Today, I want to rid the country of the hated Bedroom Tax

Ten minute rule bills allow parliamentarians to bring in front of the house a bill relating to an issue which is important to them. The majority of ten minute rule bills are not objected to, but few relate to issues as controversial as mine today.

My bill seeks nothing else but to rid the country of the hated Bedroom Tax. It is my hope the bill receives support from across the house and restores justice to the 660,000 people, two thirds of them disabled, affected by the despicable Bedroom Tax.

Few measures have caused such misery as this tax, introduced by the Conservative led coalition with full support from the Liberal “democrats” (who incidentally choose to ignore their party conference when in government). This is an onslaught on the disabled and the poorest in society, on who’s backs this government of Tories and Liberals seem intent on balancing the books.

It is a charge on being poor which has caused desperate suffering to people up and down the country and has caused me to question whether I have the right make up to be a Member of Parliament. The personal tragedies that this pernicious tax has caused are heartbreaking. I feel totally dejected and helpless when people expect me to help them in cases where I have no power to do so.

I simply fail to understand how a measure like this can have been introduced and continues to be maintained. I have to believe that those who walked through the government lobbies to support the introduction of the Bedroom Tax did not understand the impact it would have. Because the alternative, that the people trusted with power, trusted to protect the vulnerable, introduced this knowing full well the consequences, just beggars belief.

The government’s wider welfare reforms are having a disastrous impact on families, it’s a bad time to be poor and a bad time to be looking for work that just doesn’t exist – and if it does is low paid, insecure, part-time or guarantees no hours at all. Welcome to Tory Britain in 2014. Dickensian politicians would blush at the policies and spite ridden rhetoric of Iain Duncan Smith.

The Bedroom Tax though is the most discriminatory of all, disproportionately hitting the disabled hardest. It has been trumpeted by the DWP as returning the fairness to housing benefit. I’m sure most readers would agree that fairness is not the adjective which has been most associated with this tax on the poor.

Not only is this tax unjust it simply doesn’t work. There is a real risk that it will cost more than it saves, it has been proven not to free up housing stock and there are so many holes in it that it is barely afloat. As ministers now scramble to close the “Pre 1996” loophole, a judge has found in favour of a resident in Rochdale who uses his “spare room” as a dining room on the dictionary definition of a bedroom.

Let’s just end this charade now and put a stop to this unworkable and unjust tax.

I am proud that an incoming Labour government has said it will axe the tax as one of its first acts when elected. But I and my colleagues, see every week, cases which show that we cannot afford another year of this vicious tax. We cannot afford to wait until 2015 to stop this attack on the vulnerable.

I was elected to represent my constituents in Parliament, to represent the disabled, the disenfranchised and the poor from blatant injustice and that is why today I hope my bill receives the support it deserves.

Ian Lavery is the Labour MP for Wansbeck