Nick Clegg blocks mean-spirited cut in housing benefit

When the government announced its plans to reform housing benefit last year there were two strands to that policy.

The first was a cap on benefit of about £400 a week for a house rented in the private sector. There was outrage at this. There were wholly false stories about London councils block-booking bed and breakfast accommodation and Polly Toynbee described it as "social cleansing on an epic scale".

This opposition always struck me as nonsense. Everyone knows that housing benefit is a bit of a racket, with private landlords being the major beneficiaries. With the economy in a depressed state it is perfectly reasonable to put a bit of a squeeze on those landlords by capping benefits in this way.

There was a second strand, which was to cut housing benefit by 10 per cent for anyone unemployed for more than a year. This seemed to me mean-spirited - a classic example of the Tory instinct to make life harder for the poor.

So I was delighted to hear that Nick Clegg has insisted on this policy being dropped. Another example of the way that the presence of the Liberal Democrats is making this a better government. I do hope David Cameron appreciates this.