The Bedroom Tax explained

The Labour Party has issued a press pack detailing the forthcoming 'Bedroom Tax' to make it easier to understand and outline the salient points.

The government will cut housing benefit for people with a spare room in their social or council let home, despite the DWP impact assessment acknowledging that there is a shortage of smaller properties for tenants to move to. The measure will cost an estimated 660,000 people an average of £728 per year.  In England, the northwest region is hardest hit, with 43% of Housing Benefit claimants affected by this new tax.


Who will be hit?

• Two-thirds of the households hit are home to someone who is disabled.
• The families of young serviceman away from home to serve their country will be hit.
• Foster families will be hit, even if they have foster children in their ‘spare room’.
• 220,000 families with children will be hit by the tax. 
• One-third of the households hit are families with children.
• Prisoners sentenced to 6 months or less will be let off.
• The DWP admit that there are not enough smaller properties for families to move to, yet the bedroom tax will still hit households that don’t have the option to move.

Key points to consider:

• Labour supports sensible welfare reform but the government admits this botched plan won’t solve under-occupancy and it may even cost more than it saves.
• The government is hitting households with the bedroom tax despite admitting there aren’t enough smaller properties for tenants to move to.
• The government expects families to pay extra rather than move house which will hit low income working families, disabled people and families of soldiers who are serving their country. 
• At the same time the government is giving the richest in society a £3 billion tax cut.
• If families are made homeless or pushed into expensive private rented accommodation the policy could cost more than it saves.

Labour’s alternative:

The best way to bring down the benefits bill is to get people into jobs. That’s why Labour is calling for a tough but fair Compulsory Jobs Guarantee. This would offer anyone who has been out of work for more than two years a real job, one that they would be required to take, no ifs and no buts.

Great Britain needs real welfare reform that is tough, fair and that works, not divisive, nasty and misleading smears from an out of touch and failing government.

Labour forced votes on the Welfare Reform Bill to introduce safeguards into the Bedroom Tax that would have stopped anyone from being affected unless they refused, for no good reason, an offer of appropriate accommodation nearby.

Labour’s proposal would have helped to solve under-occupancy, without making people homeless or pushing them into expensive private rented accommodation, which will cost the taxpayer more.

Hyndburn MP Graham Jones said, “Two thirds of the households hit are home to someone with a disability, and he is hitting families of soldiers serving our country who will have to find extra money for their son or daughter’s bedroom, and foster families helping children in need of a home. This isn’t about tough choices, it’s about the wrong choices and at exactly the same time as the Bedroom Tax comes into effect David Cameron is giving thousands of millionaires a tax cut of £100,000 a year.“ 

Labour’s Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Liam Byrne said, “Labour supports sensible welfare reform but the bedroom tax is crazy. Cameron and Iain Duncan Smith have been forced to admit that it is impossible for their plans to solve under-occupancy because there aren’t enough smaller homes for families to move to. The Bedroom Tax is now in total disarray. Ministers must now admit they have got this horribly wrong and think again – before it’s too late.”