According to freedom of information responses, ten families have claimed over £400,000 in housing benefit in two London boroughs.
Since 2006, nine claimants have been paid over £400,000 in Westminster while a family living in a four-bedroom house in Kensington and Chelsea received £476,635.
Furthermore, it has been reported that family of three who live in a flat, has been paid up to £46,000 a year in housing benefit for 11 years.
It is said that they have received high payments due to the price of accommodating families in elite areas of London. To this, Mark Field, the Conservative MP for Cities of London and Westminster expressed that people who are never going to be in paid employment should not live in Central London.
In 2014, a report predicted that in 2008, the cost of housing benefit would rise from £17 billion a year to £27 billion by 2018, by which time 1.2 million people would be claiming benefits.
