Missed this from Rachel Reeves on March 28th when she gave victims of the Under-Occupancy Penalty (Bedroom Tax) signed copies of the Bill she will place before Parliament "on day one" if she is Secretary of State for Work & Pensions in a Labour Government, following the election:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/la ... es-5418567
Ms Reeves hands over copies of her Bill as her way of assuring victims she will keep her pledge. She added: “We’ve got to win and we’ve got to deliver. I feel a huge sense of responsibility.
“When I sign this Bill for real in Parliament I will think of these people. With one piece of paper we can make their lives so much better. “They feel like they are being punished. They fell like no one is listening. Well, I’m listening.”
Ms Reeves will go on maternity leave within a few weeks of taking over at the DWP. But not before she has ensured Bedroom Tax is no more.
There's a video on that interview page of her holding up the Bill and there are photos of people she's given it to holding their copies up, too. I can't enlarge the images enough to read what it actually says and the Mirror/Sunday People doesn't seem to have published it online, more's the pity. The video has an annoyingly-long un-skippable pre-roll ad before it gets to the Reeves bit.
I cannot express how much I want this Bill to come to pass – I'd probably swear a lot and burst into tears. I can tell you that the combination of an increase in my rent (above the average for this Borough) leading to an increase in the U-OP, when balanced against the increase in ESA(SG,) means I will be slightly worse off that I was last year. I'm sick to the back teeth of wearing winter clothing indoors or wrapping myself in a duvet on the days when the act of dressing (or undressing) is too painful and exhausting to contemplate, of calculating how
little shopping I can get away with and still eat even vaguely properly, of dreading having to add laundry powder/liquid or other household-y type stuff to the basket, of trying to work out how I can cut general bills yet further, and so much more.
But I can also tell you how relieved I am that I'm not in the position of many in this country who are facing all of this
plus the strain of attempting to do one or more jobs that pay too little and offer too few hours;
and that I'm not having to do all of that with children to raise and care for and/or a disabled (or ill) child, adult child, spouse, or parent, depending solely upon me for their day-to-day care. I'm lucky, too, in that I have an amazing mutual-support network of family and friends who help in so many ways – from physical assistance, to emotional and moral support. Too many people either don't have that or have lost it after having to move away from where they'd built their life and needing to try to start all over again.
We need a change of government and we need a change of ethos. We need a left-leaning Labour Government – and then we'll need to keep pushing for all the promises to be kept.
