Hated bedroom tax lives on

MPs voted on repealing the ‘hated’ bedroom tax yesterday (December 17) and narrowly lost by 32 votes.

In Labour’s bid to scrap the tax, the Tory-led government defeated the motion to abolish it, with 298 MPs voting against repealing the tax and 266 voting in favour.

Critics argue the repeal was lost after the Liberal Democrats, who had previously come out against the controversial tax in July, failed to vote to repeal it.

In response to the vote yesterday, shadow work and pensions secretary Rachel Reeves said, “Time and time again we’ve tried to get this cruel law scrapped — and every time the government has voted to keep it.”

“If one thing’s clear, it’s that the Tories and Lib Dems really, really like the Bedroom Tax,” she added.

 
“But we are disgusted by it. This is a moral issue — the tax hits hardest at the most vulnerable, most of all children in poverty and people with disabilities.”

“So no matter how many times they vote to protect it, we will keep pushing the government to scrap the Bedroom Tax, keep forcing votes in Parliament, keep speaking up – and keep building our record of public opposition,” Reeves went on to say, emphasising the need for a Labour government to be elected in May.

“Impossible choices”

Since April 1 of last year, people up and down the country have been hit by the bedroom tax because the Tory-led government has decided that their home has one or more spare bedrooms.

 
Around 660,000 families have been hit by the tax. Some of the worst affected have been carers, people with disabilities and army families.

“People are having to make impossible choices between heating and eating, paying rent or bills,” said Reeves.

Record numbers of families are being forced to rely on food banks for Christmas dinner and payday loans for buying presents.

Chris, a single dad from Telford tells UNITElive how the bedroom tax has impacted on him and his twelve year old daughter, who he shares custody of with his ex-wife.

“It’s been tough. Natasha’s bedroom I have for her is seen as a ‘spare’ room. She isn’t with me all the time as her mother has her during the week,” said Chris.

“Money is already very tight. I have definitely felt the effects. I don’t have the heating on unless she is staying with me and I don’t bother cooking if it’s just me. I tend to just eat beans on toast,” he added.

In fact Chris is 14 per cent a week worse off since the bedroom tax came in to force. Someone deemed to have two or more ‘spare’ bedrooms is 25 per cent worse off a week.

Families are penalised because they have two boys, not a boy and a girl or because their children are too young or close in age. Divorced families are feeling the sting, too.

“Our divorce has been painful enough on Natasha but this has made things so much worse. She is still young and Christmas should be a magical time for her. Instead she must watch us struggle to scrape together enough money to buy her presents. I feel so guilty,” said Chris.

“Tory welfare waste”

Fifty-seven per cent of those affected by the bedroom tax have already had to cut spending on household essentials and figures from the Trussell Trust suggest that possibly a quarter of a million people are accessing food banks because of it.

Less than five in a hundred families have been able to downsize because of a shortage of one-bed council homes. Many two-bedroom flats now stand disgracefully empty because they are now so difficult to let.

“It’s yet another example of Tory welfare waste,” added Reeves.

Unite assistant general secretary Steve Turner said the only way we can truly abolish the bedroom tax is through securing a Labour government in May 2015.

“The Tories and the Lib Dems have spoken and they don’t speak for the working people of Britain. They are about austerity and penalising the working poor,” Turner said.

“What Britain needs is a Labour government or we will see many more people unable to find the extra rent money, falling in to arrears and facing eviction,” he added.

Want to know how your MP voted in the motion to scrap the bedroom tax? See The Mirror’s list here.