Seriously Bad News

One of three MPs from the 2010 intake to write for this weekend's edition, although the only one with her photograph on the front page, Pat Glass writes:

The bedroom tax is becoming a disaster in my Durham constituency. Families are moving out of good-quality social housing into the private rented sector at an increased cost to the taxpayer. Three and four-bedroom houses are now standing empty and are "hard to let." I even have pensioners who have told me that they want to downsize but cannot because smaller houses in the social housing sector are now prioritised for families.

Will the Prime Minister now accept that this policy is turning out to be seriously bad news for taxpayers and bad news for families? This was my question to the Prime Minister on July 3. His response was to mutter something about fairness but he failed to address any of the issues that I raised - no surprises there then. I am becoming increasingly concerned about the impact of the bedroom tax on the people of North West Durham.

The cumulative effect of all this is going to take some time to play out, but already rent arrears are increasing, which means that housing companies cannot afford to build new homes. Single homeless people, some of whom have come out of the armed services, cannot now get access to the one-bedroomed social housing they need, so homelessness is on the rise. This policy is seriously bad news.

The ripple effects will ultimately affect all of us and Iain Duncan Smith knows it. He knows this is not going to save money and nor is it going to free up social housing for families. This is purely about playing to the gallery on welfare. I am anxious about my the situation my constituents face now, but I also worry about the long-term impact.

The government is fully aware that we need more housing. We could have anticipated 20 years ago the way in which demography and housing and living norms would change. We now have far more people living alone than we used to. Divorce, changing patterns of family life and work patterns have all driven up a need for new housing, but rather than face up to opposition in their own constituencies, the Tories have chosen this iniquitous, nasty tax which they hope will lead to reduced housing waiting lists.

It is not working on all kinds of levels. In the short term some tenants are choosing to pay the tax rather than move - but that cannot last. The immediate pressure is on housing arrears but, again, that cannot last and evictions will come. Some tenants are moving into the private rented sector at a greater cost to the public purse.

The impact in the north of England is very different from that in the south where it is driving tenants out of city and town centres, where they work in low-paid jobs in shops, hotels, restaurants and bars, and into city and town outskirts where they cannot afford the commuter fares to their jobs. This will inevitably drive up the benefits bill in the south.

Perhaps my greatest concern is over the long-term impact on communities. When the dust settled on the riots on Tyneside in the 1980s, housing allocation policies were viewed as a major cause. It was acknowledged that whole estates were made up of families, many of them single parent families, raising young teenagers and that, together with a combination of poverty, unemployment and isolation, were the fans that flamed the riots.

It was acknowledged that social housing estates need to reflect the diversity of the wider community with a mixed population, young families, pensioners, older families whose children have moved on living together and allocation policies changed.

The current policy will drive us back to the same situation that existed in the 1980s, but by the time the defecation hits the air-conditioning Duncan Smith will be long gone.