LONDON: More than 57,000 people fell behind on their rent just a year after the bedroom tax was introduced, new figures have revealed.
The Social Rented Sector Report 2014-15, published on the day MPs begin a six-week summer holiday, showed 712,000 families were either in rent arrears or had fallen behind at some point during that year.
Among these households, 153,800 said this was due to a reduction in or delays with benefit, and of this group 57,485 said they had benefits cut for “under-occupying” their home due to the bedroom tax.
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In response to the report, Jess Phillips, Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley, told The Independent: “It is absolutely no surprise to me at all.
“Every week in my advice surgeries I meet people struggling to cope with the bedroom tax.
“The Tories need to wake up to the fact that not only is it cruel and unfair on the poorest, it is also not working and will be costing local councils thousands in administration and chasing of rent arrears. When will they see sense?”
The bedroom tax was introduced by the Government in April 2013 to encourage people to move out of homes they are “under-occupying”.
The levy reduces housing benefit by 14 per cent if they have one spare bedroom or 25 per cent if they have two.
The policy has been criticised for causing poverty, disproportionately affecting disabled people and putting Britain’s poorest people in a Catch-22 situation as there is often nowhere suitable to move to because of a shortage of one-bedroom flats.
In September 2013, just five months after the tax was introduced, it was revealed more than 50,000 people affected by it had fallen behind on rent and faced eviction.
In February this year figures revealed the levy was costing 442,000 poor homes £15.27 a week each – up from an estimated £14 two years before. Earlier this year the policy was declared discriminatory and unlawful by the Court of Appeal.
Despite the ruling David Cameron defended the policy, claiming “it’s unfair to subsidise spare rooms in the social sector if you don’t subsidise them in the private sector”.
The Department for Work and Pensions spent over £100,000 on lawyers to fight the court battle against parents of a severely disabled child, who were forced to pay the charge on a room slept in by overnight carers.
