Didn’t we already establish it’s not a tax? A smaller rebate isn’t taxing you, it’s giving you less.

Not that the fans of it are any better. It’s not a spare room subsidy either, as that implies you’re being given something extra as a result.

Essentially, it’s the cancellation of a spare room subsidy. Which admittedly isn’t as catchy, but it’ll prove you’re not spreading FUD and might mean I have a little more respect for you as a result.

@1 with 50,000 facing eviction you’re bothered about semantics. Call it what you like, it’s expensive and sadistic, the hallmarks of this government.

I think I can say without fear of being proved wrong that New Labour will not be repealing no Bedroom Tax.

In the same way as New Labour didn’t have the balls (note lower case) to enforce a living wage, instead propping up lousy employers by introducing the ‘tax credits’ system, Oldnewborrowedandblue Labour will not abolish the Bedroom Tax; instead they will introduce another level of bureaucracy into the social security system by establishing a ‘Spare Room Subsidy Benefit’ which will be five to ten times more expensive overall, just so that they don’t piss off their local government and buy-to-let parasite clientele.

And wasn’t it Labour who introduced this tax for private sector tenants in the first place?

Does anyone really think the cause of our national debt/housing shortage is poor people with a spare room? This issue is typical of the smoke and mirrors politics we are afflicted with – misrepresent the problem, choose a convenient scapegoat, appear to take action, solve nothing.
Where is Labour’s plan to build social housing on a useful scale, in the post war era we managed 500,000+ a year when we wanted to. Anybody know what the current ‘free market’ output is?

This bedroom tax is a joke , our local council is taking half of my benefits money, I am struggling, mr Cameron has made all these cuts , but yet wastes £100.000 on refurbishing 2 toilets in the House of Commons , then finds 52 million pounds for aid in Syria , how about looking after your own country first mr Cameron , how much other money is he wasting, the government gives themselves a 12 percent pay rise and gives the rest of the country 1percent , what gives them the right to do this., us good old Brits allow them to do this that’s why .

Paul peter Smith
Thatcher’s Right to Buy resulted in local councils having a much lower housing stock and land on which the houses are built. The money raised from the sales did not go to the councils but to the Treasury who treated in money as income and used it to lower taxes.
Major’s government signed up to the Maastricht Treaty which means that if councils borrow money to build new properties the loans are added to the PSBR.

Labour moves much closer to conference, more like.

Lets hope we see something of substance soon.

Good grief. The bedroom tax is outrageous, a crime against humanity. Why can’t Miliband just say so. Does he really want the votes of the selfish scum who hate paying taxes to help their neighbours? I bet New Zealand’s David Cunliffe would do so. He’s not ashamed of being a social democrat.

@7 Ceiliog
“Major’s government signed up to the Maastricht Treaty which means that if councils borrow money to build new properties the loans are added to the PSBR.”

Wouldn’t that mean that the Maastricht treaty is violating the part of the Human Right’s charter that holds sacred the right to decent living accommodation, by placing unnecessary obstacles in the way of the reasonable provision of such?

“The hated tax” – oh, please. Hated perhaps by unemployed social housing tenants in receipt of housing benefit. Hint: such are not the bedrock of Conservative support in any of the 650 constituencies in the country.

Oh, forgive me, I missed in the comments it’s also “a crime against humanity”. No doubt David Cameron will be up before the Hague before too long.

You know you live in a first world country when people are calling the removal of some *free* housing a “crime against humanity”.

10. Paul Peter Smith
Unlike the other signatories, the UK has local councils that are also social landlords.

Just think about it, all of those tenants in social housing who are evicted because they have too many bedrooms and can’t pay, create a substantial market for private landlords who provide housing with less bedrooms, I can see HB increasing substantially. Cynical I may be, but covert Keynsian is the hallmark of tories.

11. WHS
‘Bedroom tax: More working families in Wales now living in poverty than jobless households’
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/thousands-arrears-due-bedroom-tax-6067218