LHA dolce vita? Tabloid reports that benefit recipients are living the high life focus on exceptional cases.
The April 2008 roll-out of the local housing allowance (LHA) wasn’t expected to make banner headlines. But it hit tabloids’ front pages before half the claimants had even switched to the new housing benefit system.
Stories about ‘scrounging foreigners’ in the Sun, Express and other papers were really about the level of LHA paid to households (or actually their landlords) in large properties in London. And the sums involved are substantial. Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) estimates that the 16 most expensive LHA claiming households are costing some £2.5 million a year.
The lack of social housing is really the cause of the problem (after larger properties in London took the biggest hit through right to buy). But the sums involved are hard to defend at any time, let alone in a recession.
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