The ‘bedroom tax’ will fail to solve overcrowding and could even boost the benefit bill, not cut it, says a report out from the National Housing Federation.
It examines claims by the Government that the under-occupation penalty, the so-called ‘bedroom tax’, will tackle overcrowding, encourage more efficient use of social housing and save the taxpayer £465m a year. Based on the Government’s own data, The Bedroom Tax: Some Home Truths, raises serious doubts that the measure will meet those aims.
It says that by adopting a national “one size fits all” approach to tackle overcrowding, the policy is also targeting those parts of the country least affected by the problem and could potentially cost the taxpayer money if those people told to downsize actually did.
The report found that:
- In the north of England families with a spare room outnumber overcrowded families by three to one (1) so thousands will be hit by the bedroom tax despite there being no local need for them to move. The mismatch between people living in overcrowded homes who need to swap with those who have a spare room works only on paper and nationally. In reality, to make it work you would have to move thousands of families thousands of miles.
- If those people do choose to move there are simply not enough smaller social homes available for all 660,000 households affected by the bedroom tax to move to, and
- If everyone affected did decide to move, many would have to go into the more expensive private rented sector, which would mean in some cases housing benefit claims could actually increase.
- Meanwhile, if disabled people in adapted properties moved into smaller homes this could also cost the taxpayer millions more in costly home adaptations. Some 77 per cent of people on Disability Living Allowance live in the social housing sector and two thirds of the people hit by the bedroom tax are disabled. Around 100,000 households live in properties adapted for their needs, some through local authority grants at an average cost of £6,000.