Workers increasingly dependent on benefits

Workers are increasingly depending on benefits to pay their rent, the body which represents English housing associations has warned.

The National Housing Federation says a failure to build homes has led to an 86% rise in UK workers claiming housing benefit from May 2009-May 2012 because of soaring rents and house prices.

It has called for a solution for the "millions of families" affected.

The government said it would "pull out all the stops to get Britain building".

The NHF cites Department for Work and Pensions figures that show 903,440 people in work claimed housing benefit in May 2012 compared with 485,610 three years earlier.

It said that figure was rising with an additional 10,000 working people each month claiming housing benefit to help to pay their rent.

The NHF, which represents 1,200 housing associations in England, said the cost of renting a home had risen by 37% in the past five years and was expected to rise by a further 35% over the next six years.

It said that, while it expected modest falls in house prices into 2013, it predicted price rises of six per cent a year across England from 2015 to 2017.

And it said that, while 390,000 new families were formed in 2011, only 111,250 new homes were built.

The NHF has called on the government "and the whole housing industry to take a long-term, joined-up approach to tackle the market difficulties".

"More immediately the government must release publicly-owned brownfield land to housing associations so they can build more houses," it said in its report.