The Labour Party continues its scaremongering about the reduction in benefits for extra rooms in social housing, which it mistakenly calls a “bedroom tax”.
It is, if truth be told, an equalisation of benefits between the private and social rental sectors in order to increase social housing provision and reduce cost.
Leaving spare rooms under-occupied is not a good use of social housing at a time when there are 1.8million households on the national housing waiting list.
The Labour Party has acknowledged this with Malcolm Wicks MP calling for housing benefit recipients to move into “smaller and cheaper accommodation”.
Under the measures, the vulnerable are not being picked on with people over the age of the state pension credit exempt and carers protected.
There is also a £30million fund to assist disabled people and foster carers and a £155million in discretionary housing payments to support vulnerable claimants.
Finally, the cost of £20billion a year in housing benefit, which nearly doubled under Labour, needs to be tackled with Liam Byrne MP calling it “too high”.