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| IDS lying, again. |
On closer
inspection of the bedroom tax concessions, as Joe Halewood reveals,
particularly on the foster carer exemption, it only “applies to existing foster carers and not the new one!!!”
It now looks like IDS has taken £1.35m OFF foster carers in today's bedroom tax concession --see Further Update from Joe Halewood
It now looks like IDS has taken £1.35m OFF foster carers in today's bedroom tax concession --see Further Update from Joe Halewood
And also
the bedroom tax statement released by IDS states that “Adult children who are in the armed forces” are exempt, well their parents anyways, from the
bedroom tax. Erm, does anybody know a definition for Adult children? How many 'adult children' are in the armed forces?
Although
this might provide some respite for existing foster carers (but NOT new carers)
and some armed forces families with “Adult children”, it hardly makes any dent
on the 1.6million people to be hit by the bedroom tax in April. In fact it’s
neglible: 1.6 million, less 5000 existing foster carers and a tiny proportion of
armed forces personnel (lets say another 5000) = chaos for 1.59 million social
housing tenants, many of whom have complex disabilities.
This minor
adjustment to the bedroom tax is most likely a result of Government a)
anticipating pressure from various campaign groups and legal challenges, and b)
factoring-in bedroom tax concessions to the legislation to diffuse and divide
any outrage building against State attacks on working class people.
It’s
possible more concessions are on the way, particularly to disabled tenants, to
weaken working class unity closer towards the tax’s inception. And then once
the public outrage over vulnerable people is out the way, they can ramp up the
scrounger rhetoric again to settle the public’s remaining concerns on the bedroom tax.
That's why it’s
vitally important that we stick together and smash the bedroom tax entirely.
We’ve seen in the bedroom tax concessions, today, that they are not all that
they seem and any future ones will have the same DWP illusions running through
them.
Let's not be fooled by lying ratbag Iain Duncan Smith or his faltering Bedroom Tax.
Absolutely right.
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ReplyDeleteAs far as I know,the government are also giving local councils 'discretionary' powers to exempt 'severely disabled' children. But what counts as 'severely disabled'? What of children whose families cannot get a diagnosis of disability because of difficult to diagnose conditions such as Asperger's, clinical depression, bi-polar condition, whose parents feel that their having a separate bedroom space of their own helps their condition? What of families where disabled children may be 'exempt' but other family members, such as disabled parents or foster siblings, are not? You can bet that as councils continue to refuse to fight cuts, the number of children counting as 'severely disabled' will be few. I keep putting 'exempt' in quotations because even without The Bedroom Tax, people are suffering and threatened with homelessness due to freezes and real-terms cuts in Housing Benefit, loss of Council Tax Benefit and rent rises in both public (Sheffield City Council are raising rents for all 42,000 council tenants) and 'private' housing sector. There are very few places, in fact no places in some towns and cities, for people to move TO due to the shortage of housing and the fact that buy-to-let mortgage providers are excluding landlords from taking on tenants who claim HB. People are finding work impossible to find and when the work is there hours and pay do not meet housing costs. In fact many cannot take work due to withdrawal of childcare. Anyone who is not automatically reaching up and fighting every time they feel the old prickly, fleecy feel of wool being pulled over their eyes needs to snap out of it. Now.
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