Put It To Bed

Ryan Curran writes:

To those who have campaigned against the so-called ‘bedroom tax’ from the beginning, Wednesday’s decision by the appeal court to rule the policy discriminatory and unlawful will come as no surprise.

To those who continue to defend the policy, this ruling should act as a stark reminder of its remarkable failure.

When it was first introduced by the coalition government in 2013, the bedroom tax aimed to cut the welfare bill and free up in-demand housing.

The policy works by cutting the benefits tenants receive by 14% if they have one spare bedroom and a staggering 25 per cent if they have two or more.

At first, it may seem reasonable to some to cut people’s benefits if they are living in a house with one or more spare bedrooms.

The idea is that this significant reduction in income will encourage the occupant to move to a house where all the rooms are used, therefore freeing up the larger property for those who require more than one room. 

However, when you begin to look at the implications of the policy, as well as the failure to achieve one of its main goals, it becomes clear that the bedroom tax has been a disaster from the off.

According to the government’s own research published in 2014, almost 60 per cent of those affected by the bedroom tax were in rent arrears as a result of the policy.

Furthermore, according to a survey carried out by the National Housing Federation in the same year, around one in seven families had received eviction letters and faced the prospect of losing their homes.

Even more worryingly, research carried out by the government’s Department for Work & Pensions found that three-quarters of those affected by the policy have had to cut back on food, while 46% had to cut back on heating and 33 per cent on travel.

Clearly, the bedroom tax is having an extreme impact on those who are already struggling, forcing them to scale back on the essentials.

Such a situation is simply unacceptable and confirms the fears many raised when the policy was first introduced.

In addition, many have also criticised the bedroom tax for discriminating against vulnerable people.

For example, Wednesday’s ruling by the appeal court dealt with a case involving a seriously disabled child who requires overnight care in a specially adapted room.

The other case involved a single mother living in a three-bedroom council house fitted with a secure panic room to protect her from a violent ex-partner.

In both cases, judges ruled that the bedroom tax amounted to unlawful discrimination.

As a result of similar cases, the UN special investigator on housing called on the government to scrap the bedroom tax, pointing to what she described as ‘shocking’ accounts of how the policy was damaging the lives of vulnerable citizens. 

However, there is yet more evidence demonstrating the failure of the policy.

As aforementioned, one of the main aims of the bedroom tax was to move those with spare bedrooms into smaller houses.

However, according to figures released under the Freedom of Information Act, only around 6% of those affected by the policy have actually moved, showing that for many, downsizing is not a viable option, either for personal reasons or because housing is in such short supply.

Looking at the evidence, it is clear the bedroom tax has been a complete failure in terms of rehousing tenants and the impact it has had on thousands of people up and down the country.

The government may have saved around £1bn since its introduction, but this has been at the expense of struggling families and vulnerable citizens.

Following the appeal court’s decision to rule the policy discriminatory and unlawful, it is now time for the government to finally admit it was wrong and abolish the bedroom tax.

And Ruby Stockham writes:

Yesterday, the government lost two cases at the Court of Appeal, when a judge ruled that Iain Duncan Smith’s so-called ‘Bedroom Tax’ had in fact discriminated against two claimants.

The first was a woman whose home is equipped with a panic room because she is at risk from an ex-partner who has harassed, stalked and raped her.

The second claimants were a couple who care for their severely disabled teenage grandson, and have a room in which to store his medical equipment and accommodate the overnight carers he requires.

The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) is now launching a legal challenge against both parties to ensure that they pay the charge.

These two cases are patently unfair, and it is difficult to see how the DWP can possibly justify charging these households what they call the ‘spare room subsidy’.

Even the Daily Mail has jumped on the bandwagon of calling out the policy, despite its support for it in the past. 

But is there an argument in favour of the ‘spare room subsidy’, and has it actually been successful? 

When the policy was introduced, the government said it would reduce the waiting list for families needing social housing. 

Housing associations have reported something of a vicious circle resulting from the Bedroom Tax; where families have a room that is genuinely surplus they are aware of the need to downsize, but there is simply no smaller housing available (the charity Shelter says that the waiting list for social housing has increased by 81 per cent since 1997). 

The government’s own report on the policy in December found that ‘there is evidence of a declining proportion of lets to those who under occupy their new home in England, and an increase in proportion of lets to families from 36.3 per cent in 2012–13 to 40.7 per cent in 2013–14’. 

“Most LAs and social landlords reported that large numbers of people were unable to move because of a shortage of smaller homes.

“Some claimants said they had not registered because they were aware of the shortage (case studies and claimant qualitative interviews).” 

There is of course a great human cost to the policy – a survey by the National Housing Federation found that 46 per cent of tenants affected by the Bedroom Tax had borrowed money to pay their rent since April 2013; 32 per cent had reduced their spending on food; and 26 per cent had cut back on heating costs. 

But the fundamental problem with the Bedroom Tax is that people cannot ‘downsize’ if there is nowhere for them to go. 

Shelter estimates that to solve the housing crisis, 250,000 more affordable homes would need to be built each year in England alone, but housebuilding is at its lowest ‘peacetime’ level since the 1920s. 

Meanwhile, rents have been rising faster than inflation – in the year to May 2015, average rental values for new tenancies in the UK were 10.7 per cent higher than the same period last year.

The decision to appeal yesterday shows that the government is willing to hold on to this policy despite all the evidence against it; it is ideologically driven, illogical, and unworkable in coordination with other policies.