Budget to cut 'housing subsidies' for higher earners

A clampdown on "taxpayer-funded subsidies" for "higher earners" living in social housing is to be announced by the chancellor in Wednesday's Budget.

Local authority and housing association tenants in England who earn more than £30,000 - or £40,000 in London - will have to pay up to the market rent, George Osborne will say.

The move is expected to raise up to £250m a year by 2018-19.

It is thought that this could affect 340,000 households.

The change - which will cost tenants on average up to £70 extra a week - will build on measures introduced under the coalition government that enabled housing associations and local authorities to charge market rents to those on incomes of more than £60,000.

Extra money from those living in local authority properties will go straight to the Exchequer.

The chancellor also spoke about the following issues on BBC One's Andrew Marr Show:

• Confirmed benefits cap will be cut to £23,000 in London but lower elsewhere
• Would not commit to a reduction in the top rate of income tax after Tory MPscalled for the cut
• Signalled he would be looking to make savings from tax credits to help meet the government's planned £12bn in welfare savings
• He said the BBC needed to make a "contribution" to dealing with the deficit and that it was important for its website not to "completely crowd out" national newspapers

'Matter of fairness'

Writing in The Sun on Sunday about the social housing decision, Mr Osborne said the Budget would "reward work over welfare" and allow people to keep more of the money they earned.

"We've also decided it's time to act on the higher earners who use taxpayer-funded subsidies to live in council and housing association homes when they could afford the market rent that others on their salaries pay," he wrote.

"It's a simple matter of fairness. The welfare system I want to see is one that helps people to get good jobs instead of giving them handouts."

Mr Osborne confirmed reports the benefit cap, which is being reduced across the country, will be lower outside of London.

It was previously announced the benefit cap would be cut to £23,000 across the UK.

He told Andrew Marr: "It is not fair, for example, that people out of work can earn more than people in work.

"So we're going to cut the benefit cap, as we said in our manifesto, to £23,000 in London.

"But I can tell you today it will be lower in the rest of the country."

The Budget will also confirm the end of inheritance tax on family homes worth up to £1m.

Mr Osborne is expected to tell MPs on Wednesday the threshold at which the tax is levied will rise for couples from £650,000 after April 2017.

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