We don't ask for anything from Government other than fairness when applying taxation derived monies as Benefits for those in need, its the government themselves who set the boundaries at which the Benefits kick in, so if a family require support to find suitable housing because their earnings fall beneath a government set line then we should have no problem in sanctioning that.

The problem is of course that there is a critical shortage of "social" housing, that is housing provided by local authorities and housing associations on a social provision basis rather than a "for profit" basis and if properties of a certain size are all that is available in any given area then its surely better to have them occupied than empty and/or using private landlords instead who will always adjust their rents to suit market conditions regardless of social need (a human characteristic and completely understandable) ?

The bedroom tax (and long live its name despite the attempts to PR-soften it) is simply a cynical sledgehammer to recoup monies which have in the past been necessarily paid out because of successive governments failure to recognise that social housing is not an anathema but is an absolute necessity in every society.

You can't punish a person for living in social housing that has one too many bedrooms since their children moved out, if that is the only home that the local authority or housing association can provide - which is exactly the situation at the moment, even those who are willing to downsize find that they cannot, those people should not be taxed for the situation they have been placed in.

Quote: BiffasBoys "... surely resources should be matched according to need?'" The resources in this case are the dwellings with a smaller number of bedrooms. Those dwellings are, largely, already allocated. It's pointless telling people to move to a smaller dwelling when those smaller dwellings are already allocated. Hence people who, by definition, don't have the money in the first place, can't move, have their housing benefit reduced and many will end up in arrears, evicted, become homeless and then the LA will have to house them because they are homeless. Or, they have to move into the more expensive private sector. The whole idea doesn't actually take the facts into account ... it is ill-thought-through and vindictive. Quote: BiffasBoys "What reports are these figures drawn from? On what basis is the forecast made? There's nothing in that piece to support the claims.'" Does that mean the claims are wrong? As people are re-housed in the private sector, it costs more. Even the DWP admit that... "[iThe growth in the cost of Housing Benefit in the private rental sector has been partly driven by higher rents feeding through to higher Housing Benefit[/i" https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... wr2011.pdf You say you've been skint ... but your idea of budgeting is simply to buy cheap food and cut out luxuries. Many are already buying cheap food (to the detriment of their health in many cases) but can't afford the rent, or the gas bill or clothes for growing kids ... etc etc. You mention the (rather obvious) over-supply of labour as the cause of joblessness. No flies on you Sherlock. As the government is concentrating on austerity rather than growth, the jobs will remain hard to find ... isn't that also obvious?

Quote: BiffasBoys "... surely resources should be matched according to need?'" The resources in this case are the dwellings with a smaller number of bedrooms. Those dwellings are, largely, already allocated. It's pointless telling people to move to a smaller dwelling when those smaller dwellings are already allocated. Hence people who, by definition, don't have the money in the first place, can't move, have their housing benefit reduced and many will end up in arrears, evicted, become homeless and then the LA will have to house them because they are homeless. Or, they have to move into the more expensive private sector. The whole idea doesn't actually take the facts into account ... it is ill-thought-through and vindictive. Quote: BiffasBoys "What reports are these figures drawn from? On what basis is the forecast made? There's nothing in that piece to support the claims.'" Does that mean the claims are wrong? As people are re-housed in the private sector, it costs more. Even the DWP admit that... "[iThe growth in the cost of Housing Benefit in the private rental sector has been partly driven by higher rents feeding through to higher Housing Benefit[/i" https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... wr2011.pdf You say you've been skint ... but your idea of budgeting is simply to buy cheap food and cut out luxuries. Many are already buying cheap food (to the detriment of their health in many cases) but can't afford the rent, or the gas bill or clothes for growing kids ... etc etc. You mention the (rather obvious) over-supply of labour as the cause of joblessness. No flies on you Sherlock. As the government is concentrating on austerity rather than growth, the jobs will remain hard to find ... isn't that also obvious?

No, it's about the reduction in benefit, which you appear to have forgotten.

You seem to question every point made but make sweeping statements of your own such as these ...


Why clearly?
Are there enough smaller dwellings to allow "allocative efficiency"?
Can you provide stats for that please?


How many ... and on what basis can you state that?


Well obviously ... but the cost of housing benefits would rise as the demand in the private sector rose.
You haven't thought that through ... or maybe you have but are being disingenuous.

If people who don't require all the rooms they have in these properties, the system is failing because of allocative inefficiency. The resources are not being allocated on actual need. Exactly the same applies to those who can afford not to live in social housing, yet do. Not based on need that they have social housing.

