Paying Bedroom Tax but been in continuous receipt of Housing Benefit since 1996?

Ooh, this looks interesting:

www.parliament.uk/edm/2013-14/1057

If I understand it correctly, it means that Ed Miliband (perhaps finally starting to grow a pair!) is taking steps to prevent the Government from closing its "loophole" without a fight!

It has now come to light that Stephanie Bottrill, the woman who took her own life last year, blaming Bedroom Tax, was one of those who should not have had the Bedroom Tax imposed.

washttp://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jan/10/bedroom-tax-exemptions-stephanie-bottrill?CMP=twt_gu

However, as the Government would inevitably have taken steps to close that particular loophole long ago, had they been aware of it, it is possible that this particular tragedy might still have happened.

I suspect it depends on your family background. I am of (Irish) immigrant stock and, even in the first half of the 20th century, both sets of grandparents moved house several times as they moved from labouring to middle class.

But I think moving really got going in the 1960s when first time buyers, unlike their parents, could no longer afford to buy a family sized house . A housing shortage was driving house prices up so you bought a property, however small, to get on the housing ladder, and then upgraded as your household outgrew its accommodation.

Increased mobility of households, increasing longevity and more women returning to work meant that the informal care networks of non-employed women caring for elderly relatives in their own homes or having them live with them broke down and the need to look after an elderly relative with increased infirmity, who was living a decade longer than a previous generation meant that there was a social need for alternative accommodation for older people, sheltered flats, care homes, and nursing homes for the elderly.

It has been a short step from that to the beginning of a sentiment that there is a moral imperative on older people to downsize when their children leave home or when they retire.

We are intending to 'downsize' shortly because the house is only full four or five times a year and it's just as expensive to maintain and heat for two as it is for six or seven. But I've been wondering where the idea came from that you automatically moved when your family circumstances changed or when your financial situation improved. I remember visiting elderly relatives who had lived all their lives in the same house, whatever its size. Some brought up large families in two up, two down cottages or terraces and some continued to live alone into old age in a large house because it was the family home. Nobody talked about starter homes or suggested Granny would be better off in a sheltered bungalow.

Wouldn't that be wonderful

Perhaps this will be apologised for in 2113?

I know Housing Benefit is not a tax but in illustrating how governments legislate without proper considerations of all the ramifications of their decisions, example of taxes were the ones that sprang immediately to mind.

I find this obsession with how much accommodation you 'need' or are entitled too very strange. We seem to be reaching a stage where it is being considered 'selfish' for one or two people to occupy a property with more than 2 rooms, a living room and a bedroom, regardless of whether the house is owned or rented or whether we can afford the rent or are on Housing Benefit. Occupy a property with more than two rooms and it is deemed that the extra rooms are underutilised,

Yet most of us, if we occupy a home with more than two rooms will use most of the rooms. Some couples occupy separate bedrooms.We have spare bedrooms for visiting friends and family - and they may be in use weekly, then there are rooms used as sewing rooms, studies, art studios, gyms. Retired people are probably more likely to have and use rooms with special purposes asthey have time to devote to hobbies and other interests. What right has anyone to tell us how much accommodation we can occupy or how we use it?

Even most Tories started out calling it the Bedroom Tax, until their leaders decided it didn't sound good!

One definition of "tax" is " A burdensome or excessive demand; a strain".

This policy sounds like a tax to me!

It is not simply a reduction of Housing Benefit. That reduction - obviously - means that the tenant has to pay that difference. And before anyone screams that they are paying with tax-payers money anyway, it should be pointed out that nearly 1 million HB recipients are in work, so no, they are not all paying with tax-payers money.

Can anyone (unless they are basing their knowledge of the policy purely on what they've read in the Daily Mail) honestly argue that expression "(removal of) spare room subsidy" is any more accurate?

@ mollie65... i am not selfish because i am under occupied!!!!! i am a vunerable pensioner struggling living in a 3 bedroom house on my own...it is NOT out of choice i can tell you...like hundreds of other pensioners we are trapped in the social housing system because there are no smaller properties for us to move into...the smaller properties in my area have been taken over by young families and single parents ...i have contacted my council..councillors and local m.p. also the minister of social housing kicking up a stink all to no avail so i am trapped here for the foreseeable future ..i have been trying to downsize for over 4years since my husband died....by the way i am fortunate that i am not on benefits so the bedroom tax doesn't affect me as i pay full rent..i cant afford to go into the private sector as the rents are double what im paying for the house im living in!!!

What's more is that it was unworkable because of the lack of affordable smaller social housing units. I do hope this is accurate.
More stupid unworkable sound bite legislation. Yes Governments of all leanings are prone to this.

Selfish tenants, mollie? Why are they selfish if they are living in accommodation allocated to them at a time when this controversial legislation didn't exist?

it is not a TAX
it is a cut in benefit for those who have more bedrooms than they need and live in subsidised secure social housing. - the selfish tenants not the 'vulnerable' everyone seems to think they are.
if you are in private rental housing you have housing benefit payments based on your needs.
end rant.

But that was more a bad political error, like Mrs Thatcher and poll tax rather than making a decision that is unenforceable because it clashes with another law or is actually impossible to enforce for practical reasons.

Not just this government - don't forget Gordon Brown and the abolition of the 10p tax rate...

The government regularly make stupid mistakes like this. Even George Osborne in last year's budget had to withdraw about six taxes in as many weeks after the announcement because they were either illegal under other legislation or had a fatal flaw that nobody had noticed

Fantastic, but why wasn't this noticed before? In the criminal justice system, the minefield of dates and precedents is constantly being checked before decisions are made, so I would have assumed (naively it seems) that all government departments make sure they are on safe legal ground before momentous changes such as this to housing benefit. Is a head going to roll, I wonder?

Wow MamaCaz - is this real? I've shared it, and forwarded it to people I know who are affected by the bedroom tax