A UN report calling for the postponement and reassessment of the ‘bedroom tax’ has been criticised by government departments for being ‘inaccurate’.
In her full report following a research trip last year, United Nations special rapporteur Raquel Rolnik has urged the Government to immediately suspend and evaluate what she terms the ‘removal of the spare room subsidy’.
Rolnik warned welfare reforms had had a ‘negative impact’ on the ‘right to adequate housing and general well-being of many vulnerable individuals and households’.
Recent policy changes are contributing to ‘an increased vulnerability of those who, until a few years ago, were previously protected’, while the structure and shape of the housing sector has changed ‘to the detriment of the most vulnerable’ - the examination into UK housing said.
Responding to the report, housing minister Kris Hopkins, said the recommendations were ‘of a very limited relevance’ due to ‘a number of inaccuracies’.
‘It is right that we address the unfairness in the current housing benefit system, in which some families on benefits have been able to live in homes that most working families could not afford.’
Hopkins added: ‘This partisan report is completely discredited, and it is disappointing that the United Nations has allowed itself to be associated with a misleading Marxist diatribe.’
A spokesperson for the Department for Work and Pensions added the conclusions made in Rolnik’s report were ‘clearly written before any research was actually completed.’
Further recommendations in Rolnik’s report include extension and expansion of grants and subsidies for social housing, which she said ‘had been essential in responding to the housing need of the most vulnerable’.
The Government was also told to ensure ‘measures to release public land to tackle lack of availability of housing favour social and affordable housing, including through local councils, housing associations, cooperatives and community land trusts’.
