Bedroom tax already starting to bite

The latest data from 107 local authorities shows that 86,000 households have now been forced out of their accommodation to look for one-bedroom homes - but only 33,000 have become available in the past year.

The pressure points vary regionally. In Rochford, Essex, for example, 100 social housing tenants were driven out by the benefit cuts, but only five one-bedroom properties had become vacant in the previous year.

By contrast, Gloucester Council said that 111 one-bedroom properties had been available in the past year, but nearly 500 households needed them because of the bedroom tax.

Another example, Inverclyde Council, said 1,100 households would need to move into one-bedroom homes, but only 96 had been free to rent last year.

This means that in these three areas alone 95 per cent, 80 per cent and 91 per cent of those families driven out of their homes were unable, however hard they tried, to find locally the smaller accommodation they were required to move into.
None of this is unexpected by the government. It planned it and pushed it through knowing exactly what the results would be.

Its own impact assessment last summer acknowledged that 35 per cent of claimants subject to the bedroom tax "would be quite or very likely to fall into arrears if their housing benefit were to be reduced."
It also predicted that about 660,000 tenants would be hit by this tax. That's one in five of all social housing tenants.

And the tax is confined to social housing tenants, not to private tenants or owner-occupiers.
So if the Tories' rationale for the tax was the need to adjust to housing shortage - caused by the slump in housebuilding due to the Tory-imposed austerity - it would be logical to apply an under-occupation levy in all housing sectors.

But of course this bedroom tax is not driven by logic, but by spite and hostility to council housing.
It has nothing to do with cutting the budget deficit because the government's own estimate of the £460 million reduction in housing benefit amounts to a saving of precisely 0.05 per cent of total benefit expenditure, two-thirds of which goes to pensioners.

IDS, the proponent of this tax, has told us he could live on jobseeker's allowance of £71 a week - though he's never proved it by actually doing it.
Or would he like to try living on £2.53 a day like Mary from Bishop Auckland?
Mary gets employment support allowance in an area of high unemployment.
Out of her benefit of £71.70 a week, she pays £10 a week for electricity and £6 a week for water rates.

She uses coal for heating like most people in Bishop Auckland, and three bags cost her £19.50 a week.
Her bus fare if £4 a week, and she will now have to pay £9.24 a week in bedroom tax.
That leaves her with £22.96 a week, and after buying necessary cleaning and sanitary products, all she is left with is £17.71 for food, which works out at £2.53 a day.

Like to volunteer to do a week - let alone every week in the next year or years - on that, IDS?
The latest data from 107 local authorities shows that 86,000 households have now been forced out of their accommodation to look for one-bedroom homes - but only 33,000 have become available in the past year.
The pressure points vary regionally. In Rochford, Essex, for example, 100 social housing tenants were driven out by the benefit cuts, but only five one-bedroom properties had become vacant in the previous year.

By contrast, Gloucester Council said that 111 one-bedroom properties had been available in the past year, but nearly 500 households needed them because of the bedroom tax.
Another example, Inverclyde Council, said 1,100 households would need to move into one-bedroom homes, but only 96 had been free to rent last year.

This means that in these three areas alone 95 per cent, 80 per cent and 91 per cent of those families driven out of their homes were unable, however hard they tried, to find locally the smaller accommodation they were required to move into.

None of this is unexpected by the government. It planned it and pushed it through knowing exactly what the results would be.
Its own impact assessment last summer acknowledged that 35 per cent of claimants subject to the bedroom tax "would be quite or very likely to fall into arrears if their housing benefit were to be reduced."
It also predicted that about 660,000 tenants would be hit by this tax. That's one in five of all social housing tenants.
And the tax is confined to social housing tenants, not to private tenants or owner-occupiers.
So if the Tories' rationale for the tax was the need to adjust to housing shortage - caused by the slump in housebuilding due to the Tory-imposed austerity - it would be logical to apply an under-occupation levy in all housing sectors.
But of course this bedroom tax is not driven by logic, but by spite and hostility to council housing.
It has nothing to do with cutting the budget deficit because the government's own estimate of the £460 million reduction in housing benefit amounts to a saving of precisely 0.05 per cent of total benefit expenditure, two-thirds of which goes to pensioners.
IDS, the proponent of this tax, has told us he could live on jobseeker's allowance of £71 a week - though he's never proved it by actually doing it.
Or would he like to try living on £2.53 a day like Mary from Bishop Auckland?
Mary gets employment support allowance in an area of high unemployment.
Out of her benefit of £71.70 a week, she pays £10 a week for electricity and £6 a week for water rates.
She uses coal for heating like most people in Bishop Auckland, and three bags cost her £19.50 a week.
Her bus fare if £4 a week, and she will now have to pay £9.24 a week in bedroom tax.
That leaves her with £22.96 a week, and after buying necessary cleaning and sanitary products, all she is left with is £17.71 for food, which works out at £2.53 a day.
Like to volunteer to do a week - let alone every week in the next year or years - on that, IDS?
Energy Secretary Ed Davey reassured us last week that he is very sure that the lights will not go out.
Given the credibility of politicians' promises, particularly from this coalition, that's all right then.
However, energy watchdog Ofgem has warned that power blackouts could arrive as early as two years' time.
It also noted that the UK buffer of spare electricity would, on current trends, fall from 4 per cent of national supplies to 2 per cent by 2015.
Hospital trusts are already being contacted across the country to reduce demand at peak times by using diesel-fired generators.
In addition, hotel chains and water utilities are being asked to make big savings every year by implementing the National Grid demand reduction scheme.
Ofgem believes the risk of power blackouts within 18 months has doubled since only a year ago.
It says that the closure of power plants this decade - in total about a fifth of UK power generation capacity, including all but one nuclear plant - will mean that the likelihood of power shortages will increase to about once in 12 years in 2015 as opposed to once in 47 years now.
As a result the government has been forced to reveal its real fears by handing over powers to the National Grid to switch on mothballed plants to meet spikes in demand and to pay factories to switch off during peak evening hours from 4-8pm.
Nevertheless the government has shown itself still obsessed with pushing the fossil fuels economy to the limit rather than making the decisive switch to renewables which is the only sustainable long-term low-cost carbon-free fuel for the future.
Having repeatedly said there would be no public subsidies for nuclear, George Osborne has awarded a £10 billion guarantee to the French nuclear giant EDF for its £14bn nuclear power station at Hinkley Point in Somerset.
The purpose of this is to enable EDF to gain access to cheaper financing in the market, which would bring down its cost of capital, and thus - hopefully from the government's point of view - resolve the lengthy dispute over the "strike price" since EDF would be taking on less risk to develop Hinkley.
It remains to be seen whether this happens because all other commercial interests which initially expressed an interest in developing Hinkley have now withdrawn and EDF is the government's last hope. This will induce EDF to push to the limit the price it exacts since it has the government by the throat.
So much for the efficiencies of the private market - no investment for the future and then EDF extracting an excessively expensive price because it is the sole provider left in the field.
There couldn't be a clearer case for taking one or more of the "big six" energy companies into public ownership to ensure investment to secure the nation's energy future, to keep prices down for the consumer and to deal with the gross profiteering in the opaque wholesale market.