Striking out at unfair tax
Of all the policies introduced by the current UK government, the bedroom tax is amongst the most unfair and unjust.
Regular Reformer readers may recall that when it was first introduced, I had highlighted the situation of foster carers whose ability to be able to provide stable and comfortable homes for vulnerable children would be removed. Case after case of people who had adaptations made to spare rooms to help deal with medical conditions were highlighted in the media.
Constituents were being told they would have to pay the bedroom tax, even though there was no smaller accommodation available to them.
The bedroom tax has been the cause of real anxiety amongst many people, frustration for housing co-operatives and housing associations having to deal with new arrears, and another burden of bureaucracy on local councils to administer discretionary payments.
And it turned out that, in fact, the bedroom tax was not saving taxpayers money as the government had said it would – but was costing public money, as private rented accommodation with less bedrooms and higher rent was being paid for through higher housing benefit payments.
It is a bad policy – and one which I and many others in Parliament have voted against whenever we have had the chance.
In Scotland, after first refusing to use powers that they have in Edinburgh, the SNP were finally pushed by Labour pressure in Holyrood to mitigating the effects of the bedroom tax. Labour has promised to abolish the bedroom tax for everybody in the UK when we form the next UK government.
It was against that backdrop that on Friday last week, every single Scottish Labour MP along with our colleagues from across the UK inflicted the first legislative defeat on the government on the bedroom tax. While there have been opposition motions before, this was the first time that – through a Private Members Bill tabled by a rebel Lib Dem MP from Cornwall – legislation had been put before Parliament on the bedroom tax. The Bill was not perfect – it does not go far enough because it does not abolish the bedroom tax altogether – but it is a massive step forward.
It will stop people with adaptations for their spare rooms being charged it, and also those who are not offered an alternative home. It will make a meaningful difference to people across the whole of the UK.
While every Scottish Labour MP was there, the same could not be said for the SNP. While they have sought to make the bedroom tax a referendum issue by deliberately confusing constitutional arrangements with specific policies, the majority of Nationalist MPs simply did not turn up. They are much happier fostering a grievance rather than using their ability to take action to correct an injustice. It is as though they would rather keep the bedroom tax than seriously try to defeat it.
The gap between Nationalist rhetoric and the reality of their MPs’ disinterest could hardly be more stark. While most MPs, me included, use Fridays for constituency work and to hold surgeries – last week was an important opportunity for MPs from all parts of the UK to stand together and force the government’s hand. That is why every Scottish Labour MP cancelled other commitments, and why MPs from different parties and across the UK voted in a way that demonstrated the bedroom tax is on its way out across the UK.
In less than eight months’ time, a Labour government will be able to fully abolish the hated bedroom tax, freeze energy bills and increase the minimum wage for everybody in all parts of the nations and regions that make up the UK.
Social justice can only be achieved on the foundations of solidarity across all of the nations and regions that make up the UK, not by erecting barriers and the race to the bottom set out in the Nationalist White Paper we will be voting on next week.