David Cameorn comes under fire over bedroom tax plans

East Anglia: Bedroom tax backlash begins as figures revealed

By Joseph Watts Political editor Thursday, March 7, 2013
12:19 PM

Housing benefit reforms could see an estimated 9,000 people losing hundreds of pounds across Suffolk and north Essex from next month.

The changes, branded the “bedroom tax” by Labour and other critics, will see claimants deemed to have too much living space receiving less money.

The National Housing Federation (NHF), which represents housing associations, has slammed the reforms branding them “flawed”.

NHF East of England lead manager Claire Astbury said: “The government’s bedroom tax is flawed and will unfairly penalise thousands of people in the East who have lived in their homes for years, raised families and contributed to their communities.”

The Government says change is needed as some claimants live in big council or housing association properties with unused rooms, leading ministers to suggest these people have been getting a “spare room subsidy”.

They argue it means large families elsewhere are being needlessly overcrowded into smaller homes. The changes will save £23bn from the UK’s annual welfare bill helping the Government’s debt reduction strategy.

Under the plans anyone living in an ‘oversized’ home will have to undergo an assessment with their council to see if they qualify for an exemption.

The new policy will allow one bedroom for each person or couple living as part of a household. Two children aged nine or under would be expected to share a room.

Two youngsters between aged nine and 15 would also be expected to share, though only with a child of the same gender.

Meanwhile ministers say the change will only apply to working age claimants. Assessors may also give an exemption where there is a spare room for a non-resident carer who stays over.

The NHF estimate some 50,000 people across the East of England will have to undergo an assessment including some 9,105 across Suffolk and north Essex. Of those 5,736 have a disability, and risk losing some of their benefit.

For those deemed to have one spare bedroom they risk losing 14% of their benefit, an average of £596 a year. Those deemed to have two spare bedrooms risk losing 25%, an average of £1,065 a year.

Ms Astbury added: “The one-size-fits-all approach takes no account of disabled people’s adapted homes, of foster parents who need rooms to take children in, or of parents sharing custody who will lose the room for their child at weekends.

“In most areas, there just aren’t enough smaller affordable homes for these families to move into to avoid the tax. Many people will find themselves having to move into more expensive privately rented properties - adding to the overall housing benefit bill.”

But Peter Davis of the Eastern Landlords Association, which represents 1,300 private sector landlords in the region, said the changes were needed.

He explained: “We have a housing crisis and in part that is because there are so many extra bedrooms going unused. If you are in the private sector you rent according to the size of the place that you need.

“So why as a country should we be subsidising many people to live in houses that are too big for them. This can in no way be seen as a ‘tax’, we have been paying a spare room subsidy.”

Speaking in the House of Commons yesterday David Cameron accused critics of scaremongering, claiming that many people would qualify for an exemption.

He said: “On the spare room subsidy pensioners are exempt, people with disabled children are exempt, anyone who needs help around the clock is also exempt.”

A spokesman from the Department for Work and pensions said: “Councils have been given an extra £155m this year so that they can help their vulnerable tenants with £30m specifically targeted towards supporting disabled people and foster carers,

“However, with over a quarter of a million tenants living in overcrowded homes and two million on housing waiting lists, we need to end the spare room subsidy and ensure a better use of social housing.”

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11 comments

This Govt isn't just intent on driving the poor into the ground it is prepared to heap misery and humiliation on top. No jobs, no housing, no education, no health service, no prospects, no dignity, no chance! The longer we keep the Tories the closer we get to the 18th century. Maybe the plan is to kickstart the construction industry by building Poorhouses.

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skrich

Friday, March 8, 2013
Since starting work I have always had to live away from my family, and for a few years I had to rent one small room (described as a box room here) with no heating that took most of my salary. Whilst obviously sympathising with some real dilemmas and hardships some people face, I am surprised at how many other people expect something paid for by others who can't have it for themselves.

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Ellie

Thursday, March 7, 2013
How does "taxing" people in houses that have (spare) rooms help those in crowded housing. The facts are that Maggie flogged off our housing stock and there is just not the capacity or the range of housing for the needs of social housing. This government stinks and the sooner they go the better. A society is judged by how it looks after its people, all its people. To those who think that this is fair I say "take a good soul searching look at yourself" and put yourself in the shoes of those you would tax!

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ITSTEAPOT

Thursday, March 7, 2013
Agree totally with the bedroom tax some people have 2 spare rooms while on benefits . I pay all my rent and council tax and the council refuse to let me move closer to family and away from ny housing association who i have many problems with and no longer trust while people on benefits seem to have more priority. While private renting prices are extremely high and just out of my price range. And advice? Except from the have morechildren which the council lady suggested

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Buxton

Thursday, March 7, 2013
Agree totally with the bedroom tax some people have 2 spare rooms while on benefits . I pay all my rent and council tax and the council refuse to let me move closer to family and away from ny housing association who i have many problems with and no longer trust while people on benefits seem to have more priority. While private renting prices are extremely high and just out of my price range. And advice? Except from the have morechildren which the council lady suggested

