Ken Livingstone backs benefits battle - Former mayor opposes Coalition's housing cuts to poorer families
Published: 09 July 2010
by JAMIE WELHAM
POOR families will be expunged from London when landlords tell them: “You can’t afford to live here any more.”
This was the prediction from Ken Livingstone and Labour MPs Karen Buck and Andy Slaughter, at the launch of a new campaign opposing the government’s housing benefit cuts.
Speaking at the Paddington Law Centre in Harrow Road yesterday (Thursday) Labour’s London mayoral candidate Mr Livingstone said: “It will mean homelessness on a massive scale.
“I support new solutions to London’s housing crisis including giving the Mayor and London councils the right to borrow against their assets and to build homes again.”
More than 5,000 families in Westminster – 84 per cent of all housing benefits claimants – must find extra money to avoid falling into arrears or move out of the borough after chancellor George Osborne announced the maximum weekly claim would be set at £400.