Child poverty campaigners are challenging the government’s intention to cut housing benefits on the grounds the action is unfair to black and other ethnic minority groups. The Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) is taking the government to a judicial review before the High Court in London in a bid to overturn the proposals. Lawyers will argue that housing benefit cuts will make a huge swathe of Central London a no-go area by pricing tenants out of privately renting homes. CPAG also claims the cuts are unfair to lone parents, blacks and other minority groups because the cuts ignore equality laws. Child Poverty Action Group chief executive Alison Garnham, said: “We are going to court to protect Britain from becoming a country where longstanding, mixed communities are turned into private members clubs for the wealthy. “The prime minister promised to prioritise poverty and said that the test of his policies would be how they help the most disadvantaged, not the rich, yet these measures will make the poor poorer and hurt and uproot only families relying on housing benefit to help pay the rent. “Housing Benefit is there as basic safety net for all, so if we’re on low incomes or lose our jobs, we don’t also lose our homes and can stay near family, friends and where we work. “London will be worst affected of all. The cuts will mean the social cleansing of parts of London with families being forced out of their homes, away from their jobs, and into less suitable, often poorer quality and more cramped housing. “Children will be forced to move away from their school, their friends, their neighbourhood and their extended family.” Judgement is likely to be handed down in late July or early August. CPAG is challenging restrictions of maximum household size to four bedrooms for housing benefit claimants and caps on the amount of benefit paid to a household.