Cruel cap ruled unlawful

In a damning judgement the Tories’ cruel benefit cap has been ruled unlawful by the High Court because it discriminates against single parent families with children under two.

Delivering the verdict, High Court judge Mr Justice Collins said, “Real misery is being caused to no good purpose.”

The massive defeat for the government means that ministers will likely be forced amend or scrap a central plank of their welfare policies.

Unite welcomed the ruling against the cap, which sets a ceiling of ÂŁ23,000 in London and ÂŁ20,000 elsewhere for the total amount of benefits a household can receive, and said increasing council housing stock is the only way to lower the exorbitant housing benefit costs the cap is linked to.

The case was brought before the High Court by four single parent families – two of which had been made homeless because of domestic violence – who were severely and disproportionately impacted by the cap.

The families’ solicitor said their benefits were due to be cut because the parents could not work the 16 hours a week needed to avoid the cap.

Ministers tried to have the case thrown out but their motion was rejected by the court, which ruled at beginning of the year for the case to be heard as a priority.

The government said it was “disappointed” by the court’s ruling and will appeal the decision. The cap will remain in place during the appeal process.

‘Poorest families’

Delivering the verdict, Justice Collins said, “Those in need of welfare benefits fall within the poorest families with children. It seems that some 3.7m children live in poverty and, as must be obvious, the cap cannot but exacerbate this.

“The need for alternative benefits to make up shortfalls is hardly conducive to the desire to incentivise work and so not provide benefits. There is powerful evidence that very young children are particularly sensitive to environmental influences. Poverty can have a very damaging effect on children under the age of five.”

He added, “The cap is capable of real damage to such as the claimants. They are not workshy but find it, because of the care difficulties, impossible to comply with the work requirement. Most lone parents with children under two are not the sort of households the cap was intended to cover… Real misery is being caused to no good purpose.”

Head of Unite Community, Liane Groves, called on the government “not to waste taxpayers money” trying to appeal the decision. She said ministers should abandon the cap completely, which she said was driving families out of their homes and away from their support networks.

‘Incredibly cruel’

“This is an incredibly cruel policy that affects not just London but vast swathes of the South East and parts of every major city. It is tied to a lack of affordable housing,” Groves said.

Unite assistant general secretary Steve Turner said the answer to housing crisis in London and the rest of the UK was simple – build more council housing and implement rent controls.

“More and more people simply aren’t able to afford the most basic necessity that is housing. And it’s getting worse each and every year as this government – which does not have the words ‘long-term thinking’ in its vocabulary – sits back and allows it all to happen,” Turner said.

“But it doesn’t have to be this way. We can build the million new council homes this country needs. We can introduce rent controls that protect those in what is now the least regulated private rental market in all of Europe. We can turn the idea that housing is a human right into a lived reality for all.”

For more information on Unite’s A Home is a Human Right campaign click here.