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Buxton

Thursday, March 7, 2013
IF THE COUNCILS & THE HOUSING ASSOCIATIONS DONE THEIR JOBS PROPERLY , BY ALLOCATING THESE HOUSE TO THE RIGHT PEOPLE ,PERHAPS THIS PROBLEM WOULD'NT EXIST,, WHERE I LIVE WE HAVE PLENTY OF HOUSING ASSOCIATION PROPERTIES ( UNFORTUNATELY ) THERE'S A THREE BEDROOM HOUSE WITH ONE PERSON LIVING IN IT , WHEN A PERSON RENT PRIVATE ,,THEY SIGN A CONTRACT FOR SO LONG ,WHEN THAT CONTRACT COME TO AN END AND THE LANDLORD WANT THE PROPERTY BACK THEY HAVE TO FIND SOMEWHERE ELSE TO LIVE , THAT'S HOW IT SHOULD BE WITH COUNCIL TENANTS AND HOUSING ASSOCIATION ,, GINGE AS FOR YOUR COMMENT ABOUT TRASHING THE HOUSE , THEY WOULD 'NT DO THAT BECAUSE IT WOULD BE HARD TO RENT OTHER PLACES ( BUT THEN MOST OF THEM CAN'T BE BOTHERED TO LOOK AFTER THE HOUSES ANY CASE ,,THE LAW SHOULD HAVE BEEN CHANGED YEARS AGO , BUT NOT IN THIS WAY, COS THE WAY I SEE THIS IS , ITS JUST ANOTHER WAY OF GETTING MONEY OUT OF PEOPLE

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MIGUEL100

Thursday, March 7, 2013
Sorry to say this and it sums up the problem with this debate, but Reddog90 comments are just wrong. The same calculaions apply if your in private or council accomadation, the same income allowances, the number of children etc etc, if you work or you don't. The differance is that todate it's been about the cost of the rent. So if your Council House cost £350pcm and your private flat costs £650pcm and the limit is for a single person is £400pcm then the Council House will be paid in full, the private tennent gets £400 to the £650 bill and is £150 out of pocket. This change will mean that the peson getting £350 in the Council House will now have to move and then charge the Council £400 costing more than leaving them where they are and somebody on limited means has to find the £150 extra. The problem is not that people are getting "freebies" but there are not enough affordable homes to rent. Because if I said to somebody you can have a house for £350 or a flat for £650 you'd take the house hands down. Also remember that an awful lot of Housing Benefit goes to pensioners and they are not affected by this change, it is people working on or about minimum wages, trying to make a living that will be hit. Maybe were a child has gone of to University guess what your over accomadated even if those kids come home during the Uni breaks. Unfortunately they have no where to go. The torys say tough.

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The Ginge

Thursday, March 7, 2013
Yep, The chickens have come home to roost for a lot of people. People work get Jack while others get everything sorted for them. I know its in the pipeline but people who earn way other the national everage (I know a few)should not be given "Council Housing" (Jif, Marathons, Imac, Opal Fruits, Yards feet and inches etc) and be made to rent privately.

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Yarn

Thursday, March 7, 2013
Surely the so called "bedroom tax" is making a level playing field for all of us...if I claimed housing benefit, I would only receive enough for a single person living in a privately rented house, however if I was in social housing, the whole amount would be paid? people is social housing have got away with it for so long, and many have gone on to purchase their homes at a later date. They have been so fortunate to have been given a socially rented house in the 1st place...if only I could have been a single mum or hail from Eastern Europe...then I too could have been lucky enough to have been given a house with a low rent...no need to work...full time child-minding....lovely! :-)

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Reddog90

Thursday, March 7, 2013
This Tory policy is the worst attack on people in rented accommodation since the 2nd world war. The reason the Housing Benefit is so expensive is that private accommodation 3 bedrooms (2 reasonable sized, one box room) is about £850pcm. A council house of the same size is £350pcm. At this level Ipswich Borough Council has enough income to maintain the Council Houses and make a small profit. So you can see why Mr Davis wants people to move in to Private Housing ! The simple answer to this problem and to get the building industry moving is for every Council in the country to have to build 5,000 Council houses in the next 3yrs, funded by bonds (which cost 1.75%) paid over 30yrs. Then anybody who wants a house gets one, with maybe priority for those on the waiting list. This means you get a good mix of people in work in areas and don't create modern ghettos. Once somebody has a house for life they turn it in to a home and look after it, were as if you getting thrown out in 10yrs when you children grow up, you trash the place and don't care. Then those minorities who do "play the system" will just have more kids to keep their home. The reason that the Housing Benefits bill doubled is because the number of people in private housing has ballooned with the state paying for the profits of landlords and mortgage companies. Ipswich should be proud that we have council houses and our aim should be to have everybody in private accommodation in council accommodation at half the cost and there's a massive saving of 50% rather than nothing that this Tax achieves. Let alone the benefits of children having more room to study, having a home to come back to when there 20 or 22 and lose their job (ie why Mr Cameroon wants to cut all Housing Benefit to under 25's) apart from Mum & Dad are now living in 1 bedroom flat. If it's horrible to turf the poor multimillion pound owning widower out of her £10m house with a Mansion Tax, it's unfair to do the same to the rest of us just because our kids have gone to Uni or grown up or turned 10. I thought Mr Cameroon was different same old Nasty Party.

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The Ginge

Thursday, March 7, 2013
Even though owning or renting a private property entitles us to live in it petty much the way we want, I wonder if many people, including Tories, would consider the room sharing arrangements stipulated here to be in any way acceptable. No doubt there are many people in social accommodation who are compelled to have such sharing at present, anyway, and it surely cannot be right to punish the (I suspect) relatively few who do not. Will this assault on the less well-off assist children to study to best effect and thus improve Suffolk's record of educational achievement? I doubt it.

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T Doff

Thursday, March 7, 2013

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