By Keith Aitken in Edinburgh | 3 February 2014
Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon today appealed to the UK government to lift the cap on discretionary housing payments after the Scottish Government found what it believes is the money needed to offset the impact of the so-called bedroom tax.
Finance Secretary John Swinney is expected to tell MSPs on Wednesday that he has identified another £15m to add to the more than £20m the Scottish Government is already spending to mitigate the effects of the reform.
One of the coalition’s most controversial welfare reforms, the bedroom tax cuts Housing Benefit paid to social housing tenants deemed to have one or more spare bedrooms. However, affected people can apply for discretionary housing payments to top up their Housing Benefit and meet rental costs.
Current UK benefit rules cap DHP contributions by the devolved administrations at 150% of the money put in by the UK Department of Work and Pensions, currently £15m. Scottish housing minister Margaret Burgess last week failed to persuade UK welfare minister Lord Freud to raise his department’s contribution, and Sturgeon has now appealed to him to lift the cap.
‘The Scottish Government is currently spending up to the legal limit in order to mitigate the effects of the bedroom tax on thousands of people across Scotland. We are more than willing to put in the extra £15m, which would increase the amount of help available to a total of £50m,’ Sturgeon said.
‘If Westminster lifts the legal cap – which they can easily do – we will be able to help the 76,000 people in Scotland who are suffering from this cut.’
Sturgeon said four out of five of the affected households included adults with recognised disabilities, while 12,000 children were also affected.
‘Despite Scotland having 20,000 more households affected by the bedroom tax than London, the DHP allocation for Scotland in 2014/15 is £35m less than [for] London,’ she said.
‘We have already provided as much help as legally possible to those suffering from this unjust policy but we are unfairly restricted in what we can do,’ she added. ‘In order to abolish the bedroom tax we need the powers that would come from independence.’
But Labour has been arguing that the adverse impact of the measure can be neutralised under existing devolved powers, given political will. It has been pressing ministers from some months to lift of the cap, as the Department for Work & Pensions has alreday agreed to do in Northern Ireland. Labour also believes that local authorities could be lawfully supported to provide hardship payments.
This is disputed by the Scottish Government, but talks between the two parties are continuing to seek an agreed way forward, and Labour today welcomed what it called a U-turn by Sturgeon.
Shadow welfare minister Jackie Baillie said: ‘We have consistently urged the Scottish National Party, over more than a year, to support tenants and social landlords by providing the money to cancel out the bedroom tax in order to stop people building up rent arrears as a result. ‘It’s time for the SNP to stop playing games with the UK government and get this money out there to help the people that need it.
