Douglas Alexander attacks 'rushed and ill-considered' housing benefit cuts

Douglas Alexander, the shadow work and pensions secretary, today accused the government of "running scared" of its own MPs over housing benefit plans he branded "rushed and ill-considered". But Alexander was criticised for saying Labour was "in favour" of housing benefit reform but giving few other details. Labour dedicated its opposition day debate to the coalition's housing benefit changes, which include a 10% cut from 2013 for those out of work for more than a year and an overall cap of £250 a week for a one-bedroom property, rising to £400 a week for a four-bedroom or larger home. The raft of changes will also see new social housing tenants face rental charges of up to 80% of market rate. The government is also imposing a £500 cap on the total benefits a household can claim per week. The changes would affect "hundreds of thousands of people" around the country, warned Alexander as he attacked the government's plans. Opening the debate, the shadow work and pensions secretary seized on the coalition's failure to table an amendment as proof of backbench discomfort with the changes and the possible impact in coalition MPs' constituencies. The changes would affect "hundreds of thousands of people" around the country, said Alexander, who criticised the government's failure to publish an impact assessment on the effects of some of the key changes. The shadow minister said concern was rising "on both sides of the house" about the plans' impact "from Cornwall in the south to Shetland in the north" and warned the changes would affect people "in and out of work", including the poorest pensioners. Speaking early in the debate to a poorly attended chamber, Alexander said: "The government seems to be running scared of their own MPs over their rushed housing benefit plans. They have so far been unable to get their own backbenchers to agree a position on housing benefit and have therefore been forced into the highly unusual position of not tabling an amendment that explicitly endorses their present proposals. "We are in favour of housing benefit reform but the government needs to think again before rushing through these changes in a way which could mean higher homelessness and increased costs." A Tory spokesperson said Alexander was "clutching at straws" because of Labour's confusion over reforms. Alexander was mocked by laughter from the coalition benches when he said that he supported housing benefit reforms, before going on to say that there was a difference between a duty to act and acting in such a "precipitous and reckless fashion" that it ended up costing the tax payer more. Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, said Labour's motion was "absolutely ludicrous". He expressed anger over claims from Labour frontbencher Chris Bryant that the government sought to "sociologically cleanse" poorer people out of London, and from Labour's Lady Hollis of Heigham, who warned that the policies would lead to "carnage". He also mentioned Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee's use of the phrase "final solution". "The way they have behaved over the last two weeks was atrocious and outrageous," Duncan Smith said. "They knowingly used terminology used to describe events such as the Holocaust, allegations of bitter intent which they knew would frighten rather than inform." Labour's "manic rabble-rousing" had failed to inform the public that if that party had won the election, it would have put in place similar measures on housing benefit, he added. Duncan Smith was faced with cries of "Boris Johnson!" from the Labour backbenches. The mayor of London was forced to backtrack on his remarks after saying he would not accept "Kosovo-style social cleansing" of London due to the cap on housing benefits. Duncan Smith said: "I agree with Boris Johnson. Because what Boris Johnson said: 'There will be no Kosovo-style cleansing of London' – quite right. And he was responding to the scare stories and the scaremongering of them on the other side [Labour] because that was exactly the phraseology that they were using." The mayor told BBC London last month: "I'll emphatically resist any attempt to recreate a London where the rich and poor cannot live together. We will not see and we will not accept any kind of Kosovo-style social cleansing of London." Simon Hughes, the Liberal Democrat deputy leader, said Duncan Smith was right to seek to "lower the temperature" of the debate. "Will you take the opportunity to deal with one other myth that has become common, which is that if there is anybody in the private sector who has to move because their property is too expensive, that it is not the government's policy that they should have to move to a far-off community where they have no links?" he asked. "The intention should always be that they should stay in the community in the council area ideally where they come from and where they have lived." Duncan Smith said: "That is exactly what we want and what we intend and that is what we believe for the most part ... will actually happen." Bob Russell (Lib Dem, Colchester) asked whether Duncan Smith believed that rents were too high in the private sector. "Shouldn't there be, in the interests of fairness, other measures against landlords with rents that are too high?" Duncan Smith said the state paid for 40% of all rental housing in Britain. "So what we do has a massive effect on the marketplace," he said. "This is the point that the other side missed out when they were in government." Labour allowed Local Housing Allowance (LHA) "to rocket to provide landlords with excess amounts of money for providing housing that would have cost less", the former Tory leader said. Duncan Smith said the housing benefit bill had risen from £14bn in 2005-06 to nearly £22bn in cash terms in 2010-11. "This is a real terms 50% increase in the housing bill." Alexander cited government statistics which show that over half the increase in the housing benefit bill since 2000 (54%) did not arise from a "few high claims" but from poorer private tenants claiming housing benefit. People turned to housing benefit to avoid being homeless, he said. During the debate, Alexander challenged the government belief that capping or cutting benefit would reduce private sector rents. He said that "might just work" if there were more houses to meet demand. The National Housing Federation has warned that a "brutal cutback" of housing benefit will leave hundreds of thousands of low-income families facing the prospect of "falling into debt or hardship or being forced to move out of their home and away from their local community to live in cheaper accommodation further afield". Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, waded into the row over the weekend by expressing fears of "social zoning", where middle-class areas get more solidly middle class and other people are pushed out to the edge.