Peers back exemptions to ‘bedroom tax’ reform
Peers last night voted by 236 votes to 226 to exempt the disabled, war widows and foster carers from the proposed £14 cut in housing benefit if no alternative accommodation is available.
The exemptions, proposed by crossbench peer Lord Best, will cost about £100 million and set up a showdown between the two Houses of Parliament over the plans.
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Hide AdMPs previously threw out a series of changes made by peers, but the decision to back Lord Best’s amendment means the Welfare Reform Bill will have to go back to the Commons.
The bill introduces a £26,000 cap on benefits and a simplified Universal Credit system, replacing a range of payments for working-age claimants.
Lord Best insisted his amendment would not remove the pressure on “scroungers” who were able to work and was targeted at those who needed help.
He said: “These are households for whom pressures to take a job, a key policy driver for the government … are not relevant. For these people the penalty simply represents a substantial loss of income with no escape.”
He warned that families on low incomes hit by the bedroom tax, which would see a 14 per cent reduction in housing benefits for having a spare room or a 25 per cent reduction for having more than one extra bedroom, could be forced to use loan sharks to make up the shortfall.
Welfare reform minister Lord Freud said the £100m extra cost of Lord Best’s amendment was “regrettably in the present climate, a lot of money” and opposed the change.
When MPs rejected earlier attempts by peers to amend thebill, the extra spending was given as the reason for their decision – restricting the Lords’ ability to insist on their changes.