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BENEFIT
CURB TURNS YOUNG INTO 'NOMADS'
The
Sunday Times (London) June 23 1985
By
Brian Deer
THOUSANDS
of unemployed young people living in bed and
breakfast rooms paid for by the Department for Health
and Social Security are being asked to leave London
and other cities in a rolling programme of evictions
from board and lodging hotels that begins tomorrow.
The
evictions follow changes in benefit regulations
announced in April by Tony Newton, the minister for
social security. Officials at DHSS offices are now
working through lists of board and lodging claimants
and telling those under 26 that their payments will
be stopped unless they move elsewhere after a certain
length of time.
In
London, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow the limit
is eight weeks, in other inland locations four weeks,
and in seaside town two weeks.
After
these limits expire, more than 45,000 claimants are
being told that they must either find some other form
of accommodation or leave the area for at least six
months. To implement this policy, DHSS officials have
produced a 100-page guide dividing Britain into areas
and parishes.
As
the two- and four-week time limits have expired
around the country, advice agencies have reported a
sudden increase in the number of young people
arriving in London. But tomorrow the eight-week limit
expires, and voluntary organisations that deal with
the homeless are predicting a crisis in the capital
affecting some 10,000 young people.
Ministers
have assumed that most people under 26 will return to
their families, and a number of categories of
claimant have been exempted from the time limits. But
the plan has provoked widespread criticism, including
opposition from the government's own social security
advisory committee.
"The
danger is that you just make young people move around
the country like wandering nomads," said Peter
Barclay, the committee's chairman. "The very
fact that they have to keep moving makes it extremely
questionable that people can put down roots, find a
job and get on a housing list."
Barclay's
warning follows earlier criticisms of the new plan by
the advisory committee and reports in The Sunday
Times last winter than the government proposals could
lead to unforeseen hardship. Ministers have also
received an unprecedented volume of complaints from
voluntary bodies.
Later
this week, Newton faces an emergency House of Commons
debate on the new rules, which Robin Cook, Labour MP
for Livingstone, says led to a 23-year-old former
constituent killing himself. Newton is also
investigating an attempted suicide in Shropshire,
which followed an eviction notice under the
regulations.
Alarm
is spreading among Conservative backbenchers whose
constituencies have tended to be affected first by
the changes. Charles Irving, Conservative MP for
Cheltenham, has already been to see Newton to recount
the circumstances of two teenage constituents who
have been told to leave the town and who he believes
will be at risk elsewhere.
"These
proposals are absolutely inhumane," Irving said
yesterday. "There is no doubt that the
government has acted from the best of motivations.
But it has introduced a blanket inflexibility that
doesn't protect people in the grey areas. I think the
apparent indifference of the government is creating
tremendous problems"
Newton's
aim has been to cap an explosion in board and lodging
spending which rose from £62m in 1979 to £570m last
year. These payments cover many sorts of
accommodation, including private old people's homes,
but ministers have been particularly incensed by
"Costa del Dole" abuses, where some young
people have gone on holiday at public expense.
Privately,
Newton admits alarm that the new rules may have been
badly framed. He is to make a statement on them in
the Commons tomorrow. "We have decided that some
changes are now called for to allow other categories
of exemption to be made," he said last night.
But
Char, the campaign for single homeless people, urged
the government to abandon its rules. "People are
in board and lodging because they have no alternative
whatsoever," said Chris Holmes, Char's director.
Char,
with Shelter and other advice agencies, says it is
being inundated with anxious inquiries from young
people who have been told by the DHSS that their
benefit will soon be stopped. With a severe shortage
of rented flats in London, and voluntary hostels
mainly full, many claimants are being advised how to
squat illegally or how to get by sleeping rough.
| brian deer |
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Times Newspapers Ltd. All rights reserved. No portion
of this article on board and lodging, Conservative
welfare policy for young people, may be copied,
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