Andrew Dismore

Andrew Dismore AM, Labour London Assembly member for Barnet and
Camden, has today revealed National Housing Federation figures which
show 2,000 Barnet householders will be hit by the Conservative led coalition
Government’s ‘Bedroom Tax’, each losing on average £728 per year.

Nationally, the Bedroom Tax will hit 660,000 households, two thirds of them home
to someone with a disability at exactly the same time as the government gives a
massive £100,000 tax cut to 13,000 millionaires.

Andrew Dismore AM said:

“David Cameron’s Bedroom Tax will hammer families in Barnet already struggling to
make ends meet, and could actually risk costing local tax-payers a fortune in higher
private rents and covering the cost of driving people out of their homes.

In Hendon, 680 households are affected, in Finchley 659 and in Chipping Barnet,
661, that’s 2000 across the borough in total.

All three of Barnet’s Conservative MPs voted to continue with the bedroom tax,
blocking Labour’s opposition day motion to stop it.

Two thirds of the households hit are home to someone with a disability, and the
families of soldiers and foster parents will also be hit. Yet at the same time prisoners
get off and millionaires are getting a massive tax cut. How can that be right?”

Labour’s Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Liam Byrne said:

“David Cameron’s April tax plan is simply not fair. From next month, 13,000
millionaires are getting a tax cut worth £100,000 a year on average while over
600,000 armed forces families, disabled people and foster carers have to find £728 a
year to pay a new bedroom tax.

“Yet the plan is such a shambles that someone who’s been to prison on a short
sentence won’t have to pay. How unfair is that? Millionaires and prisoners are looked
after but vulnerable people, carers and armed forces families get hit.

“Labour plan relentless pressure on this out of touch government until Ministers see
sense, admit this policy is totally unfair and think again.”