Scott Burns seems to have misunderstood what the [dishonest] Labour Party of Ed Milliband has dubbed the bedroom tax.

The changes proposed are to housing benefit. As I understand it: currently, if you are renting privately and need housing benefit but have larger accommodation than you need in terms of bedrooms, then your housing benefit will take this into account.

However, if you are in what it now known as social housing (being either council housing or that provided by an housing association) and are in need of housing benefit then, whether or not you have larger accommodation i.e. more bedrooms than you need, has not been taken into account but will be in future.

So, yes a couple renting social housing (already at a subsidised rate) and receiving housing benefit but in say, a three bed roomed property will now have their housing benefit assessed as for a similar couple in private rented accommodation. This will most probably, reduce the amount of housing benefit they have been receiving. There are a number of exceptions which I believe include pensioners and the disabled.

Mr Burns' parents, who presumably paid their full council house rent themselves both when their children were living at home and after they flew the nest, would be unaffected by the proposed changes both then and now.

So the proposed changes affect housing benefit claims of those in both council housing and that provided by housing associations (social housing) and bring the assessment of any such housing benefit claims into line with claims made by people living in private rented accommodation.

Those who are able to pay their own way or are disabled, or pensioners, need not fear the changes to housing benefit.

Yvonne Bailey
Stoneleigh