The Bedroom Tax, the Under Occupancy Penalty, the Spare Bedroom Subsidy: no one can decide what to call it, but there is at least common ground when it comes to the volume at which the subject must be discussed, and that volume is loud.
On Wednesday, The Court of Appeal ruled it to be discriminatory, and Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith was summoned to the house to explain himself.
“The bedroom tax has caused discrimination, contrary to article 14 of the European convention on human rights,” thundered Labour’s Owen Smith, an oratorical confirmation that righteous anger sounds never more righteous than in Welsh.
As interns at Buzzfeed find out pretty quickly, not many people get past the first seven or eight on these Listicle type things, so you may not be aware that Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights concerns the Right to a Spare Bedroom. In one now notorious case that went all the way to the European Court of Human Rights at Strasbourg, an eleven year old orphan was forced to sleep in a cupboard under the stairs and had to be rescued by owls.
As Smith jabbed his finger, and raised his oratory, the Minister’s face retreated into its chin, then as he rose to speak, something extraordinary happened. He remained in his seat.
That’s right. That the most notorious piece of government legislation in years had been found to be illegal by the courts was not a matter Mr Duncan-Smith felt it was his business to answer.
No, it would be the hitherto and henceforth unknown Mr Justin Tomlinson, MP for Swindon and Minister for the Disabled who would have to explain that no, this didn’t mean the end for the Harry Potter Tariff, but that more public money would now be spent on fighting the ruling at the Supreme Court.
Labour MPs took it in turns to rise and rail against this ‘disgusting and pernicious’ tax, this ‘defence of the indefensible’, this ‘miserable vindictive little policy.’ And all the while, the so-called quiet man sat and stared silently into the middle distance with all the compassion, intellect, sheen and sphericity of a snooker ball.
The arguments over the Bedroom Tax are complex. The need for social housing outstrips supply. There are no spare rooms in the system. But in the view of the Court of Appeal, families with disabled children to care for need theirs, and shouldn’t be forced to pay for them. That’s hard to argue with, and even harder if, like IDS, you refuse to say a word.
