Bedroom Tax et al costs MORE in Housing Benefit

The bedroom tax, it’s a cut to housing benefit it must save money, right?

Wrong! It costs more and over £1 billion more per year in real terms as those damn pesky facts reveal.

Table 2.2 above comes from the IFS report in 2015 and reveals that in real terms, after allowing for inflation, the Housing Benefit bill for non-pensioners increased from £18.1 billion per year to £19.2 billion per year – an increase of £1.1 billion per year.

There are fewer claimants too so the increase is nothing to do with more people claiming housing benefit.  It means that all of the cuts and cap policies to Housing Benefit including the bedroom tax cost MORE and do not save a penny.

The Conservatives aim in all of its HB cut and cap policies (bedroom tax, benefit cap, etc) they announced in their first budget of June 2010 was to cut HB in real terms by “nearly £2 billion” yet those policies have seen the opposite and actually cost MORE

The DWP said in its magazine called HB Digest published in early July 2010 that:

The Chancellor announced a package of Housing Benefit (HB) reforms in his Budget statement on 22 June. Ministers are clear that the overall cost of HB, forecast to be around £20 billion this financial year, must be controlled and reduced. The package of reforms will save nearly £2 billion by 2014/2015

So while Tory (and Lib Dem) Ministers were clear they intended to cut the overall HB bill, you should be clear that their ‘Housing Benefit (HB) reforms’ actually increased the cost of HB.

As I say facts are damn pesky!

In these perverse political times of the overall welfare cap that sees the Labour Party trapped into having to say for example that carers deserve £10 per week more and that will be paid for by reversing cuts to Inheritance Tax, the simple message is abolish the bedroom tax, benefit cap and all other Tory HB reforms and you have a £1 billion per year pot of savings to be spent as you choose!