The wider ramifications of housing benefit cuts

I'm not going to argue here about the financial issues — either national budgets or the ways in which private landlords set their rents. But there will be a damaging impact on families and on children's services. The immediate effect — which has been described as "social cleansing" — is that very large numbers of families on low incomes, whether employed or on benefits, will no longer be able to afford to live in expensive areas and their local authorities will seek to rehouse them in cheaper areas.

Being relocated to cheaper parts of the country will have an immediate and damaging effect on children. Education and friendships will be disrupted, and there will be nowhere to have privacy to do homework or anything else if the family ends up in bed-and-breakfast accommodation. And where adults are working locally, it seems likely that they will lose their job as well if re-housed at a distance. These stresses, which are outside the family's control, will inevitably lead to an increase in family difficulties. It is difficult to imagine how they are feeling and how they will manage.