Non-English speakers may receive less housing support

According to the government, almost 750,000 residents either do not speak English or they struggle with it. Many of them are migrant or new to the UK. Some currently receive as much as £400 per week for paying a portion of their rent.

Now, those individuals may have their housing benefits cut. Conservatives would do this to both save the county money on welfare payments and to try to force people to acclimate better to the UK. Another result of this would be to address the rise of extremism in the UK.

Pending the results of the upcoming election, Conservatives may be planning to reduce the amount of housing benefits available to these individuals by hundreds of pounds per year. The exact amount is still to be determined and can change from household to household. Without these additional funds to pay the rent on their home, many of the migrants may end up being evicted from either their private or social housing.

While benefits would be cut, the government will also encourage the person to learn English at the same time. Social workers, nurses, doctors, and other public servant professionals will be able to refer the individual to a center in which they can learn. So the Conservative proposal will include both penalties (in the form of benefit reductions) and incentives for people to learn.

Another result of this change to the housing benefits is to reduce extremism. Conservatives think that if someone speaks English, they will be more acclimated to the lifestyle in the UK. This will then greatly reduce their chances for turning to an extremist organization.

The Department of Work and Pensions would need to make any formal changes to this benefit programme. The thought is that it would be implemented as soon as the majority government is in place and take effect immediately. With the large number of migrants in the UK, this is bound to hit some people very hard. In fact, almost 750,000 residents could be impacted.

While it can save the nation money in the long term, the reduction in housing benefits, when combined to the job seekers’ allowance changes from last year, may lead to more migrants living in poverty. The government is also considering making changes to incapacity benefits for non-English speakers. So the upcoming election is very important to the future of the safety net system that migrants currently have in place.