We always welcome a Letter to the Editor to share with readers. If you have something you’d like to share, get in touch. This letter from Chris Wallis. Ed
I am unsure what title to use; Bedroom Tax, but Mr Cameron said it was not a tax. Under-occupation Penalty, but a penalty is something you receive for a wrong doing, such as driving too fast. Benefit reduction cannot be right as it would have to apply to all claimants and this only applies to those selected. Can we settle on Welfare Charge (WC) for arguments sake?
I am interested in what consideration you gave when supporting MPs voting on WC.
Protection needed for blind tenants
I am thinking in particular of 17,000 blind tenants who will have to relearn not just their new properties, but the whole local area. I used to work with a blind person and one of the things I did was to navigate my house with a blindfold, which was scary but possible, due to the fact that I knew it so well.
I then tried to navigate a strange house and that was frightening. I found that being taken to a high street and blindfolded, was terrifying. Now I would not ask you to do that, but try making a cold drink with your eyes shut in your own kitchen (please do not try a hot drink, far too dangerous).
Tough choices for the disabled
I am also very concerned about the amount of disabled people who rely on their mobility cars and scooters and now have to give them up to pay WC. Imagine having to sit in your lounge every day, never going out, perhaps daytime TV for company, think about being isolated and losing all your independence because of the WC.
Disabled people as a group are particularly hard hit especially if they apply for a discretionary housing payment that your MP’s quote.
First it is a short term remedy placed so your MP can justify bullying a vulnerable person. Second it is a small payment of less than a fiver, and third if they receive DLA most Local Authorities are disallowing their claim.
Consider the low earners
When you go to your supermarket and the minimum wage till operator is putting your groceries through the checkout, do you have the satisfaction of thinking it was worth making this hard working person give up their home or exist on a pittance?
I also feel desperate empathy for the parents who have been granted access by a judge under the conditions they have a bedroom who will now lose their rights to have their children. Also the grandparents (yes, there are a lot under pension age!) about to be denied the grandchildren stay-over at the weekend.
My position
My own situation at 59, living in a social home that I could not exchange, as this was the house allocated to me 12 years ago when I had children under 18 to look after.
The bathroom about to be modified for disability, will be £6,000 wasted! And if I am evicted for refusing to pay £27+ out of £71 JSA (that is not intentionally homeless by the way) so where will I be rehoused – eh? back in my flat maybe!
And how will I be expected to find the cost of removals and disconnection/reconnection of my services – perhaps a grant from local taxpayers? Absurd!
Now I know all the arguments; Labour didn’t build enough houses, the country cannot afford it, supporting hard working people (you are not by the way, see the supermarket cashier) so please do not insult either of us by replying with the standard blurb.
Why did the Island MP vote in favour?
What I want to know is what made your MP, as an individual, vote yes.
As an MP he must be an intelligent man and I know he had an excellent education so I know, when he voted, first to overturn Peers amendments, twice to enable the legislation, did he understood the impact of the above scenario’s to enable him to vote.
NO consultation of its effect on IW residents. No concern of the weight of this legislative burden on a poor constituency. He would have understood that there were only a third of the number of smaller homes available, so tenants would not have anywhere to downsize to.
You would have known that on an income of only £71 per week, tenants could not afford the Welfare Charge and also could not afford the cost of moving. Cookers do not grow legs and toddle off to a new property. He would have understood the plight of the blind lady, the disabled man losing his freedom. You would have given thought to the daddy and grandchildren who will no longer be able to take in their estranged (grand)children and the cashier who cannot increase her hours due to cost of or lack of childcare.
Toeing the Party line
I genuinely would really like to understand how Mr Turner, as my MP who will be asking for my vote at the next election, justifies this to himself and his voters when he voted yes. Toeing a Party line obviously was not the compassionate option here. Will this toeing the party line be good for us at a local councillor level ? NO NO NO.
“Although I was elected as a Conservative, my job is to represent everyone on the Island, whatever their views and whatever political party they vote for
“A really effective MP deals as well with these people as with the people he knows, and I aim to be a really effective MP, working for all the Island”
It seems words where ever they are written are only a sop and not the creed by which they act!
Image: Paul Bevan under CC BY 2.0
