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The bedroom tax is a lose-lose policy

ROY JONES says the vindictive penalties increase poverty and hobble attempts to build more social housing

In Wales the evidence that the bedroom tax is leading to debt and despair for the poorest social housing tenants piles up by the day.

It's also handicapping social housing providers, since the inevitable shortfalls in rent are limiting the amount of money they have to spend, leaving the coalition government's supposed objectives in tatters.

Community Housing Cymru (CHC), which represents housing associations, has reported problems in letting 700 homes as a result of changes to benefit payments.

The houses are becoming difficult to let as prospective tenants do not want larger properties which their benefits won't cover. They end up taking their chances with private landlords.

Most of the associations CHC represents have seen an increase in rent arrears, with tenants struggling to pay.

Combined with the properties they can't find tenants to take lying empty it estimates the cost to its members in the first six months of the policy alone has been £1.1 million.

It warns this will have an impact on investment in building new social housing, amounting to a loss of 400 new homes a year.

The government's plan was apparently to move people from three or four-bedroom houses into smaller homes, probably flats, to make way for families without homes or in overcrowded accommodation.

On the face of it this might have worked if some form of incentive was given to people to move from large to small homes, if there were enough small social housing properties to move them to and if the needs of tenants in special circumstances, such as with disabilities or part-time childcare responsibilities, had been taken into account.

Instead the government has caused terrible suffering with a needlessly rigid definition of "spare" rooms, penalising those who cannot move by reducing their housing benefit by 14 per cent for one "extra" room and by 25 per cent for those with two or more.

So tenants are left unable to afford larger properties. There is a shortage of affordable one and two-bedroom houses in the market anyway.

The policy has led to the worst of all possible worlds. It has increased poverty and it minimises the chance to find the real answer to the problem - building more homes - because the housing associations are being starved of the funds to do so.

That's what you call a lose-lose situation.

 

nDevolution's results in Wales are still failing to inspire grand portraiture, but little things can mean a lot and there are some positive stories.

The latest is a Bill to recover the costs of treating Welsh asbestos patients from businesses or insurers which the assembly passed last month.

Welsh AMs dismissed claims by the insurance industry that the move could be outside the assembly's remit.

It's estimated that this could raise up to £1m a year for the Welsh NHS.

The Bill's sponsor Labour AM Mick Antoniw says it will help people whose lives have been blighted by "this terrible disease."

nWelsh Labour had one of its far-from-unusual spats the other day. First Minister Carwyn Jones has expressed confidence that Wales's literacy, maths and science results will rise in the international Pisa rankings this month.

But Education Minister Huw Lewis quickly disputed this.

"I would not be surprised to see results which were, you know, far from inspiring. I've cautioned everyone involved, including parents, not to expect to see a rise in education." It's what you call covering your back!

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