its analysis of figures from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) shows rising average payments in the private sector accounted for around 13.2 per cent of the growth in housing benefit costs.

By comparison, 70 per cent of the rise was attributed to new claimants coming into the system, mainly because of unemployment linked to the recession, the BPF said.

It added the DWP had also asserted in the Daily Telegraph on October 17th that research by the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies and the University of Birmingham had found private landlords charge higher average rents to housing benefit claimants than working families but provide poorer conditions.

The report said the difference was "not statistically significant".

BPF director of policy Ian Fletcher said: "Rather than distorting the findings of the report and misusing statistics, the department should be focusing its energies on how it can work with the sector to keep people in their homes."

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