Coun John Wilmott’s guest column: Bedroom Tax is a ‘disaster’

A protester against the government's "bedroom tax" demonstrates outside the High Court in London. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Friday February 21, 2014. The Court of Appeal has upheld the legality of Government cutbacks in the benefits system. Judges rejected accusations that the so-called "bedroom tax" unlawfully discriminates against the disabled. See PA story COURTS Cuts. Photo credit should read: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire

In a dispatch sent out by The National Housing Federation, 50 per cent of those hit are already in serious rent arrears.

For many of those caught in the trap there is simply nowhere to go.

Research shows that councils have no homes for 94 per cent of those hit. The result is that thousands and thousands of people are being pushed into food banks and into the hands of loan sharks.

It does seem that the Government is standing up for the privileged few and ignoring everyone else.

On the very day that disabled people had to pay the Bedroom Tax the nation’s millionaires were better off by some £2,000 a week.

There’s a very clear risk that this tax was so badly thought out that it actually could end up costing more money than it saves.

The National Housing Federation has concluded that the suggested savings claimed by this coalition government, are “ highly questionable” because many of those forced to move to the to private rented sector will end up costing more in housing benefit .

Housing Associations are saying that possibly tens of millions are likely to be lost through the build up of arrears.

Now the National Audit Office has come out saying that the coalition Government’s costings does not take into account the full scale of possible potential impacts and does not include thE additional costs faced by local authorities.

This bedroom tax wants repealing now it is making life a misery for many thousands of British Subjects.

The government’s bedroom tax is a symbol of an out of touch coalition that is standing up for the better off while the hard working families continue to be targeted.

While the bedroom tax continues so does the tax loopholes in the construction industry the famous disguised employment tax dodge,the loss to the revenue is unthinkable. It does not have to be this way.

The next government will have to make tough choices on spending but it should be without the bedroom tax which is the worst combination of incompetence and cruelty since the dreaded poll tax.