Housing Benefit Reform

As an amendment to motion S4M-02407 in the name of Keith Brown (Housing Benefit Reform), leave out from "the UK Government's plan" to end and insert "that the coalition government’s Welfare Reform Act received Royal Assent on 8 March 2012 and that it will introduce the biggest reforms for 60 years, including the introduction of the universal credit, which will replace the current, complex myriad of means-tested benefits with a single benefit system, making it simpler for people to navigate, harder for people to defraud and ensure that it is no longer possible to be better-off on benefits than in work, while, at the same time, protecting the most vulnerable in society; understands that the changes to housing benefit are part of this essential reform, which will promote individual responsibility and ensure that better use is made of the social housing stock, and further notes that the coalition government is working with councils on the transition and has announced an additional £10 million in 2011-12 and £40 million in each year from 2012 to 2015 in additional discretionary housing payments to allow local authorities to provide additional support where it is most needed.”