Will Nick Clegg help Labour abolish the Bedroom Tax tomorrow?

Two years ago, a disabled woman in my constituency told me a shocking story about how the Bedroom Tax would leave her with just £18 a week to live on. She is one of many constituents who have told me about their struggle to survive. Last year I tried to live on £18 a week and I saw for myself the impossible choices people are forced to make because of David Cameron and Nick Clegg’s tax on bedrooms.

Now figures from the Trussell Trust suggest that perhaps a quarter of a million people are accessing food banks because of the Bedroom Tax. Around 500,000 people are affected by the Bedroom Tax, on average losing over £700 a year. Money taken from the poorest while millionaires have had tax cuts worth £100,000 a year. It’s also arbitrary – families are penalised because they have two boys, not a boy and a girl, because their children are too young or too close in age. Divorced families are hit. Victims of domestic violence are required to pay for safe rooms. Two thirds of those affected are families with a disabled member, with many forced out of their specially adapted homes. That is the truth of this heartless and pointless measure.

Yet despite cutting essential support for families, the Tories are failing to control the Housing Benefit Bill, because they won’t’ tackle the root causes in low pay and rising rents.  In 2009-10, we spent £22bn on housing benefit. But this year, the government is spending £25bn on housing benefit,  over 10 per cent more than in 2010, and the Office for Budget Responsibility is forecasting that by 2019 this will have grown still further, driven by the rise in in-work housing benefit claims.

The Tory-led government also claimed the Bedroom Tax would help with the housing crisis by using property more efficiently. Most people hit by the tax cannot move because there is nowhere smaller to move to. And the government knew this. Their initial impact assessment was based on the fact that people could not move and would be forced to pay. And so in many local authorities we now see empty social housing units, while people live in overcrowded housing conditions.

Some Housing Associations are knocking down walls to “reformat” housing units, using time and money which could have been spent building the new homes we desperately need. Their scope to build homes has also been hit by the shortfall in rent income – 60% of tenants affected by the Bedroom Tax are in arrears

What a failure, and another example of Tory Welfare Waste.

Labour has already pledged to abolish the Bedroom Tax if we get into government. But 57% of those affected have already had to cut spending on household essentials – can’t afford to wait. That’s why we are holding a debate and vote in the House of Commons this Wednesday. If the Tories and Lib Dems vote with us, this pernicious tax could be gone by Christmas.

Rachel Reeves, Shadow Secretary for Work and Pensions, has written to Nick Clegg urging him to vote with Labour tomorrow to abolish the Bedroom Tax. I sincerely hope he listens to reason and to compassion.

Helen Goodman MP is Shadow Minister for Welfare Reform. You can make our voices stronger by signing our record of opposition here.