Bedroom tax to hit Devizes families (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Bedroom tax to hit Devizes families

12:00pm Friday 3rd February 2012 in Devizes

Nearly 500 tenants of social housing in the Devizes constituency could face a bill of at least £623 a year if they have an unused bedroom.

The Government is bringing in a Welfare Reform Bill designed to cut its huge budget for welfare benefits. One move is a tax, by which tenants deemed to be living in a house too large for their needs will be taxed for each bedroom they have in excess of their needs.

The National Housing Federation says households affected will be forced to choose between going into debt, cutting back on essentials, or trying to move.

Jenny Allen, of the federation, said: “Penalising south west families for under-occupying when they have nowhere to move to is simply unfair and unjust.”

She said there would be “disastrous implications” for people already struggling.

According to Government figures quoted by the federation, the average rent for a property with two or more bedrooms in the Devizes constituency is £85.59 a week.

The average tax for one extra bedroom is £11.98 a week, or £623 a year. Some 480 tenants in the constituency would be affected.

Devizes MP Claire Perry said: “This is not a tax but an attempt to make a broken system work properly.

“At a time when there are over one million spare rooms in social housing, we have over five million people on social housing waiting lists and hundreds of thousands of people living in overcrowded accommodation.”