Of this group only those whose properties have at least one spare bedroom will suffer a drop in income. Their housing benefit will fall by 14 per cent if they have one extra bedroom and 25 per cent for two or more extra bedrooms.
Affected families will lose on average £14 a week in welfare.
When the public sector deficit is still more than £120billion and when our economy is 15 per cent smaller than we thought it would be when looking ahead in 2007, it is hard to characterise this as a disproportionate response.
With social housing such a scarce resource why should tenants who are mainly or entirely dependent on benefits expect taxpayers to fully fund properties that are bigger than they need?
Claimants in private rented accommodation are not entitled to receive housing benefit to cover the cost of spare rooms. And imagine asking a bank or building society to subsidise your mortgage so you could afford to buy a house with more bedrooms than you needed.
At £23billion the housing benefit bill is already nearly three times bigger than the amount central government pays for the police.
Even Labour admits it is out of control.
By characterising this cut as a "tax" and opposing it Miliband may have caused short-term discomfort to the coalition but only at the cost of increasing long-term doubts about his fitness to govern.
Source:
http://www.ezonearticle.com/2013/02/09/labour-is-wrong-to-oppose-the-bedroom-tax/
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