Can anyone link to a rational explanation of bedroom tax from the right?

As the poster above says it just doesn't work.

The hamlet I live in has one council house, you could easily be asking people to move 15 miles to the nearest city for a smaller one.

God alone knows how people sort schools, getting to work, family support etc if you do that. There certainly isn't any public transport.

Also as families have more children, different gender DCs get to old to share and then the oldest leave home, you can see families being eligible for several sizes of houses over the years.

It's quite bonkers!!!

No!
I voted for the idiots, but I cant explain such an unfair illogical policy.

ttosca

Again you have missed my point I was addressing another poster who was saying its UNFAIR to move people from communities where they have lived all their lives because they are on HB

Quite rightly you have said that there are problems with smaller accommodation and quite rightly I agree with you.

BUT that was NOT the issue I was addressing as you can read from the rest of the post you copied ( and ignored)

I am saying that it is NOT unfair that people on HB may have to move from their communities if that's is the only way they can downsize so in fact I was talking about the PRINCIPLE of moving.

I will throw a question to the general forum

If its is unfair that a family has to move from a 3 bed property into a 2 bed property (IF one is available ttosca) because it would mean any DCs would have to change school or Gran isn't around the corner to babysit, would you equally say its would be unfair to move a family with 3 dcs from a cramped 2 bed flat into a large 3 bed house with a garden, if the location of that house also means moving a child from their school or moving away from general family support and the community they grew up in.

Cogito-

There's got to be scope for setting up a house-swapping scheme if it doesn't exist already. People with spare rooms on the one hand and those who are overcrowded on the other.

Well, that's the thing. There are thousands of empty unused homes out there which are only occupied for a weeks or a couple of months every year.

Instead of doing more to discourage second homes or empty homes, the govt. instead chooses to attack the most vulnerable, those in social housing claiming benefit.

Mrsdavidcaruso-

As I have said in my post ttosca I agree there are problems, with smaller properties but the general consensus of opinion that social housing tenants should not be required to move just because they have lived in an area all their lives is wrong considering people who do not get social housing and who rent and buy without HB have to do so.

These are not 'minor' points. They are central to the issue.

Firstly, where are they going to move if there are no suitable houses? What do you expect to happen when they can't find a house? Are you OK with making families homeless?

Secondly, the policy is in effect punishing people for actions for which they had little or no choice in the first place. Remember, if there are no houses to move in to now, how could they make the choice to move in to a 'suitable' house in the first place?

So how are they - anyone, as a point of principle - morally culpable for actions for which they have no or almost no choice?

There's got to be scope for setting up a house-swapping scheme if it doesn't exist already. People with spare rooms on the one hand and those who are overcrowded on the other.

As I have said in my post ttosca I agree there are problems, with smaller properties but the general consensus of opinion that social housing tenants should not be required to move just because they have lived in an area all their lives is wrong considering people who do not get social housing and who rent and buy without HB have to do so.

Where are they going to move to when there aren't enough houses with fewer rooms, Mrsdavidcaruso?

dotnet
Yes it stinks that people who have been bought up in an area and have made friends have to move. BUT people who rent in the private sector or buy have been doing that for years.

I was bought up in a council house but when I got married because we had no DCs and OH and I were earning reasonable wages we are not entitled to a council place we could not afford to rent in the area so we had to move away from our families, community and friends. After years of paying rent and saving for a deposit on our own place we decided to buy, yet again we had to move from the area we loved and the friends we made as we could not afford house prices in the area.

So thats TWICE we had to move whilst at the same time friends who were earning less or who had DCs were allocated Council houses in the area we grew up in and where my parents still live. Well that's not fair is it?

To say 'you don't treat people like this' infers that council house dwellers are being asked to do something others don't have to, when in fact they are being told they may have to do something that 1000s of other people
have to do as a matter or course.

I agree that there are problems with smaller properties and I agree that disabled people and the elderly should not have to move from the communities which offer them support.