The proposed housing benefit cap would address that, but look at the uproar that caused. Rents would only rise if there was no capacity in the private sector, but there is no shortage.

Again i'll point out that though private sector rents may be higher, there's no capital investment & ongoing spend so the total cost is actually far less.

Should the spare room subsidy apply in private rented housing? Fairness? To whom?

Repetition is not proof.


Moving people to private sector would, by definition, increase demand.
If demand increases beyond the current spare capacity, rents will rise purely due to supply and demand.
Are you saying there is sufficient spare capacity lying empty to be able to cope?


Of course there is capital expenditure and ongoing cost.
You say the cost is less ... how much less?
Numbers please.

rlShed load of stats and data on benefits here.rl

rlMore hererl

rlMorerl.

rlMorerl

The above includes a variety of sources.

Via social media a few months ago, I did, incidentally, ask a Conservative councillor whether he knew that so many recipients of housing benefit were in work (he was doing the old 'benefit scroungers' line). He replied, curtly, that he did. He didn't dispute it – just subsequently refused to respond to any further questions about why he damned people in work as being different to the "hard working" people who didn't receive benefit.



It is relevant for a number of reasons, but not least because it illustrates that benefits are not simply paid to the 'scroungers and skivers', as the government's propaganda pretends, but a vast amount are paid to those who are in work, but cannot afford to live on the wages they are paid, primarily because those wages are too low to meet the cost of housing in the UK.

At present, as a direct result of ideologically-inspired government policy, the taxpayer is subsidising the private rented sector, but not addressing the core of the problem, which is the paucity of affordable housing, the building of which was stopped (again for reasons of political ideology) back in the 1980s, and which no subsequent government has seen to address properly.

There are not enough one-bedroom properties in the country for people to downsize to where that would be appropriate (let's forget, for the moment, the cases where it would be inappropriate) and, until this is addressed, penalising people for that situation, when they are already on low incomes, is, quite apart from any ethical consideration, economic illiteracy.

Learn to quote FFS.

Please learn to use the quote function. It isn't difficult, but not using it correctly makes coherent discussion more difficult.

Therefore, at present, I'll respond only to your final point

I look forward to your comments on the subsidies that the taxpayer makes to the profits of large companies by way of in-work benefits to employees. They don't "need" them. Then again, most companies who get tax breaks don't "need" them either – for fracking, for instance.

I'll pick this post of yours to quote from because if everyone continued quoting as you do then it would only be a matter of minutes before one reply filled the whole page, in any case you're only repeating yourself in each one...

Clearly there is a shortage of suitable two or one bedroom council housing because THAT is the simplest solution, if there were hundreds of smaller units available within each council area then there would be no problem for the council would simply have to offer the smaller dwelling or the reduction in benefit and the choice would be the tenants own - and no sympathy would given if they chose to stay in the larger house.

Clearly though that is not the issue and there have been plenty of reports in the press from various councils and housing associations to suggest that the availability of smaller dwellings is miniscule compared to the numbers of tenants who require them after applying the bedroom tax - this even led to Leeds City Council reclassifying hundreds of their own houses as two bed instead of three where the third bedroom was the typical "box room", a nett loss to the council but a problem solved in the long run for them with no legal costs or debt collection involved - ultimately it angered the local Tory councillors as its not quite how they envisaged the solution to work, I believe it was one of these councillors that Mintball emailed to ask if, given his quoted comment in the press, he was aware that most housing benefit recipients were IN work, he skulked off at that point and was clearly annoyed that anyone should doubt his word or question his knowledge.

Its not an under investment issue from LA's and HA's over the past couple of decades - its non-investment in social housing from all shades of government, but its only this current coalition that has highlighted this as a claw-back exercise that will do them no damage politically,

Thanks for that insightful contribution. Must have taken you a while to come up with it.

A legacy of liberalisation and under regulation of financial markets across the world.


Who says we can't afford the spending? Borrowing rates are at about the lowest rate for decades.


A 25% reduction in the deficit. Attained by making thousands of police, armed forces personnel, doctors & nurses, admin staff, civil servants etc redundant or not hiring necessary replacements from natural wastage. Leading to reductions in capability of the police, fire service & armed forces. The cancellation/non procurement of armed forces equipment for the future. And of course the understaffing of hospitals, especially A&E departments.


Since 2008
Via a fiscal stimulus to temporarily fill the demand gap.