Missing the point with the bedroom tax

Pretty on the outside - beauty salon in George Street

The proliferation of nail boutiques and beauty salons in a time of austerity has reminded me of the occasion when a female friend who has difficulty with her weight explained to me that women in her situation tended to focus on handbags and shoes because it was less depressing than learning your true dress size.  

I like to think of this as an illustration of the predicament facing the present UK government with the so-called "bedroom tax".

Faced with an imbalance in public housing between persons purportedly occupying houses or flats too large for their needs and a growing number of people needing to be housed, the government has decided that there should be more mobility, and a greater matching of resources to requirements.  Sounds good, doesn't it?  Understandably, however, nobody is going to move out of their home unless they have to.  So the government has decided to wield the stick of partial removal of housing benefit if there is deemed to be a "spare bedroom".  So it's not so much a tax as a reduction in income received from the state.

Sounds sensible, doesn't it?  There are however a number of attendant problems.  First, the new rules don't cater for a number of cases that should properly count for exemption.  For example, a bedroom will be counted as spare even where a separated parent keeps it for a child who visits for part of the week.  Equally, a couple sleeping apart because of illness or disability are not recognised as needing the extra room.

More importantly, there's nowhere for these people to go even if they want to.  There's an acute shortage of social housing, inherited from the Thatcher era and the "right-to-buy" policy introduced by the Iron Lady's government.  The proceeds of sale should have gone to the building of replacement stock, but landed up fuelling the riptide economy of the 80s.  You'd have thought that in these circumstances the solution would lie in a massive programme of building, which would have the incidental benefit of kick-starting an ailing construction industry.  But no: the Nasty Party has decided that the construction industry is best assisted by subsidising mortgages for prospective homebuyers, thus fuelling another artificial surge in property prices and increasing the gap between rich and poor.

I was delighted to read in today's Guardian that the UN rapporteur on adequate housing is about to pronounce that the UK's policy infringes the Human Rights convention.  Her findings are being dismissed by the Department of Work and Pensions as the result of anecdotal evidence and a handful of meetings.  "Anecdotal evidence" is however the result of meeting victims on the ground and hearing their concerns.  I'm hoping that the case will find its way into the courts.

Meanwhile the government is championing the construction of a high speed rail link at a cost of £50 billion.  I call that polishing your nails instead of tackling your weight.   

Antony Mair