Looking again

With even the Monster Raving Loonies calling it a crazy policy, is there still time for changes to the bedroom tax?

It’s a measure of how big a political issue it’s become that it was one of only three nominated by voters in Eastleigh for the BBC to put to the 15 candidates in today’s by-election. Ten came out against the bedroom tax, with Howling Laud Hope of the Monster Raving Loony William Hill Party making the far too sensible point that ‘this is like going back to the pre-Victorian window tax.’ The coalition parties could only rely on the backing of the Beer, Baccy and Crumpet Party, the Christian Party (Proclaiming Christ’s Lordship) and an independent.

The by-election winner will enter a House of Commons that is at last giving the bedroom tax the sort of scrutiny it deserves. The Welfare Reform Act packed so many changes in to one piece of legislation that there was little time for detailed debate on each of them. Even when contradictions and unintended consequences were picked up in the Lords, the amendments were reversed in the Commons.

Read the rest of this post on Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing