Antisocial tenants will be stripped of housing benefit in long-awaited reform

Antisocial tenants who make their neighbours' lives a misery are to lose their housing benefit under a radical review of the entitlement.

Andrew Smith, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, announced the biggest overhaul in the 20-year history of the benefit, which has been dogged by claims of fraud and bureaucracy.

Later, Tony Blair, in his speech, signalled a crackdown on disruptive claimants as part of Labour's rights and responsibilities agenda. "Antisocial tenants and their antisocial landlords, who make money out of housing benefit while making life hell for the community, should lose their right to it," the Prime Minister said. Ministers have repeatedly backed away from promises to review the notoriously complex benefit, which costs £12bn a year, but Mr Smith told the conference that the Government would press ahead with the reform within weeks.

Mr Smith said at the Labour Party Conference: "Too often, housing benefit means endless form filling, delays in payment, waste, fraud and landlord abuse. It can leave families short-changed and puts people off going back to work. We have to get a fairer, simpler system, which will help those who need it most, crack down on rogue landlords and give tenants more choice. Some say reform is difficult, but I tell you, it has to be done and we have to start now."

Under the reform plans, claimants will be given a wider choice in selecting accommodation, a move the Government hopes will inject a greater element of competition into rents charged by landlords.

Financial disincentives, which deter some unemployed housing benefit claimants from returning to work, are to be tackled. And ministers will overhaul the bureaucracy that administers the benefit. A further idea being considered would help working people on low wages with their housing costs, through tax credits.

Mr Smith said his imminent Green Paper on pensions would include reforms to improve the "out-dated treatment" of elderly women. He also hinted that he was planning measures that would allow people to stay on in work after retirement without losing their pension entitlement.

The unions demanded new legislation to protect pensions against business cutbacks. Roger Lyons, the joint general secretary of Amicus, said: "Future pensions need a law to protect them from these pension thieves."