MORE than 1,000 young people in Oxfordshire could be without housing benefits if proposed changes to the system go ahead.

Prime Minister and Witney MP David Cameron said he was looking at scrapping payouts for the under-25s in a speech yesterday.

Oxford City Council revealed 932 people were currently claiming housing benefit and born on or after June 25, 1987, and will potentially be affected.

This is out of a total of 11,500 claimants.

West Oxfordshire District Council, the prime minister’s local authority, said it had 374 housing benefit claimants are under 25 years old though this includes family units as well as single claimants. This makes up 7.9 per cent of housing benefit claimants in the district.

Other district councils were asked for the details but did not respond to the Oxford Mail last night.

Mr Cameron said the state was spending £2bn a year on housing benefits for the under-25s and suggested many of them could stay with their parents.

He said: “Some of these young people will genuinely have nowhere else to live – but many will.

“And this is happening when there is a growing phenomenon of young people living with their parents into their 30s because they can’t afford their own place.”

He said the welfare system his Government inherited was “unaffordable” and “encouraged irresponsibility”.