Bedroom Tax one year on: 5 things you need to know

1. It disproportionately affects disabled people

It takes either a Government of incompetence or callousness to devise a plan purportedly to tackle a section of society loafing off the taxpayer and end up managing to hit those with disabilities the hardest. According to the Department for Work and Pensions Impact Assessment, 63% of those affected by the Bedroom Tax suffer from a disability.

That is a truly astonishing figure, and there seems to have been little effort to address this. Those with severely disabled children are not exempt. Neither are those who need around the clock care.

Leaving aside the fact that those with disabilities often need another room, for a myriad of reasons, the question could be posed why you would choose to stay and pay more if you were struggling to meet the rent. Why not simply move somewhere smaller? The answer to that would be: because of the Bedroom Tax.

2. It’s making the housing crisis worse

The UK is already suffering from a housing shortage, and the Bedroom Tax is simply exacerbating the problem. In Hull last year, for instance, there were 4,700 people forced to pay extra because of the measure, and only 73 smaller council properties available.

So what happens when you can’t afford your new higher rent, and there are no cheaper council house options?

3. It’s costly

Not content with being pernicious, in some cases it can end up adding more to the welfare bill. Councils are being landed with a huge number of tenants who can no longer afford to live in their homes. In many cases, this leads to people unable to pay: in Leeds alone, the council reports that 2,800 council tenants who had previously had clear rent accounts have now fallen behind on their payments.

Others are forced into the private sector, with its extortionate prices – forcing people to claim more on Housing Benefit. It’s estimated that welfare in Wigan alone will rise by around £500,000 for precisely this reason.

Then there’s the vast cost of simply administering the policy – money which could have been spent on more housing which, again, worsens the country’s housing crisis.

When your plans for deficit reduction amount to fleecing society’s poorest for all they’ve got, don’t be surprised when it doesn’t help raise money.

4. Even Norman Tebbit hates it

Baron Tebbit of Chingford surprised many when he publicly spoke out against the measure recently, noting that a “spare room is in fact a vital part of the looking after an elderly person. It enables their relatives to come, it enables carers to be there.” He’s not bothered that it doesn’t raise money. He’s not saying that it doesn’t hit scroungers hard. He’s bothered because it’s making life harder for people who have already got it tough.

Tebbit, who spent much of the 1980s prowling Westminster as Thatcher’s bruiser-in-chief, has for the past few years been a vocal critic of Cameron’s modernisation agenda of the Tory Party. The fact that even he can make this attack ostensibly from the left shows just how far the Government has moved from the centre ground of public consensus on this issue.

5. Labour have pledged to scrap it

No ifs, no buts, Ed Miliband has made himself clear on this: if Labour come to power next year, the Bedroom Tax is gone.