The Student Room Group

Bed Tax: Victims of Cuts? Social Cleansing?

http://www.channel4.com/news/bed-tax-forces-people-out-of-homes

Never heard of the bed tax before? Read it.

Scroll to see replies

The article provides a very good example:


In the Liverpool city region there are 10 potential tenants for each one bedroom flat that comes on the social housing market.

We currently have a shortage of housing available to the poorer members of society, getting people into homes is more important than someone having an extra bedroom and in the case channel 4 talks about i'm sure the council will be more than happy to review the situation and make a new decision. You have to remember that these policies are introduced on a nationwide scale so some cases of people getting put in the wrong category are going to happen, a quick call to their council representatives should rectify the situation.
Reply 2
As Darth Stewie says really ^^^

Also lol at the fact that he's whinging that he can't ride around on the bus all day long and he'll have to cancel his premium TV subscription... Taking the piss? He should be fortunate that he has been given a roof to put over his head instead of whinging about the luxuries he'll now lose.

Don't like it? Buy your own house.
Are they serious? It reads like a satire.

The last I heard, a tax was a proportion of your income taken (forcefully) by the state. Not something the state refused to give you.

If they don't like it, perhaps they should get their own bloody house. I don't think you could get a five-bedroom house for £120-odd a week in the private sector. It costs my family £2,000 a month for a four-bedroomed house in Kent.
Reply 4
Original post by Aspiringlawstudent
Are they serious? It reads like a satire.

The last I heard, a tax was a proportion of your income taken (forcefully) by the state. Not something the state refused to give you.

If they don't like it, perhaps they should get their own bloody house. I don't think you could get a five-bedroom house for £120-odd a week in the private sector. It costs my family £2,000 a month for a four-bedroomed house in Kent.


So, for example, you want someone like one of my patients, who has severe and enduring mental health problems (schizophrenia) and can't work because of this, to "get their own bloody house"? Or move, with all the stress that entails, likely relapse and end up back on an acute ward? Really?
Original post by Kibalchich
So, for example, you want someone like one of my patients, who has severe and enduring mental health problems (schizophrenia) and can't work because of this, to "get their own bloody house"? Or move, with all the stress that entails, likely relapse and end up back on an acute ward? Really?


How is that my problem? Did I cause these misfortunes to befall them?

No. So why is it my responsibility to pay for it? If you want to mitigate risk, get insurance.
Original post by Kibalchich
So, for example, you want someone like one of my patients, who has severe and enduring mental health problems (schizophrenia) and can't work because of this, to "get their own bloody house"? Or move, with all the stress that entails, likely relapse and end up back on an acute ward? Really?


Agree with the 'tax', agree with the poster you quoted too, people with medical conditions are exceptions and exemptions should be made for them.
premium tv subscription? whats that? :P im a student, ive never had that :P
Reply 8
Original post by Martyn*
http://www.channel4.com/news/bed-tax-forces-people-out-of-homes

Never heard of the bed tax before? Read it.


"The biggest social housing landlord in the north west says almost a quarter of its tenants subject to the so-called "bedroom tax" are being forced to leave their homes."

That's sort of the point. And I think you'd have had to be living under a rock, politically speaking, if you hadn't heard of the social housing size criteria. Which, incidentally, is not a "tax" by any possibly meaning of the word.

The Government wants people who are underoccupying social housing and claiming housing benefit to move to more appropriately sized housing. We have long expected people renting in the private sector and claiming housing benefit to live in a property appropriate to their needs.

When there are hundreds of thousands of less well-off people living in overcrowded housing in Britain, it is absolutely absurd that anyone would defend the state in placing people in homes too large for their needs.
Reply 9
Original post by Kibalchich
So, for example, you want someone like one of my patients, who has severe and enduring mental health problems (schizophrenia) and can't work because of this, to "get their own bloody house"? Or move, with all the stress that entails, likely relapse and end up back on an acute ward? Really?


Or pay about £12 a week for the privilege. Or find a lodger, or share a house.

Realistically however, if you're living in the community and not subject to some sort of intensive care package then you are expected to be able to lead a relatively normal life. That includes having to move home occasionally.

Anyway, this would affect a fraction of a percentage point of people affected by this policy. I have some sympathy with the physically disabled people in the article posted by the OP who actually have to sleep separately - I imagine if it was severely to their detriment then the local authority would use discretionary payments to support them, or alternatively they would be expected to pay it out of their existing disability benefits.
(edited 11 years ago)
Reply 10
Original post by Aspiringlawstudent
How is that my problem? Did I cause these misfortunes to befall them?

No. So why is it my responsibility to pay for it? If you want to mitigate risk, get insurance.


Well, seeing as it costs upwards of £600/day to keep someone on an acute psychiatric ward, I'd say that affects all of us. Also, given that this particular person can be violent when unwell, that also affects all of us. This person's mental health problems are as a result of being abused in care. Is that not all of our responsbility?
Reply 11
Original post by joker12345
Agree with the 'tax', agree with the poster you quoted too, people with medical conditions are exceptions and exemptions should be made for them.


They're not exempt though. This is yet another attack on people at the bottom of the pile, to pay for the mistakes of the people at the top. That ain't right.
Original post by Kibalchich
Well, seeing as it costs upwards of £600/day to keep someone on an acute psychiatric ward, I'd say that affects all of us. Also, given that this particular person can be violent when unwell, that also affects all of us. This person's mental health problems are as a result of being abused in care. Is that not all of our responsbility?


No.

I find that responsibility arises only out of duty, and duty only arises in two ways; through voluntary assumption or where you have caused the situation someone is in.

I do not believe in any other sort of responsibility or positive duty for someone else.
Reply 13
Original post by Aspiringlawstudent
No.

I find that responsibility arises only out of duty, and duty only arises in two ways; through voluntary assumption or where you have caused the situation someone is in.

I do not believe in any other sort of responsibility or positive duty for someone else.


Right. In that case, next time you're on fire, remind me not to p*ss on you.
Original post by Kibalchich
Right. In that case, next time you're on fire, remind me not to p*ss on you.


What a wonderfully thought-ought philosophical argument.
Reply 15
Original post by Aspiringlawstudent
What a wonderfully thought-ought philosophical argument.


I'm just coming down to your level.
Original post by Kibalchich
I'm just coming down to your level.


lol.

I presented a philosophical argument.

You did nothing of the sort.
Original post by L i b
Anyway, this would affect a fraction of a percentage point of people affected by this policy. I have some sympathy with the physically disabled people in the article posted by the OP who actually have to sleep separately - I imagine if it was severely to their detriment then the local authority would use discretionary payments to support them, or alternatively they would be expected to pay it out of their existing disability benefits.


Do you really think this government cares one iota about the fate of the disabled? In fact, the more dead the better. And after April there will not really be any disability benefits any more.
Original post by Kibalchich
Right. In that case, next time you're on fire, remind me not to p*ss on you.


Don't bother, I've seen this person around before. One day something will happen to him or someone he knows requiring state aid and he will realise his error.
Reply 19
Original post by scrotgrot
Don't bother, I've seen this person around before. One day something will happen to him or someone he knows requiring state aid and he will realise his error.


Yeah, I've encountered him before. He's either a teenager affecting a pose or a genuine psychopath.

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