But I do not agree that it is unfair to move the vast majority of council house dwellers just because 'they have always lived there'

Talkingpeace-

Sorry, but you are incorrect.

Government spending may have increased year on year during Gordon Brown's time in power, but that was not the cause of the financial crisis. Deregulation and casino banking was the cause of the financial crisis.

The deficit before the financial crisis was just under 3%. After the financial crisis occurred, the deficit increased to over 11% in just one year.

You will note that the 2008 crisis was global in nature. If it were merely UK government spending which was the cause, then it would not have been global in nature.

What happened was that the financial crisis costs the government billions in bailout money. Most importantly, though, it caused a recession. The recession meant that tax receipts dropped dramatically, and the welfare bill shot up due to unemployment. Of course, under these conditions the deficit will increase - government revenue has dropped dramatically.

The recession also means that more unemployed people. Apart from the welfare bill, it means fewer people have money to spend, and there is less job security, so there is less demand in the economy.

The methods being used by Cameroon and Gideon are crass and iniquitous, but the structural deficit HAS to be sorted out somehow.

They're not just 'crass and iniquitous', and they're not just immoral, but they're actually counter-productive. That is, they are actually making the economic situation worse.

The UK has experienced no growth since 2008 and has performed worse on average than many of our european neighbours in terms of growth. We may even be heading for a triple-dip recession. Today, once again, the IMF warned that the austerity policies are harming growth and told Osbourne to let up on the bloodletting.

So the austerity measures are not just cruel and immoral, but they're making the situation far far worse.

Other countries which have taken a more Keynesian approach of public investment have seen their economies improve. The UK, on the other hand, is spiraling down in to depression.

niceguy. In my job as an OT I work with lots of families where one spouse has such a severe disability that it's not feasible at all for their partner to slept in the same bedroom, and that same partner is the full time carer. Often in these situations the property will have been adapted, at the councils expense, to suit the resident. So they will get a discretionary grant. But for how long? And the discretionary pot is finite, so once it's gone, it's gone, and it may not be enough to cover all these special cases. Please understand that some people's lives are not as straightforward as you think, and that many of those people are currently terrified.

ttosca
The deficit was caused by the financial crisis - which is global in nature. It wasn't caused by spending too much on schools and hospitals.

Sorry but that is just factually incorrect.
For every year that Gordon Brown was chancellor he increased government spending on the basis that future tax receipts would rise to balance it. But for every single year that Labour were in power, actual income fell short of his predictions.
But rather than cut back spending to match what was coming in, Broon kept spending faster and faster - especially once he became prime minister (which was AFTER the financial merry go round had come to a shuddering halt).

Broon merrily borrowed from our children to give our parents nice treats.
That has to be undone.

The methods being used by Cameroon and Gideon are crass and iniquitous, but the structural deficit HAS to be sorted out somehow.

I know its the telegraph, but I thought this was interesting.
bedroom

Here, try and memorize this:

Mythbusters: "Britain is broke - we can't afford to invest"

nef and the Tax Justice Network have paired up top economists and journalists to write a series of guides exploring the truth behind common economic myths. This first mythbuster, prepared by Howard Reed and Tom Clark, addresses the question: is Britain really ?broke??

www.neweconomics.org/mythbusters

niceguy-

Labour took the magic money tree away when they left and now we have to choose how best to spend what little money we have. So expecting husbands and wives to share as the default seems reasonable.

There was never any 'magic money tree'. The deficit was caused by the financial crisis - which is global in nature. It wasn't caused by spending too much on schools and hospitals.

Have you learned the difference between the debt and deficit, yet?

After a double-dip and potentially triple-dip recession, have you come to realise understand that counter Keynesian bloodletting during a recession usually increases, not decreases the deficit, due to decreased tax revenue and rising unemployment costs?

I'll accept your apology.

