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WHEN one of my constituents, a woman with a chronic illness, told me that the bedroom tax would leave her with £18 a week to live on, I was stunned. Is it possible to live on £18 a week?
When she told me this two years ago, I decided to try (you can see my video diary here: www.youtube.com/user/HelenGoodmanMP).
It just wasn’t possible, I was starving and on the last day I ran out of food.
A staggering 771,000 people in Britain are affected by the bedroom tax and two-thirds of affected families have a disabled member.
The cost of the bedroom tax is an average of £700 a year and if the Tories win, over the next Parliament, it will cost each family affected £3,800 — or £5,300 in London.
Labour has pledged that if we win the election, we will cancel the bedroom tax as one of our first acts.
But it isn’t just the families already affected who are at risk if the Tories win again. All 6.5 million people under pensionable age in social housing are at risk of paying this cruel tax.
As people’s circumstances change they often find they are deemed to have a “spare room.” This often happens when a child moves out or an elderly relative they have been caring for dies.
This is a disgraceful way to treat those who have devoted years looking after relatives and in doing so has saved the taxpayer thousands.
We’ve heard heart-breaking stories from those who have been hit — those with children, those who are sick or vulnerable, the bereaved.
The use of foodbanks has gone through the roof. In 2009-10 the Trussell Trust gave out 41,000 food parcels but in 2013-14 they distributed nearly a million.
When the government introduced the bedroom tax it claimed that it would help with overcrowding by encouraging people to move to smaller properties, freeing up bigger houses.
But it knew from the outset that this wouldn’t happen because there are not enough smaller properties to move into.
When the tax was introduced there were already 1.7m households on the housing waiting list in England, 870,000 of those wanted one-bedroom flats.
The government’s original assessment forecast 660,000 people would have to pay a total of £480 million.
So far only one in 20 households has downsized in the social sector.
Of course we need more affordable housing — that is why Labour has pledged to build 200,000 homes a year by the end of the next parliament.
Instead, the coalition is simply forcing families to pay money they can’t afford and knowing they cannot move.
This is a clear example of Tory welfare waste. The madness of this scheme is also illustrated by the fact that there are now at least 1,500 empty larger homes — many in the north — which people just cannot afford to rent.
These are left empty for months and in some cases are even being converted into two-bedroom units to avoid the charge at hefty costs running into the thousands.
All of this is senseless and cruel and only a Labour government will stop it.
- Helen Goodman is Labour MP for Bishop Auckland.
How people cope:
There aren’t enough smaller properties for people to move to so they are forced to pay a tax they can’t afford.
A Department of Work and Pensions evaluation showed that 57 percent of claimants are cutting back on household basics and that only 4.5 percent had been able to move.
Waiting lists for smaller properties:
Only one in 20 has moved to a smaller home in the social sector because there is a shortage of one and two bedroom flats.
When the bedroom tax was introduced there were already 1.7m households on the waiting list in England of whom 870,000 wanted one bedroom flats.
The government’s original cynical estimates forecast 660,000 people would pay a total of £480m.
The cost of the bedroom tax for the duration of another Parliament:
London - £5,300
South East - £4,600
East of England - £4,200
South West - £4,000
West Midlands - £3,900
North West - £3,700
East Midlands - £3,500
Wales - £3,500
North East - £3,400
Yorkshire and The Humber - £3,400
Scotland - £3,000
UK: £3,800
