Exactly who is going to benefit from these cuts?

Governments of all colours should start to feel uncomfortable when they are accused of neglecting the vulnerable. For Conservatives of a certain age, it is not exactly a new experience but, for most Liberal Democrats, one assumes we have reached a slightly worrying phase that may leave them wondering exactly why they went into politics in the first place.

OK, so welfare reform was never going to be easy. But nearly a year after Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith embarked on his mission to make work pay by punishing those that can't find jobs (or in a few cases don't want to), pressure on ministers to justify their actions is starting to mount.

First there was the flurry of criticism surrounding new caps on housing benefit for tenants in private rented accommodation that even managed to anger London Mayor Boris Johnson. Then came the climbdown over plans to penalise people on job seeker's allowance by cutting their housing benefit if they did not find work after one year.

Now Liberal Democrats are criticising the proposed overall benefits caps that would mean an individual household could not claim more than £26,000 per year from 2013. Finally, the National Housing Federation has joined disability groups in attacking planned under-occupancy rules that may mean people with disabilities who have had adaptations made to their home are forced to move to smaller properties.

During the next few years, housing associations will witness the effects of benefit cuts and other welfare changes first hand. According to the NHF, association tenants will lose an average of £14 per week, or £728 per year. Not only will households struggle to make ends meet on less money but, as landlords, associations will be charged with chasing rent arrears (which are almost certain to increase) and deciding when, as a last resort, families should be evicted.

It is not a pleasant prospect, which makes the lobbying that is going on present during the passage of the Welfare Reform Bill especially vital. For if housing professionals don't join MPs in pressing for changes soon, it may be too late to protect those that are least able to cope with the fallout from an economic crisis for which they, of all people, were not responsible.