The Spare Bedroom Tax

Sounds good in principle... but in practice it is NOT! (A statement which can be applied to many Tory policies, although many of them just sound bad altogether!)

So what is it all about?

Council housing residents who have a spare room will be given two options...either move into smaller council housing or pay a tax on the spare room. Sounds good? Hmm not so much. Why?

1. Firstly 90% of them don't have the option, as there won't be the smaller properties available for them to move into, so they will be forced to pay the tax even if they don't even want the spare room!
2. For those that do have another room available, this could mean moving far away from their home area (possibly hundreds of miles!) that they have grown up in, their children go to school in and where the rest of their family live, who they might depend on for childcare.
3. This will affect families who have had a child die so are left with a spare room.
4. A third of those affected by the spare bedroom tax will be disabled people.
5. For those who are forced to keep or choose to keep the spare room, this will leave many with an impossibly small amount of money to live on.
6. There won't even be an exemption for divorced parents who want the spare room for when their child/children come to stay with them

I'm sure the list of negative consequences could go on.

Another problem is that planners are sitting on land and not building on it until they think the rent/sale prices will rise. The government should force them to build now or sell to another developer. Reminds me of the Housemartin's song 'Build'. See here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMPMiLddsuE