Bedroom Tax abolition Campaign

The Morley Borough Independent are leading the campaign in Morley to abolish the Bedroom Tax. At next Wednesdays Leeds City Council meeting we will put up a resolution for the Council to support our campaign to have this unfair tax abolished.

Welfare Reform is necessary. There is no avoiding the fact that the welfare bill is too large and unaffordable and resources need to be better targeted. But the Bedroom Tax is not a fair or reasonable approach to this task. The Bedroom Tax penalises those in Council Housing that have bedrooms "spare". It is unfair and unacceptable as the Council does not have the properties to support tenants to downsize. Over the last month we have seen 6 tenants in our office, including disabled people, a family with a new born child and a full time carer all having problems with the Bedroom Tax. These are vulnerable people who have little if any choice to move. This is what makes the Bedroom Tax unacceptable.

My personal view is that the Bedroom Tax will collapse on itself when Judges - who have to agree to evict tenants for non payment of Bedroom Tax - fail to grant eviction notices because tenants don't have the cash to pay this rent element and alternative accommodation is not available. Until this happens - and the whole process is abandoned like the Poll Tax was - we need to campaign to get rid of it.

The Labour Party may take the moral high ground on this issue and bleat about its unfairness but have not confirmed nationally that they are prepared to abolish it. They should give a clear and unambiguous commitment to doing so. But trying to get Labour to commit to doing much is an almost impossible task.

We will see if the Comrades back our campaign next Wednesday. Lets hope they have the political spine to do so.