Lunchtime news March 5

More work to publicise housing benefit as an in-work benefit and more research into the reasons for high levels of unemployment in social housing are among the proposals in the Freud report [downloads PDF] on welfare to work published this morning.

Poor families are paying up to £1,000 extra for essential goods and services for essential goods and services because they cannot get the same deals as well-off families, says a report by the Family Welfare Association and Save The Children.

Vulnerable people are at risk from bailiffs abusing new powers going through parliament to break into homes and seize belongings for a wider range of debts, warns Citizens Advice.

Investment bank Schroders is calling on the government to encourage institutional investment in the private rented sector, reports the Financial Times. It dismissed some shared ownership schemes as ‘mad’ and buy to let as ‘not the answer’.

But buy to let will grow by 41% by 2016, according to a report for the Alliance & Leicester Bank.

Labour leadership candidate Michael Meacher gets a give-minute interview by readers of The Independent. ‘I own four flats. I have saved throughout my life, and put my savings into property. I don’t think [that] is contrary to socialism,’ he says.

One in five home buyers are paying more than the £250,000 threshold that triggers 3% stamp duty, says the Halifax bank.

Several Sunday papers, including The Observer, reported Liberal Democrat plans for a wealth tax on homes worth more than £1m.

The Housing Corporation launched a new version of its capacity model, which it uses to assess the financial capacity of housing providers, on Friday.