Local Housing Allowance (LHA) is a rent assessment scheme for private sector renters; based on their area and the size of their household, it sets the amount of housing benefit they can receive. 

The UK government froze LHA rates for four years between 2020 and 2024.  It set new rates in April 2024, based on the 30th percentile of local area rents at that point.  In October 2024 it announced that 2025-26 LHA rates would again freeze, remaining  at April 2024 levels. 

The freezes are problematic under international human rights law.  The right to adequate housing, as articulated under the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights’ General Comment 4, includes the component of affordability:

“personal or household financial costs associated with housing should be at such a level that the attainment and satisfaction of other basic needs are not threatened or compromised. Steps should be taken by States parties to ensure that the percentage of housing-related costs is, in general, commensurate with income levels… In accordance with the principle of affordability, tenants should be protected by appropriate means against unreasonable rent levels or rent increases.” (para. 8c)

Similarly, General Comment 19, on the right to social security, includes the element of adequacy:

“benefits, whether in cash or in kind, must be adequate in amount and duration in order that everyone may realize his or her rights to family protection and assistance, an adequate standard of living and adequate access to health care, as contained in articles 10, 11 and 12 of the Covenant… The adequacy criteria should be monitored regularly to ensure that beneficiaries are able to afford the goods and services they require to realize their Covenant rights.” (para. 22)

While the decisions to freeze LHA rates initiated in London, they are carried out here, by the Department for Communities (DFC). Fitting Westminster directives to NI reality can lead to some interesting reasoning.

In February 2025 the DFC ‘equality screened’ its  NI version of the policy decision to maintain LHA rates at April 2024 cash levels.

This Section 75 screening exercise found the regulation had ‘no impact’ on either equality of opportunity or good relations across all the section 75 categories and concluded that it was not necessary to follow up with a full Equality Impact Assessment.

The finding is surprising in light of both the abundant, publicly available information on rising private sector rents and  the data available from the 2021 NI census about those who rent.

On the latter, even a cursory look at the census data shows that almost 70% of people renting are aged 39 and under; that almost 48% of those renting identify as Catholic, compared with around a third who identify as Protestant, and around 23% of renters live in single parent households with dependent children.

On the former, UK Office of National Statistics analysis issued on 16 April 2025 showed that Northern Ireland’s average private sector rent was £838 /month in January 2025 (the most recent figure available for NI), up 8.2% (£63 / month) from a year earlier. Set alongside this, according to the Housing Executive’s LHA rate webpage, Local Housing Allowance for a one-bedroom flat in Belfast is £139.34 / week, equating to around £557/month; for a two-bedroom, it is £155.77 / week, or roughly  £623 / month.  Not all households get the full LHA benefit.

According to the DFC screening document (p. 5), 38,380 NI households rely on the housing element of Universal Credit and 16,798 households rely on Housing Benefit (Aug 2024 and Jan 2025 figures, respectively). Does freezing their awards at April 2024 cash levels, in the face of an average rise of £63 a month in their rent, really have ‘no impact’?

Section 75 equality obligations do not mention ‘poverty level’, it is true; but they do apply to characteristics such as age, gender, marital status and disability. Does the freeze in housing benefit really have ‘no impact’ on people with no way to make up the shortfall between their housing benefit and their rent, be they pensioners, single parents, struggling families or people living with a disability? And doesn’t Section 75 require the DFC to reckon with these issues, rather than sweep them under the carpet?

The DFC screening document mentions the Discretionary Housing Payment Scheme as a “safety net … providing further financial support to people who may face a shortfall in meeting the cost of their contractual rent” (p 25). However, Housing Executive advice makes clear that requests are assessed on a case-by-case basis, “for a set period of time”, with limits imposed on the amounts available; its application form also sets out parameters on eligibility.  The strongest limitation to DHP, however, is financial: as its website guidance states,  

“the Housing Executive receives a limited budget from the Department for Communities (DfC) for DHP awards. Once the budget is exhausted for the financial year (1 April – 31 March) the fund will close until the next financial year.”

Given this list of caveats, the DHP scheme is clearly not able or intended to address the systemic problem of the enforced gap – deepened by the freeze -- between LHA rate and rents.

The ONS dataset cited above makes clear that rising private sector rents is an ongoing trend. NI’s average monthly private sector rent rose from £584 to £605 (3.6%) over the course of 2020; from £605 to £651 (7.6%) over the course of 2021; from £651 to £708 (8.8%) over the course of 2022; and from £708 to £775 (9.5%) over the course of 2023. 

As mentioned, LHA rates were frozen throughout this period (2020-2024), forcing people to try to manage the growing monthly shortfall between housing benefit and rent as best they could. The toll on living standards and prospects is plain to see, not least in the ever-rising number of homeless people, many of whom have been placed by the Housing Executive in expensive emergency accommodation in hotels for lack of social housing.

Implementing Westminster freezes can’t be easy, or pleasant.  But it can be done with greater transparency about the impacts of the specific policies the DFC has been required to enact.  If equality screening can skate over such obvious issues, is it still being carried out in the spirit in which it was intended under the 1998 NI Act?