Over the last few weeks there have been a handful of
councils who’ve publicly announced, in one way or another, that they will not
evict tenants hit by the bedroom tax.
So far (there are probably more announcements in the
pipeline) Brighton & Hove City Council, led by the Green Party; Darlington
Borough Council; All 9 SNP-led Scottish Councils, including Dundee; Islington;
and Bristol have declared a no eviction policy.
On first glance you would think, well done. But if we look a
little closer, things don’t seem what they are all cracked up to be.
Take the 9 SNP-led councils in Scotland who, this weekend,
released a Bedroom Tax Declaration stating:
“We, the representatives of SNP-led local authorities,
resolve that where tenants who are subject to the Bedroom Tax and are doing all
they reasonably can to avoid falling into arrears, we will use all legitimate
means to collect rent due, except eviction.”
The most troubling aspect of this statement is:
“we will use all legitimate means to collect rent due,
except eviction.”
What does “legitimate means” mean? It could mean that anyone hit by the bedroom tax could be faced
with a court order to get them to cough up the tax or that the so-called
arrears could be transferred to a debt collector. That’s ‘legitimate’, right?
And what does “doing all they reasonably can to avoid
falling into arrears” mean? If you know from the offset that you can’t pay the
tax and don’t pay it, is that ‘reasonable’?
And if you refuse to pay the bedroom tax, then does this
make you still liable for eviction? It sounds like, if you’re good and do
what your told we can protract your route to eviction, we can keep the roof over your head and we hope that you vote for us at the referendum.
The SNP declaration doesn’t sound like a no-eviction policy
at all. It sounds more like political manoeuvring to capture votes.
Brighton & Hove have made a similar pledge that smacks
of political posturing and no substance. The Green Party, who put forward the
proposal, have been rebuffed by Brighton & Hove housing officers; and the
Council exec have said that it will be looked at for “feasibility”.
That, again, is not a council turning round and, point
blank, refusing to evict tenants hit by the bedroom tax. It’s a council who’ve
announced a public-appeasing 'in-principle' statement.
Bristol Mayor George Ferguson has also been throwing false
salvation to bedroom tax affected tenants. Mr Ferguson says,
“the council will not evict any tenants for arrears they
build up due to a genuine inability to pay this new sum until the cross-party
working group has had time to examine the issue”
UNTIL???
Islington Council have added caveats to their no-eviction
pledge which roughly mirrors the government’s initial advice of stay, move,
lodger, job:
“If people have no option of somewhere to move to and their
arrears are entirely due to the bedroom tax then we won’t evict them”.
They then go on to say that this would be at “significant
cost to the council” and we would look to move persons in large homes to a
one-bedroom flat. They use an example of an elderly person in a large house.
That’s not a no-eviction policy! That’s encouraging
self-eviction. What if they don’t want to move and continue to rack-up
‘arrears’ they can’t afford from the offset? Are the council to pay the bedroom
tax indefinitely?
Darlington Councillor Bill Dixon:
“There’s no need for any council tenant to be evicted as a
result of the bedroom tax. I want people to contact the council as soon as it
becomes apparent that they are affected and we will help them work out a plan
to pay what they can afford.”
That’s is not a no eviction policy! “What they can afford”?
No one can afford the bedroom tax, so that means they pay nothing, right?
Although these no eviction declarations and pledges have
been reported as just that, they are anything but. In one-way or another, they
still expose tenants to the chaos of the bedroom tax. Nowhere have these
councils and councillors stated a point blank dismissal of the bedroom tax and
the evictions that pursue it. In asking tenants to pay some of it, they
partially validate the bedroom tax. When asking tenants to do everything they
reasonably can to avoid falling into arrears, they shift the axis of burden,
again, to where it never belonged…onto the tenant.
Furthermore, excluding tenants who refuse to pay the bedroom
tax from a no eviction policy, as some of them infer, attempts to suffocate the
possibility of working class resistance and punish the tenant who sees the
absurdity of the tax and dares to fight it. A separation of those who can’t pay
and those who won’t pay —the former receives a reward in the form of scraps;
the latter is punished with homelessness.
What these partial no eviction pledges do is attempt to falsely
scatter the impact of the bedroom tax, a sort of reformism couched in political
manoeuvring and point scoring.
Piecemeal won’t get us anywhere, especially when it’s
disguised as a helping hand.
We need to take matters into our own hands and not
rely on hollow pledges.
(AJ)
combatbedroomtax@gmail.com
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