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.