Subject: Bedroom Tax Loophole to be closed
Local MP Sandra Osborne spoke out against Bedroom Tax last week in Parliament during a Labour debate calling for the Bedroom Tax to be scrapped. Sandra said
"The reason we had this debate is because the Tory Lib Dem coalition are moving to close a loophole that has meant thousands of tenants being wrongly charged with the Bedroom Tax. The error affects working age tenants in social housing who have claimed housing benefit and occupied the same home continuously since 1996. Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) failed to make the necessary changes to regulations for the Bedroom Tax to apply to those tenants.. This is the latest example of the chaos and confusion within the Department of Work and Pensions under Iain Duncan Smith. The DWP has said the regulations would be amended as soon as possible to close the loophole. Rather than closing loopholes in the policy, the government should scrap their hated bedroom tax. If they don't, the next Labour government will."
Speech Extracts:
Bedroom Tax – officially known as the Social Sector Size Criterion - says it all about this Governments attitude to tenants in socially rented housing – they do not have the same right to a stable home environment as everyone else. As if by magic the plan was that thousands of tenants throughout the land would move to mythical smaller properties freeing up larger properties for overcrowded families or find an average of £720 a year which they do not possess.
Not a cunning plan but a cruel, uncaring and illusory plan which has seen over four and a half thousand of my constituents suffer – within months of the bedroom tax coming in 62% of my constituents were in arrears and the figures continue to rise. And I also very much fear for those who have struggled to pay because I know fine well they cannot afford it.
It would not be possible for me to over emphasise the fear, concern and anger the bedroom tax has caused together with the ATOS debacle and the fact that people are being suspended from benefit at the drop of a hat. And perhaps the Minister can confirm the Governments intentions as far as the Scottish Welfare Fund is concerned. Do they intend to retain it?
But it is the sheer ineffectiveness and shambolic implementation we are here to talk about today
What kind of policy is it that requires mitigation for more than half the people affected - 70 % of applications have been approved for discretionary payment with more applications all the time in one of my areas and the revised budget will be fully spent by year end.
It is of course very welcome that we in Scotland have benefited from the decision to fully mitigate the bedroom tax in recognition that it is fundamentally unfair and that people are struggling because of it who are already finding it difficult to make ends meet. It will be important for Scottish members to monitor the detail of how assistance will be given as the proposals within the Scottish Government budget are implemented.
It is just a pity it took so long to achieve this because many people have and still are struggling and some have already moved in to private accommodation at exhorbitent cost and having lost their long term home. But this is a good example of what devolution can achieve and I commend it to our friends in England .
Now we have the discovery of this loop hole – it has emerged that a number of people who had been in the same local authority house since January 1996 and been continuously entitled to housing benefit should not have had their benefit reduced as a result of the bedroom tax.
How could this have been allowed to happen with such a sensitive and controversial measure. I am currently in contact with the local authorities which cover my constituency to ensure that the people who qualify for this exemption from the bedroom tax are fullyreimbursed . Sixty eight cases have been identified so far in one council area so that can be at least doubled to cover the whole of my constituency.
The exemption will be backdated to 1st April 2013 but the Government will be taking steps to remedy the loophole shortly so it will be reinstated as soon as this happens.
Talk about raising hopes and then dashing them
The whole policy is an absolute mess and a disgrace will do nothing to solve the housing problem and should be abolished immediately.
Local MP Sandra Osborne spoke out against Bedroom Tax last week in Parliament during a Labour debate calling for the Bedroom Tax to be scrapped. Sandra said
"The reason we had this debate is because the Tory Lib Dem coalition are moving to close a loophole that has meant thousands of tenants being wrongly charged with the Bedroom Tax. The error affects working age tenants in social housing who have claimed housing benefit and occupied the same home continuously since 1996. Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) failed to make the necessary changes to regulations for the Bedroom Tax to apply to those tenants.. This is the latest example of the chaos and confusion within the Department of Work and Pensions under Iain Duncan Smith. The DWP has said the regulations would be amended as soon as possible to close the loophole. Rather than closing loopholes in the policy, the government should scrap their hated bedroom tax. If they don't, the next Labour government will."
Speech Extracts:
Bedroom Tax – officially known as the Social Sector Size Criterion - says it all about this Governments attitude to tenants in socially rented housing – they do not have the same right to a stable home environment as everyone else. As if by magic the plan was that thousands of tenants throughout the land would move to mythical smaller properties freeing up larger properties for overcrowded families or find an average of £720 a year which they do not possess.
Not a cunning plan but a cruel, uncaring and illusory plan which has seen over four and a half thousand of my constituents suffer – within months of the bedroom tax coming in 62% of my constituents were in arrears and the figures continue to rise. And I also very much fear for those who have struggled to pay because I know fine well they cannot afford it.
It would not be possible for me to over emphasise the fear, concern and anger the bedroom tax has caused together with the ATOS debacle and the fact that people are being suspended from benefit at the drop of a hat. And perhaps the Minister can confirm the Governments intentions as far as the Scottish Welfare Fund is concerned. Do they intend to retain it?
But it is the sheer ineffectiveness and shambolic implementation we are here to talk about today
What kind of policy is it that requires mitigation for more than half the people affected - 70 % of applications have been approved for discretionary payment with more applications all the time in one of my areas and the revised budget will be fully spent by year end.
It is of course very welcome that we in Scotland have benefited from the decision to fully mitigate the bedroom tax in recognition that it is fundamentally unfair and that people are struggling because of it who are already finding it difficult to make ends meet. It will be important for Scottish members to monitor the detail of how assistance will be given as the proposals within the Scottish Government budget are implemented.
It is just a pity it took so long to achieve this because many people have and still are struggling and some have already moved in to private accommodation at exhorbitent cost and having lost their long term home. But this is a good example of what devolution can achieve and I commend it to our friends in England .
Now we have the discovery of this loop hole – it has emerged that a number of people who had been in the same local authority house since January 1996 and been continuously entitled to housing benefit should not have had their benefit reduced as a result of the bedroom tax.
How could this have been allowed to happen with such a sensitive and controversial measure. I am currently in contact with the local authorities which cover my constituency to ensure that the people who qualify for this exemption from the bedroom tax are fullyreimbursed . Sixty eight cases have been identified so far in one council area so that can be at least doubled to cover the whole of my constituency.
The exemption will be backdated to 1st April 2013 but the Government will be taking steps to remedy the loophole shortly so it will be reinstated as soon as this happens.
Talk about raising hopes and then dashing them
The whole policy is an absolute mess and a disgrace will do nothing to solve the housing problem and should be abolished immediately.