Charlie Kiss, Green Party candidate for Highbury West ward, writes:
“At the weekend, I met a woman in Highbury who told me she had had to move because of the bedroom tax. She was very angry with the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats for bringing in this law resulting in a significant reduction in housing benefit and meaning she could not remain in her home. I don’t think people realise just how much damage and disruption the hated bedroom tax (reduction in benefit) is causing to people in Islington.
“In Brighton, the country’s first Green-run council was also the first in England and Wales to announce a policy of no eviction due to arrears caused by the bedroom tax, and informed people widely that they just would not evict if tenants could not pay the tax, and that they would assist them.
“The bedroom tax is widely condemned; even the UN has stated that it should be suspended in a wide ranging housing report. What is disturbing, is that whilst the Green Party came out immediately against the vicious tax affecting those on low incomes, disabled, and carers, the Labour party waited until September 2013 for their conference before announcing they were then opposed to it and then didn’t even bother to turn out at a bedroom tax debate in parliament, resulting in a defeat. It was shameful that Labour waited so long.”