If a full-time carer is a husband, wife or partner, then they will be expected to share a room. However, they can apply for a discretionary housing payment from their local authority if the disability means the partner needs to sleep in another room

That seems fairly sensible to me. I don't see why a carer who is also the spouse should automatically be entitled to a spare room. Surely common sense dictates that the assumption should be that a couple sleep in the same bedroom unless there is a good medical reason why not. And therefore a discretionary award sounds reasonable.

Labour took the magic money tree away when they left and now we have to choose how best to spend what little money we have. So expecting husbands and wives to share as the default seems reasonable.

The thing which hurts is knowing that people have the feeling they are being forced out of their homes. They may have lived there for donkeys' years, they've got their friends and neighbours nearby, they've put down roots - it's just not right. You don't treat people like that.
BUT there would be nothing unethical, I think, in offering decent pay-offs to get people to volunteer to move out of too-large flats and houses... That's what private landlords in London used to do, if they wanted to sell on, without the nuisance of tenants in situ. And local authorities did the same thing if they wanted to redevelop an area.

Why not offer a reduction in rent and first claim on one of the revamped accommodation units in their old home to people coming forward whose house or large flat could be converted into two properties?

But just saying 'your flat's too big so we're going to relieve you of some of your housing benefit you plutocrat....well, that just plain stinks.

Thing is thought that generally speaking people are allocated social housing based on need - so, you won't usually be allowed to rent a HA/council property that is significantly bigger than you need.

The two main exceptions to this (I know there will be other specific circumstances but these are IME that main exceptions)....

A) people who have been allocated bigger properties because there are insufficient smaller ones available locally. For example single people given 2 bed properties because the property is, despite being family sized is not family suitable (ie high rise flats) Or families allocated a 3 bed property when they have two children under 10 who could share a room.

B) people whose housing needs have changed significantly since they were allocated their property - this is mainly older people whose children have left home but continue to occupy the 3/4 bed house they have lived in for years

Group B are not affected anyway - the 'bedroom tax' doesn't apply to pensioners who make up most of that group.

Group A, well, fuck 'em [shrug] They can move into more expensive private rented accomodation or cough up. Its a choice, see, and we all have to face hard choices in these times unless we are millionaires eh

If a full-time carer is a husband, wife or partner, then they will be expected to share a room. However, they can apply for a discretionary housing payment from their local authority if the disability means the partner needs to sleep in another room

Discretionary

Or for those families in a small house because someone else is sat in a bigger house with a spare room, they are likely to feel the change is fair

Its not really like that though.

The majority of tenants [social] 'sat in' bigger houses with spare rooms getting housing benefit, are pensioners and they are excluded from the bedroom 'tax' ruling. so those under occupied bigger houses will continue to be under occupied.

It won't make any difference to people who are over crowded now and as ttosca says, those being hit by this need the 'extra' room.

I thought you didn't lose the subsidy if a carer needs the room?

The BBC website says:

"Disabled tenants will be allowed a bedroom for full-time live-in or overnight carers. If a full-time carer is a husband, wife or partner, then they will be expected to share a room. However, they can apply for a discretionary housing payment from their local authority if the disability means the partner needs to sleep in another room."

I thought there were 85,000 1 bedroom properties available? Once those have gone, then people can legitimately complain that there is nowhere smaller to move to.....

Initial estimates are that the majority won't move to smaller properties but stay put and take the reduced HB. However I think there will be big pressure on Housing Associations and councils to make a much better job of persuading tenants to downsize where appropriate, and to build suitable properties in general. Smaller accommodation for older people has to be a priority, for example, just because of the way the demographic is going i.e. we're all living longer and more of us are living solo...

Disabled victims of bedroom tax granted urgent judicial review

Disabled people who are set to be hit by the government?s controversial ?bedroom tax? have won the right to an urgent judicial review of the new rules.

disabilitynewsservice.com/2013/03/disabled-victims-of-bedroom-tax-granted-urgent-judicial-review/

Sorry, i don't understand. What additional income steam?