Wales has renewed calls for ‘bedroom tax’ exemptions, while announcing a further £1.3m of funding to support those affected.
Welsh housing minister, Carl Sargeant, urged the UK Government to release tenants who could not easily move house from the spare room subsidy, warning of the ‘profound’ affect the welfare reform was having on local communities.
Sargeant also revealed councils in Wales would receive a further £1.3m in funding over this financial year to provide discretionary housing payments for those struggling following welfare reforms in April.
Further pressure was placed on the Department of Work and Pensions this week after a UN report concluded the ‘bedroom tax’ – which reduces housing benefit payments for tenants judged to be living in excessively large properties - was having a negative impact on the wellbeing of many vulnerable households.
Sargeant said: ‘Time and time again I have voiced my concerns. I have called on the UK Government to take action to exempt tenants who cannot easily up sticks and move home, such as disabled people.
‘The “bedroom tax” is having a profound effect on many of the most vulnerable people in our communities and it is clear that local authorities and social housing providers are facing huge challenges as they endeavor to help tenants suffering real hardship.
‘I am dismayed that the call I made to Lord Freud has gone unheeded,’ Sargeant added. ‘It makes no sense for money invested in adapting homes to meet the needs of particular households to be wasted. Furthermore, rather than relying on help from the discretionary housing benefit system, it make much more sense to exempt them.’
Housing minister Kris Hopkins has said ‘it is right’ the UK Government is addressing ‘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’.
