| Yesterday the Observer published a letter from Eric Pickles PS to David Cameron's PS. This is the normal route for a cabinet minister to communicate formallywith a Prime Minister, so the letter is official, though private.
The background isa populist policy which the government has drafted into legislation. It plays on the "divide and rule" theme and it aims to ensure that no-one can be better off on benefits than they are in work.This is fuelled by horrific headlines showing "welfare mothers" who are on double the average wage through benefits payments and who take holidays abroad and do other irresponsible things which seem to show they are neither humble nor grateful. Obviously this can't go on when "hard working families" cannot afford such things. And the answer is, as ever, to level down.
The way the government has chosen to do this is to put an absolute cap on the amount a family can receive in benefits, regardless of their circumstances. They skate over the fact that a great deal of the money is never seen by these famiies: it goes to their landlords in the form of housing benefit. That is, in turn, predicated on housing policy. Council houses have been reduced to well below the minimum required: families cannot buy houses so they are forced into the private rented sector. The housing bubble, which the shortage of houses and the availablility of credit engendered, means that houses for rent come at a very high price indeed. Local authorities, which have responsibility for housing the homeless, no longer have stock of their own for that purpose; and so they have to rent from those landlords in order to meet their obligations. Some of those landlords are private individuals and some are quite big companies: but they are all private and so this is another transfer of money from the taxpayer directly into the pockets of those who least need tihs "welfare handout". Because that is what it is. We never see headlines about the excess welfare payments to them though: even though the poor, acting as the middle man and pilloried for that role, are condemned for their part in all of this.
People who know about benefits and poverty, like Shelter, the homeless charity, for example, have criticised this absurd policy since it was first mooted. They have been dismissed as have the local authorities who have also expressed concern. The answer to their concerns, no matter how well-reasoned, amounts to "well they would say that, wouldn't they" and hand waved away. Nobody much cares.
But Eric Pickles is a cabinet minister. He says that this policy, together with other "reforms", will drive another 40,000 families into homelessness. He says that the policy will not save money, as the government claims: it will cost more instead. He is in a position to know: he is responsible for the department directly concerned
Pickles wrote this letter in January. Since then a succession of ministers have lied to parliament over the issue: they have denied that this will happen; they have claimed they have no figures for the increase in homelessness; they have said that the policy has not led to an increase in homelessness (which is not surprising since it is not yet law), and so the points made are not valid. They have said a lot of things and none of them are true.
This, once again, is evidence that their policies are driven by ideology and not by the "realism" they claim. They don't care about saving public money, though they say that is a prime concern. They don't care that real families will be driven to desperation through homelessness. They don't care that it will push many more families in to real poverty, including the children of those families. They don't care that it will have an adverse effect on their education because they will have to change schools and friends, probably more than once. They dont care that homeless accommodation is often substandard and unfit for families to live in. And according to Pickles' letter this policy will prevent the construction of suitable affordable housing because developers will not be able to command rents which will make it worth their while to build. They don't care about that either.
I say it is ideological: and it is. But it also practical: because it will ensure that more public money will flow into the pockets of rich people for no good reason. People who are already wealthy. Like the bankers and many others these people are the "welfare queens" by any other name. If we really want to froth at the mouth over abuse of public money should we not be directing that indignation where it belongs?
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