SIR – From April, 13,000 millionaires are getting a tax cut worth £100,000 a year on average while more than 600,000 households – including Armed Forces families, disabled people and foster carers – have to find £728 a year to pay a new bedroom tax.
As a local councillor I have met many residents who feel trapped.
People who have lived in their homes for 30 or even 40 years are being forced to move or pay money they cannot afford in extra rent.
But the real tragedy is that the supply of smaller homes in the public sector is not available for them to move to.
They have nowhere to go, unless they leave the public sector and rent privately, where perversely the rents are much higher, which will lead to an increase and not a reduction in housing benefit payments.
No mention is ever made of the private landlords who own these houses, they are the real people who profit and gain from housing benefit.
The money goes straight into their pockets, not their tenants’.
If the housing benefit bill is too high, we should have rent controls which would reduce rents.
However, the Government is attacking tenants for being poor, not the landlords for being greedy.
Once again, the Government are hurting the wrong people.
This isn’t about tough choices, it’s about the wrong choices.
RICHARD UDALL
Worcestershire county councillor
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