By Keith Aitken in Edinburgh | 6 February 2014
No Scottish tenant will face eviction as a result of the so-called bedroom tax following an unprecedented Budget deal between Labour and the Scottish National Party Government at Holyrood.
The deal, reached despite the febrile state of Scottish politics, provides a fallback in the event that Westminster’s Department of Work and Pensions refuses to sanction the additional spending announced earlier this week by Finance Secretary John Swinney. He announced extra funding to alleviate hardships arising from the UK coalition’s cut in Housing Benefits for social housing tenants deemed to have a spare room, but the scheme requires approval from Whitehall.
The deal reached between Labour and the Scottish Government now allows the extra money to be channelled into hardship funds provided through councils, housing associations and other social landlords, if approval is not forthcoming.
This will ensure that no-one in arrears because of the cut faces eviction. As a result of the deal, Labour voted in support of Swinney’s Budget at the final reading of the Budget Bill in the Scottish Parliament yesterday.
Following reports that the DWP would refuse to lift its cap on Scottish Government spending to counter the impact of the bedroom tax, Swinney told MSPs he had agreed to Labour demands to pass the extra money instead to social landlords to ensure that no-one was evicted solely as a result of ‘an iniquitous and damaging policy’.
His Labour shadow, Iain Gray, said the deal ‘effectively removed the bedroom tax from Scotland’. He said: ‘By passing this Budget, as amended by Labour, we’ve shown that working together across the Parliament floor to support the people of Scotland is possible and I am delighted that with full funding now allocated, vulnerable tenants need not be subjected to the iniquitous bedroom tax.’
There was a wider welcome for the co-operation achieved at a time when inter-party relations have been embittered by the independence referendum campaign. Patrick Harvie of the Scottish Greens welcomed ‘a backlash Budget’ which confirmed ‘that Scotland is on an increasingly different course from the agenda led by the Coalition parties at Westminster’.
The referendum Yes campaign, YesScotland, said the vote pointed to the path an independent Scotland would take: ‘It confirms the shared social agenda, the progressive consensus, that exists here in Scotland and tells us that new welfare powers would be handled well,’ a spokesman said.
Only the Scottish Conservatives took a different view, dismissing the deal as political posturing. Finance spokesman Gavin Brown said: ‘This wasn’t a budget for the economy, which was only lucky enough to make a cameo appearance.’
