March 6, 2013 5.02 pm This story is over 111 months old

Over 1,000 people in Lincoln to be £600 worse off after ‘bedroom tax’

Left out of pocket: New figures show 1,155 people in Lincoln will be hit by the government’s ‘bedroom tax’, losing on average £624 per year in the East Midlands.
Photo: Anna Langova

Figures from the National Housing Federation show 1,155 people in Lincoln will be hit by the government’s ‘bedroom tax’, losing on average £624 per year in the East Midlands.

The bedroom tax will affect 40,000 people in the East Midlands and 660,000 households nationally, two-thirds of them home to someone with a disability.

Welfare reforms will cut from April 1 the amount of benefit that people can get if they are deemed to have a spare bedroom in their council or housing association home.

Lucy Rigby, Labour’s MP candidate for Lincoln, said the decision to bring in a bedroom tax will have a devastating impact on families in Lincoln.

She said: “With a shortage in smaller properties, this tax could also cost tax payers more as people are driven out of their homes and may look to the private sector.

“This tax will hit families where someone has a disability and the families of soldiers and foster parents. This is all at the same time as the Tory-led Government give a massive tax cut to millionaires.”

Prime Minister David Cameron said during Parliamentary Questions on Wednesday: “Pensioners are exempt, people with severely disabled children are exempt, people who need round-the-clock care are exempt. Those categories of people are all exempt.

“But there is a basic issue of fairness. How can it be fair that people on housing benefit in private rented accommodation do not get a spare room subsidy whereas people in social housing do? That isn’t fair and we are putting that right,” he added.

The National Housing Federation fact-checked the PM’s claims.

Labour’s Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Liam Byrne argued: “David Cameron’s April tax plan is simply not fair. From next month, 13,000 millionaires are getting a tax cut worth £100,000 a year on average while over 600,000 armed forces families, disabled people and foster carers have to find £728 a year to pay a new bedroom tax.

“Yet the plan is such a shambles that someone who’s been to prison on a short sentence won’t have to pay. How unfair is that? Millionaires and prisoners are looked after but vulnerable people, carers and armed forces families get hit,” he added.