UN housing expert says "bedroom tax" should be axed

[MurderOfGoths]

Link

"Rolnik said she was disturbed by the extent of unhappiness caused by the bedroom tax and struck by how heavily this policy was affecting "the most vulnerable, the most fragile, the people who are on the fringes of coping with everyday life".

During interviews with council officials, she noted that they were struggling to cope with the fallout from the policy's introduction, not least because there was a shortage of single-bedroom properties into which tenants might downsize."It's so clear that the government didn't really assess the impact on lives when it took this decision … The mechanism that they have in place to mitigate it – the discretionary payment that they provide the councils with, it doesn't solve anything, it's for just a couple of months, and the councils cannot count on that on a permanent basis, they don't know if it's going to be available next year, so it's useless," she said.

Historically, "the United Kingdom has much to be proud of in the provision of affordable housing," she said, but its reputation was "being eroded from different sides". The state had an obligation to "put in place safeguards to protect the most vulnerable and what I am seeing here is quite the opposite – the most vulnerable are having to pay for these cuts". The country was "going backwards in the protection and promotion of the human right to housing".^"

And Grant Shapps has responded by throwing a temper tantrum and demanding an apology.

[MurderOfGoths]

Broken have you read their report, seems they have no problem with the "bedroom tax" in isolation, what they do have issue with is that there is no provision made for people to move elsewhere and so it is creating a lot of problems.

[BrokenSunglasses]

Perhaps the UN would like to pay people for having spare bedrooms themselves instead of expecting those of us that can't afford our own spare bedroom to pay for other people's?

[MurderOfGoths]

Here's the full statement.

[GobbySadcase]

The thought in my head at the moment is oh do piss off...

[MurderOfGoths]

As someone stuck in too small accommodation I am utterly in favour of those with more rooms than they need being moved to allow those without space to live somewhere suitable. But this plan is badly thought out and causing more harm than good.

[funnyossity]

It's a plan thought up by people with few brain cells or a seriously vindictive nature longfingernails.

Moving to alternative accommodation might make good sense, if it existed.

My parents did have to downsize but only when accommodation became available. Why a financial penalty for something outwith a person's control?

[funnyossity]

I can't believe the modern L.Party.

I suppose it comes of none of them having experienced any hardship themselves, unlike (some of) the old style Labour. If they would bother to have a word with Dennis Skinner he'd put them right!

[MurderOfGoths]

The human rights issue is that people are being told they have to move or forced to pay out of money they don't have, when they is nowhere else for them to go. If people can't pay this extra then they are at risk of losing their home and becoming homeless.

[longfingernails]

It's apparently a 'human rights issue'.

I must have missed the UN declaration of the human right to have a spare bedroom paid for by the taxpayer if you happen to live in a council house.

[MurderOfGoths]

I think the problem is that labour quite like putting the blame on the poor/vulnerable too, I remember some of the shite they were saying before the last election. It's just they don't do it to quite the same scale as the Tories, so come across as more caring, which is also bollocks.

[stubbornstains]

Yes, the political capital they would gain from removing the bedroom tax is immense. It's not that it saves much money, or has much impact on waiting lists. I had a total facepalm/ yelling at the radio moment when I heard Miliband saying that they weren't planning to scrap it. D'oh! In fact, d'oh cubed....

[MurderOfGoths]

Don't think even they know funny

[funnyossity]

What are Labour playing at though?

[edam]

The more high profile organisations that point out the cruelty and stupidity of this policy the better. She seems to have hit Shapps where it hurts, by his response. Good.

Btw fussing about the name is a distraction - how many people remember the PR-friendly official name for the poll tax?

[MurderOfGoths]

Agreed stubborn

[stubbornstains]

I don't think there's much this Government has done that has angered me as much as this, and that's saying a lot. I think it's the demanding of an apology that gets me.

As far as I can work out, if Raquel Rolnik was trying to determine the effects of the bedroom tax, she had no need to meet with any Government officials- what she had to do was what she did, which was listen to the testimony of hundreds of people affected.

If you go over to "Relationships", people who get aggressive when someone raises a perfectly valid point and start demanding an apology, rather than concede that they may be in the wrong, are universally condemned as abusive bullies. And that is how I see Grant Shapps's behaviour. Arrogant and bullying.

[funnyossity]

Surprised at shadow housing minister.

It is a plain stupid (if not cruel) plan as there is not enough alternative housing to move into.

[GobbySadcase]

Which directly contradicts Milibean last week face palm

[meditrina]

The UN official has apologised for elements of what she said.

And speaking on the 1 O'Clock npNews, the Shadow Housing Minister has said Labour have no plans to repeal the measure.

[MurderOfGoths]

Ah, there you go.

[MurderOfGoths]

You didn't bother reading the article then? Because I don't see anywhere she referred to it as a tax, the title of this thread is using the phrase because that's how it's become colloquially known. I assume the article is using it in a similar way. Rolnik isn't quoted as using the phrase at all.

[stubbornstains]

She apologised for referring to it as the "bedroom tax", admitting that she had adopted the colloquial phrase in general usage.

[stubbornstains]

Gird your loins for the flood of anti- UN propaganda soon to issue from the Daily Heil.....

[longfingernails]

The UN proves itself to be even more of a farce.

She doesn't even know the difference between tax and benefits.

[MurderOfGoths]

Right now any improvement is better than the alternative.