NHF shocked by “bedroom tax”

The National Housing Federation (NHF) styles itself as “the voice of affordable housing in England”. It aims to promote housing associations, claiming that its members “provide two and a half million homes for more than five million people” – and also claims that it campaigns for better housing.

The NHF is the latest in a long queue of organisations to express its shock at the Government’s “bedroom tax”, which will come into effect on 1st April. Under the bedroom tax, those receiving housing benefit will lose 14% of their payment if they are deemed to have a spare bedroom, or 25% if they are deemed to have two spare bedrooms.

The NHF quotes figures from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) which estimate that 660,000 people living in social housing will lose an average of £728 per year as a result of the bedroom tax. Its own work suggests that “80,000 people throughout London will lose an average of £771 a year in Housing Benefit if they have one ‘spare’ bedroom in their council or housing association home and £1,376 a year if they have two or more”.

It appears to be concerned that a high number of those affected (over 50% in London) are disabled people who, the Government has said, should receive assistance from the Government’s Discretionary Housing Payments fund. If the total fund was shared equally among disabled people affected, NHF calculates that each would receive about £4.18 a week – still leaving nearly £10 a week to pay up.

NHF has estimated how many people will be affected in each London Borough: Tower Hamlets is fourth on their list, after Southwark, Lambeth and Hackney. However, the NHF’s figures seem to vary from the Borough’s own initial predictions.

Michelle Smith, London lead manager for the NHF, explained the flaws in the Government’s new tax: 

“The ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach takes no account of disabled people’s adapted homes, of foster parents who need rooms to take children in, or of parents sharing custody who will lose the room for their child at weekends. In most areas, there just aren’t enough smaller affordable homes for these families to move into to avoid the tax. Many people will find themselves having to move into more expensive privately rented properties – adding to the overall housing benefit bill. The bedroom tax shows just how detached Ministers are from the lives of families who will be hit. The high housing benefit bill is because there are not enough affordable homes, so the best way to cut the bill is to build more.”

The NHF is calling on the Government to repeal the bedroom tax: but is it serious about trying to remove the law from the statute books or just trying to deflect public anger from its housing association members which will implement it? The biggest contribution the NHF could make to the campaign to repeal the tax would be to encourage its member organisations to re-designate homes so that tenants could avoid the tax and to state that they would not evict tenants who cannot pay the housing benefit shortfall. There is, to date, no sign of the NHF taking these further steps.