Author Archives: Frank Soodeen

The Independent View: The case for ‘bedroom tax’ reform is clear – the test is for Lib Dems to take it up

Screen Shot 2014-04-10 at 15.25.47In physics the conservation principle dictates that in closed systems, energy can neither be created or destroyed, but only turned from one form to another. New research from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation examining recent welfare reforms suggest that a similar law applies to housing support costs.

Applying size limits to social tenants – better known as the spare room subsidy or ‘bedroom tax’ – aimed to do three things. Reduce costs; ease overcrowding and introduce greater fairness into the system. Specifically, if you were a social tenant with extra space that you didn’t strictly need you should pay for the advantage like all other people with housing costs.

Posted in Op-eds and The Independent View | Tagged and | 44 Comments
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  • Tony Vickers
    @Tom Reeve you sort of get it but lets be specific how we'd pay for raising the income tax threshold. We would tax the annual rental value of land. Its been our...
  • cim
    Matt (Bristol): for single-member AV it's not terrible, but most ways of including it in multi-member STV break the proportional representation aspect very badl...
  • Rif Winfield
    Jack, you are absolutely right, as were Tom Ellis and the young David Lloyd George. The tragedy of the Newport meeting in January 1896 was that it set back the ...
  • Diana Simpson
    You would have a problem of public transport capacity to cope with kids going home in the rush hour(s) rather than before it. Our local buses are missed out whi...
  • Chloe
    "We did use RON in single-winner STV / AV elections at my Students Union. But I’m not sure I see it as constructive practical politics" That's where it sho...