Bedroom Tax pressure forces concession from Dundee council – But it’s not enough

“At the numerous public meetings and door to door activity we have done across Dundee over the last 2 or 3 weeks we have been inundated with people’s horror stories on how this is going to impact on them. Women saying they will face the choice of not heating their homes, not eating or cutting back on essentials for their children. People terrified of being forced out of their homes and don’t know where to turn to for help.

“We have had lone parents being told to take in a lodger when calling the DWP for advice.

“This is clearly an attack on the poor by a government of the very wealthy. On the very same day the bedroom tax is implemented next month Britain’s millionaires are to get a tax cut giving them and extra £108,000 a year.

“This legislation comes from government ministers who don’t just have a spare bedroom or 2, they have a spare mansion or 2. These cuts are designed to make ordinary people pay for an economic crisis they did not create.”

“You as elected representatives for some of the poorest areas in Scotland have a choice to make. Do you stand with the people in your wards who are under attack or do you side with tory govt. hell bent on making the poor suffer for the mistakes of the bankers and their failed economic system ?” Bin the Bedroom tax campaigner Jim McFarlane addressing Dundee City Council tonight

Over the past four weeks a wave of campaigning, public meetings, petitioning and protests have erupted across Dundee. The Bin the Bedroom Tax campaign, initiated by Socialist Party Scotland, have held a series of public meetings in housing schemes across the city aimed at building mass opposition to the tax in working class communities.

Over 100 people have attended the public meetings over the last couple of weeks, all of which have been attended by local councillors. 60 came tonight in freezing conditions to the protest outside the Dundee City Council meeting. The packed gallery also put the councillors under the spotlight

The impact made by the campaign was illustrated tonight by the ruling SNP group’s decision to pass a motion that committed Dundee council not to use eviction to recover rent arrears for a “transitional period of one year.” However, this was under the condition that tenants “do all that they reasonably can to avoid falling into rent arrears.” What this means is unclear, as almost all tenants facing the imposition of the bedroom tax will be unable to pay from day one. There is no “doing all that they reasonably can” in reality under this tax.

Other measures of debt recovery will be used by the council, including court actions and possible deduction of benefits and other sanctions.

The SNP councillors also voted down a proposal from a Labour councillor that asked the Scottish government to look at amending the Scottish Housing Act to remove eviction as an option for those in rent arrears as a result of the bedroom tax. The SNP government in Holyrood, while in words opposing the bedroom tax, have unbelievably claimed that changing the legislation would “encourage people to fall into rent arrears”. This scandalous approach shows how out of touch the SNP leadership are from the realities life of tens of thousands of working class families.

3,300 households in Dundee alone living in Council and Housing Association accommodation, all of them already in receipt of housing benefit, have been told by the ConDem’s that they have too many bedrooms. As a result from 1st April they will lose 14% of their housing benefit for being deemed to have one extra room and 25% for those who have two or more. The result is a total £2 million stolen from the poorest families in the city – who are being told they have to make that up from already meagre benefits.

Two million pounds stolen from the poor to give to the rich. This cannot be allowed to pass.

At tonight’s council meeting Jim McFarlane and Wayne Scott from the campaign spoke to the council demanding immediate and urgent action to defeat the bedroom tax. This campaign will not stop until the bedroom tax is put where it belongs – in the bin, along with any debt built up as a result of it.

We demand

• Scrap the Bedroom Tax

• Support those who cannot and will not pay this austerity tax

• No evictions for rent arrears – Build an army of anti-eviction campaigners to stop evictions

• SNP government must change the law to rule out eviction for bedroom tax and fight the cuts

• Write off all debt due to the bedroom tax – Demand compensation to Councils and Housing Associations as part of a mass campaign to win back the money stolen from public services by the ConDem’s

• For a major programme of council house building to provide affordable homes for all