A welfare cut is not a tax

The British conservative government is trying to combat underused welfare housing.  Elderly people in particular tend to stay on alone in a large family home long after the family have moved away

Iain Duncan Smith has attacked the BBC for ‘adopting the language of the Labour Party’ by calling a key welfare reform a ‘bedroom tax’.

In a letter leaked to the Daily Mail, the Work and Pensions Secretary accuses the corporation of helping to alarm hundreds of thousands of people in social housing who will be unaffected.

In the strongest attack on  the BBC’s coverage by a  minister since the Coalition  came to power, he says there  has been ‘persistent use’ of the term ‘bedroom tax’ by its  correspondents and on its news website, despite the phrase  being ‘innately political and indeed factually wrong’.

Under the Government’s housing benefit reforms, working-age claimants in social housing who have more bedrooms than they require will see their handouts reduced from April.

Tenants affected will face a 14 per cent cut in housing benefit for the first excess bedroom, and 25 per cent where two or more bedrooms are unused.

The Government, which estimates the average household affected will lose £14 a week, says the policy will cut £500million a year from the housing  benefit bill.

It will also encourage people to move into smaller properties, freeing up larger homes for other families who are crammed into accommodation that is  too small, ministers say.

Mr Duncan Smith says the  Government is simply cutting  a ‘spare room subsidy’ but Labour fiercely opposes the move, branding it a ‘bedroom tax’.

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