Left Foot Forward looks at five things David Cameron doesn't want you to know about the Bedroom Tax.
The Bedroom Tax, which will come in from 1 April 2013 as part of the 2012 Welfare Reform Act, will charge people in social housing based on how many spare rooms they have, and will hit tenants aged 16 to 65.
Put simply, it means a cut to the amount of benefit a person will get if they have a spare bedroom in their housing association home.
Benefits will be reduced by 14% for one room and 25% for two or more bedrooms. On average, an individual affected by the Bedroom Tax will lose £14-£25 a week.
The bedroom tax is supposed to encourage those who live in social housing with spare rooms to downsize in order to make way for larger families.
That’s what it is supposed to do. But what impact will it really have?
Left Foot Forward has put together five things David Cameron doesn’t want you to know about the Bedroom Tax.
1. Two-thirds of
those whohouseholds that will be affected by the Bedroom Tax have disabled people in them. Down-sizing is often wildly unfeasible for wheelchair users due to the shortage of wheelchair accessible properties. In effect, the Bedroom Tax risks penalising disabled people for being disabled – those who cannot move to a smaller property will be forced to pay more for their housing needs.2. In many areas of the country there simply aren’t enough smaller houses for people to downsize to (which the Department of Work and Pensions accepts). A DWP assessment estimates that 31% (660,000) of social housing tenants will have their housing benefit cut as a result of the Bedroom Tax. What is likely to happen to those families who lose between £48 and £88 a month from their housing benefit because there aren’t smaller properties for them to move in to? Are they going to be evicted? Are they going to go hungry?
3. It will cause unnecessary misery and suffering. ITV has given real-life examples of how the Bedroom Tax could hit vulnerable people, such as the couple where the husband had a stroke and can no longer share a bedroom with his wife, or a tenant who uses her second bedroom as a sterile room to receive nutrition from a machine after she had surgery for bowel cancer. Both tenants will have £48 per month taken from their housing benefit from April.
4. The Bedroom Tax could cost the taxpayer hundreds of thousands of pounds due to the likely increase in homelessness. A typical homelessness case costs £24,000, according to Govan Law Centre. It costs local authorities and housing providers £15,000. Evicting a tenant also costs a social landlord on average £6,000. The shortage of available smaller properties, combined with the inability of some tenants to pay the extra money, will see a spike in homelessness (bad enough in itself), and this will cost lots and lots and lots of money.
5. The new provisions could make overcrowding mandatory. There is no provision in the legislation for houses where the bedroom is only a single room. Children under 10 are expected to share a room as are under 16s if they are of the same sex. The rules do not refer to the size of bedrooms. A bedroom will always count as a bedroom for Housing Benefit no matter how small.
Use this benefits calculator to find out if you will be affected by the changes.
123 Responses to “Five things David Cameron doesn’t want you to know about the Bedroom Tax”
lottagelady
Their choice to be disabled?? Who the hell ‘wants’ to live like that? Some of us have had no choice ….
Mr Reasonable
I agree that Osborne has invented a debt-crisis and we have not needed the help of the World Bank, and indeed I agree with the thrust of your whole argument. However, Osborne has given the public the impression that we do have a debt crisis and that the bond markets are on his back and has sought to employ the image of angry bond markets, the World Bank, the IMF, the ratings agencies as excuses for all kinds of government cuts, even (or especially) those against the poorest in society. Basically, he tells us that,’they made me do it’. He isn’t an economist, he’s a politician. His job is to secure the position of the Conservative part whilst frightening us to death, thus justifying his cuts.
As for “neo-classical claptrap”, he’s a Tory. It’s what they do.
AliM
Davd cameron states thats it’s about a question of fairness, if only he practised what he preached, springing on this reduced housing tax reduction of 14% – 25% even for some and this will effect the millions.
All these people who now have this worry sprung on to them, now I ask you David Cameron, is this a question of fairness?
I feel this is all political drama to occupy the British publics minds of this nonsense, the tories know they are failing, however, instead of reading about them failing, they just spin a controversial subject, the british public bites and the tories divert negative PR on themselves and making it look like to the public they are making a stamp, they are trying to make a change in a positive light.. It’s genius really, but please, please people see beyond this.. Don’t beliebve me? You keep watching what happens. They have a negative light upon them, they come back fighting with a controversial subject to deflect the attention away and create a media circus.
What you shouldn’t be worrying is about housing benefit of the minority, start thinking about things more closer to home ie energy prices, if we are seeing a reduction in housing benefit, are we going to see a reduce in our energy too?
Fiona Mackenzie -Cardy
It’s a killer and will cost more in the long run look at the bigger pitcher you say we are all in this together but you hurt the ones how can’t fight back bully and I say No to bullies
Lucy Patricia O'Sullivan
Out of those 600,000 people you quote, there are some that need the spare room for medical equipment, or clean rooms for medical procedures, or special sensory rooms for severely disabled children, or a spare room for the son or daughter they only get to see at the weekends (which by the way, not having that room could lose them access to their child).
For those, as you put it, that want to “keep up with the Jones’s”
then yes, absolutely they should be moved, but a third of the people affected
will be disabled people, some who have had their property especially converted for their needs.
Its fun to say blanket sayings like “keep up with the Jones’s” and cast everyone under this blanket; however the reality is quite different and if you had read any of the comments here you would know that. More than just your dole dossing, neighbourly competitive idiots are being affected by this, but if you acknowledge that well then you might have to admit that the Tory’s are a bunch of cold blooded, heartless cretins.
This society is skewed so that there are very poor people, it’s how some of the population can be very rich, there is only a limited amount of money and if you spread all of the money around equally I read somewhere that there would only be £43,000 per person. The rich need poor people in order to be rich, there is no hope that all of us will ever live in a truly equal society as long as money is the primary concern of the population. Maybe it’s time we put people ahead of money, after all, we invented money and it’s inanimate, it doesn’t suffer from hunger, cold or homelessness.