- 3 updates
Labour: 'Bedroom Tax' error hits thousands
The Government has been accused of understating the number of council tenants who have been wrongly hit by 'bedroom tax'. Council data says at least 16,000 households had wrongly had their benefit cut but Labour says the true figure could be 50,000.
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DWP expects 'very few' affected by 'bedroom tax' error
The Department for Work and Pensions said the regulations were now being amended and that it still believed its earlier estimate of the numbers affected by 'bedroom tax' errors was correct.
A spokesman said: "We expect very few people to be affected by this - around 5,000 - and are working with councils to ensure affected claimants are kept informed.
"The removal of the spare room subsidy means we still pay the majority of most claimants' rent, but the taxpayer can no longer afford to pay the £500 million cost of claimants' extra bedrooms."
Labour: 'Bedroom tax' has been a fiasco from the start
Shadow work and pensions minister Chris Bryant has accused Iain Duncan Smith of "picking numbers out of thin air", with regards to the people wrongly charged the so-called 'bedroom tax'.
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Labour: 'Bedroom Tax' error could hit close to 50,000
Labour has accused the Government of understating the number of council tenants who have been wrongly hit by the so-called 'bedroom tax' changes to housing benefit.
The opposition party said local authority data showed that, as a result of a loophole in the legislation, at least 16,000 households had wrongly had their benefit cut - while the true figure could be closer to 50,000.
Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith has previously told MPs that between 3,000 to 5,000 tenants were thought to have been affected by the error.
But after submitting Freedom of Information requests to all 346 local authorities in the UK, Labour said responses from the 140 councils which have so far replied showed that 16,450 households had been incorrectly caught.
Shadow work and pensions minister Chris Bryant said that if there was a similar rate of wrongful deductions across the whole country, the final total would be almost 50,000.