Ed Miliband will tomorrow finally commit the next Labour government to repealing David Cameron’s bedroom tax, and announce he and Ed Balls have already earmarked funds to pay for it.
Speaking in Brighton at the start of the Labour Party conference, Ed will say the Bedroom Tax has become a symbol of an out of touch government standing up only for the interests of a privileged few. He will describe how two-thirds of the 660,000 people affected are disabled and the vast majority do not have the option of moving to smaller accommodation.
This has of course been known for some time. For months, there has been a refusal to budge on the issue. The insistence that Labour could not commit to anything which might cost more money than the Tory government had provided in their spending plans was maintained. That was the priority.
Occasionally, some newspaper suggested that Labour was about to make a commitment to end the bedroom tax, causing murmurs of jubilation within the party only to be met with a firm denial in spite of the fact that both the National Housing Federation and the National Audit Office questioned whether the Bedroom Tax will raise all, or even any, of the £470 million claimed by the Treasury.
Finally, Ed will say tomorrow that money is being earmarked to pay for the repeal of the bedroom tax by closing boardroom loophole schemes and tax scams.
- Reversing George Osborne’s £150 million tax cut for hedge funds announced in Budget 2013.
- Scrapping George Osborne’s “shares for rights” scheme which has been rejected by businesses and has opened up a tax loophole of up to £1 billion.
- Tackling tax scams in the construction industry which is costing £500million in lost revenue.
Thank you, Ed. It would have been better sooner. But better late than never. The people at the sharp end deserve to know that Labour will end their needles misery.
Like pulling ones nails out excruciating pain but worth it in the end.
This is bad, very bad. By suggesting that alternative funding will have to be found to pay for this measure Labour are perpetuating the myth that there’s only so much money in the world. They’re useless, therefore.
EdM has been forced into action by the CLPD.
No more sitting on your hands EdM. But Big Bill is right: what you give with thre one hand you take with the other. So at the same time he should have announced an update in Council Tax Bandings; a review is long long overdue. Or introducing a Mansion Tax. Or even a Local Income Tax. I know its Lib Dem Policies, but its the right thing to do, and Lib Dems don’t have a monopoly on good ideas .
Your all right Swat Labour has McBride and Labour MP Ms Reeves who has stated £60,000 is not enough to live on or is not enough to claim your rich this is advice to Miliband not to put the new ideas on tax to close to MP’s wages.
Socialism is like calling a person some nasty name these days, and why labour uses hard working Affordable houses and of course the hate of the welfare state.
But I’m grateful for small mercies and will take the Removal of this tax as being a great day for people at the bottom, the new labour untouchables the poor.
This had been a very open secret on the Left for months. We had all expected it to be in the Leader’s Speech.
That ought still to include a promise to force a Commons vote on it and thus challenge the Lib Dems, a promise to enable and require councils to build houses, a promise to restore the Agricultural Wages Board that the Lib Dems have abolished, a promise to reverse the dismantlement of England’s NHS by Shirley Williams and other Lib Dems, a promise to reverse any privatisation of the Royal Mail and thus stop it because no buyer would take the risk, and a promise to renationalise the railways for free over the course of a Parliament by simply taking back each franchise as it came up for renewal.
Plus a demand for a straight In-Out EU referendum on the day of next year’s European Elections, which only the Coalition could deliver, since it will still be the Government on that day. Another Commons vote beckons, this time challenging both Coalition parties.
Ed Miliband, over to you.
I like the idea of bringing forward that referendum to European Election Day. Unfortunately the public could give the EU the thumbs down and UKIP a pat on the back.
On the other hand the public might stop and think for once and realise that voting UKIP and Get out of Europe Free is no quite the right thing for creating more jobs and growth and peace in our time.