Council tenants could be forced to move into smaller accommodation

Ministers are preparing to launch a 'house swap' scheme which is likely to affect hundreds of thousands of people.

The move will form a central plank of the coalition's attempts to rein in public spending over the course of the Parliament. 

According to official figures, a total of 234,000 households in the social tenant sector are overcrowded while 456,000 are under-occupied, meaning people have more than one extra spare room.

A further 1,159,000 households have more rooms than is standard for a family of their size.

The Work and Pensions department is now drawing up plans to slash housing benefit payments to those tenants who live in houses that are too big for them - meaning many will have to move into smaller properties. 

If they could afford to pay the difference themselves to stay where they are it will raise questions about their eligibility for housing benefit in the first place.

The move is likely to prove controversial, since 'empty nest' couples who have lived in council houses for decades and seen their children vacate rooms when they leave home are among those who will be affected.

But Welfare Reform Minister Lord Freud told the Daily Mail: 'We cannot continue with this absurd situation where some of our poorest families have to live in overcrowded conditions while others are subsidised to live in big homes with plenty of spare room.

Lord Freud said the restrictions, which will come into effect from April 2013, will only apply to people of working age, sparing pensioners from the trauma of having to move from their homes.

The Government plans to work with local authorities to ensure that the housing stock is more 'sensibly utilised' and that entitlement to social housing reflects family size.

Specific detail is yet to be agreed, but the principle would be that working-age housing benefit claimants who are living in a property that is too large for their household size will have their benefit capped.

It is expected that overall weekly caps will be set at £250 for a one-bed property, £290 for a two-bed, £340 for a three-bed and £400 for a four-bed.

This means the highest amount people will be paid in housing benefit will be just over £20,000 a year, rather than the current highest level of £104,000. In total, 3.3million tenants- 70 per cent of housing benefit recipients- live in the social sector at an annual cost of more than £12billion.

In last month's emergency Budget, Chancellor George Osborne also announced that instead of people on housing benefit being able to claim rent of up to half of the local average, they will instead be only able to claim up to one third.

And unemployed people who claim JobSeeker's Allowance for 12 months will also see their housing benefit cut by ten per cent.

Campaigners claim the draconian nature of the benefit reforms will put 750,000 people at risk of losing their homes in London and the South East.

But the Chancellor insists large cuts to the housing benefit bill - which doubled under Labour - are essential to help shield key public services from spending cuts.

source: MailOnline

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