Tomorrow (17 December) there will be a vote in Parliament to scrap the so-called bedroom tax.
The bedroom tax hits around half a million low-income households. Two thirds of the households affected include a person with a disability, while the tax also hits 60,000 carers.
The Labour Party has promised to repeal the bedroom tax if it wins the next general election. But change can’t come soon enough for the families affected, so UNISON is supporting the call by the Labour Party now for a vote in the House of Commons that could mean the bedroom tax is effectively abolished by Christmas.
For the vast majority of those affected by the bedroom tax, there is nowhere smaller to move to. There is also now a real risk that the bedroom tax will cost more money than it saves.
UNISON is supporting the Labour Party’s policy of dealing with under-occupation by funding local authorities that are able to help people with the costs of moving to suitable accommodation, using the funding set aside by the government through discretionary housing payments for dealing with the problems caused by the bedroom tax.
Labour also has plans for a major house building programme, with a target to get over 200,000 homes a year built by the end of the next parliament.
UNISON believes that, in the long-term, building more social housing and moving from ‘benefits to bricks’ is a much better and fairer way to solve both the housing shortage crisis and the rising housing benefits bill.
Ahead of the vote, the Labour Party has created an official record of public opposition to this unjust and punitive law. It will give people a chance to look back and see the proof, that ‘we didn’t stay silent, we didn’t back down, we didn’t give up’.
Thousands of people signing this record will put real pressure on the government to do the right thing – and vote to get rid of this terrible law.
