Iain Duncan Smith and the Department of Work and Pensions have been warned again and again that their plans to pay Housing Benefit to claimants rather than straight to landlords, as part of the new Universal Credit, could be disastrous. Now news is emerging from the areas where this idea has been trialled that the disaster has begun. Rent arrears have soared and some are predicting mass evictions.

Six pilot schemes have been running since June 2012 – Edinburgh, Wakefield, Oxford, Shropshire, Cwmbran and Southwark (London). In Wakefield the average of 2% of tenants in arrears rose to 11%. Bron Afon Community Housing in Wales said it had seen a 50% increase in the number of tenants in arrears and it was 30% in other areas.

One woman in Shropshire said “I don’t know why they moved me onto the new scheme … I hardly have enough money to live…