Miliband expected to promise repeal of bedroom tax


A Socialist Party press release:

End bedroom tax arrears and evictions

Labour councils should act now on expected Miliband announcement

As reported in the Sunday People, Ed Miliband is expected to announce that a Labour government would repeal the bedroom tax.

The Socialist Party calls for Labour councils to halt all evictions, and support those getting into arrears.

If Labour does not announce serious measures to tackle the bedroom tax and the whole austerity package, and put people before profit, it should expect a growing challenge from the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) in the May 2014 elections.

Ex-MP Dave Nellist, a member of the Socialist Party and TUSC Chair, said:

“If Labour now finally agree that the Bedroom Tax should not exist they should immediately take measures to shield people from its consequences.

“Labour nationally should announce a future Labour government would reimburse any council for spending, using reserves, or borrowing to protect tenants between now and the abolition of the tax.

“Anything less than such a robust response and some might think the Labour leak is less a genuine proposal than a cynical attempt to shore up Labour’s weak opinion poll position in the run up to their conference.

“Whilst this Labour announcement would be welcomed, on its own it’s not enough to reverse the savage attacks which have taken place on working people in general, and on the poorest sections of society in particular.

“Ed Miliband needs not only to promise to scrap the Bedroom Tax, but announce policies to end the indignity of the need for food banks, to reverse the cuts in the real value of benefits, to lift real wages and pensions, and to end the growing scandal of zero-hour contracts which for many hundreds of thousands of young people are the only alternative to long-term unemployment.

“It’s to tackle those wider issues, which Labour is still ignoring, that needs a new political party, one that will challenge all the pro-austerity parties at the ballot box.

“The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition intends to stand 600 candidates at next May’s elections highlighting all the attacks on working people and their families and offering a break from the austerity coalition which still unites all the big four parties.”


This version of this article was first posted on the Socialist Party website on 2 September 2013 and may vary slightly from the version subsequently printed in The Socialist.