Housing Benefit (Abolition of Social Sector Size Criteria)

Mark Tami Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

I shall make a little progress before taking interventions.

We have discussed the needs of carers, but we must also consider people who need safe or sanctuary rooms to protect themselves against the threat of domestic violence. There is the woman whose case is now being heard by the High Court, and whose situation my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck) tried to address with her ten-minute rule Bill. Others have kept a room for sons and daughters serving in the armed forces when they are home on leave. In The Daily Mirror this morning we read about the shocking case of Maureen Bland who was forced to move out of her home to avoid the bedroom tax after her son lost his life serving our country in Afghanistan. Quite frankly, people like that should not be forced to pay the bedroom tax because of such grief and tragedy.

The bedroom tax has been cited by the Trussell Trust and others as a key driver behind the shocking growth in food bank use under this Government. A recent in-depth study published by the Trussell Trust, along with Oxfam, the Church of England and the Child Poverty Action Group, found that at one food bank, 19% of users had been hit by the bedroom tax, many of them having applied unsuccessfully for DHP. We will have an opportunity to vote on a motion on food banks later this afternoon, but Members can make a start in this debate by voting to repeal the cruel bedroom tax, which is one of the key causes of the food poverty crisis we see in our country today.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. Perhaps the cruellest element of the bedroom tax is the fact that the stress and anguish it causes is making ill people even more ill.

[Rachel Reeves]

People affected by the bedroom tax are facing impossible decisions that, frankly, no one should have to make: whether to pay the bills or put food on the table; or whether to pay the rent, at the risk of getting into debt, or risk losing their home. We have seen the evidence from the Trussell Trust and the Child Poverty Action Group, but we do not have to turn to that report to see the devastating impact of this vicious policy; we need only look at the evaluation commissioned by the Government themselves. It was conducted by the centre for housing and planning research at Cambridge university and slipped out this summer, when the Government no doubt hoped no one would notice. Its findings are clear and damning.