Iain Duncan Smith accused of writing ‘blank cheque’ to lawyers to defend bedroom tax in court
As the Department for Work and Pensions appears reluctant to divulge the cost of all its legal battles over the Bedroom Tax, This Writer can feel another Freedom of Information request coming on.
The Government has been accused writing a “blank cheque” to lawyers to mount legal defences of its so-called “bedroom tax” policy.
Yesterday the Court of Appeal ruled the controversial under-occupancy charge was unlawful and discriminatory because of its effect on a severely disabled teenager and a rape victim.
The Government instantly said it would appeal the decision at the Supreme Court, but Labour said ministers were wasting money on legal fees to defend a policy “that has failed in every regard”.
“Can the minister confirm there are 280 victims of domestic violence that have had panic rooms installed house under the Sanctuary scheme affected by the policy – and can he confirm that exempting those people from the bedroom tax would cost the Government a mere £200,000,” Owen Smith, shadow DWP secretary asked in the House of Commons.
“By comparison can he tell us how many hundreds of thousands of pounds he’s spent on legal fees defending this policy and how much more he’s prepared to spend? Is this a blank cheque to defend this to the end?”
DWP minister Justin Tomlinson, who was fielding questions for the Government, did not respond directly to the question.
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:
Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
Without a doubt Duncan Smith is the most evil character among a whole bunch of nasty evil Tories. They don’t mind squandering money on their vindictive pet policies, but they won’t spend a penny more than they are forced to help real people.
its disgusting how much this odious toad of a man is allowed to waste of OUR money on his loony schemes,lawyers fees and his universal credit scheme which is still not working.
there should be some sort of watchdog over what this man wastes.
In times of austerity only the poor and vulnerable pay the price. Government spending can increase as it has, to pay for all of Osborne’s cock ups and make good the reckless and very costly IDS policies.
More importantly are these the sort of people we want determining our Human Rights in their proposals to do away with the European Convention?
What a complete little g*t! Time for Iain Duncan Smith and his lackeys to be taken to task! We all need to stand together and fight his policies through the courts. He is deliberately and with malice causing death a destruction at every turn! Evil personified!
the whole Universal Credit scheme is a spectacular failure.
the real cost has not even been thought about. Think
Computerised system to FORCE claimants to enter detailed financial info.
SCAMMERS will have a field day ripping off IDs and the moneys will be erroneously transferred into wrong accounts.
Claimants will be FORCED to have a bank account and run the risk of other banking problems when the DWP make mistakes.
Police input will be required to ‘referee ‘ conflict in public libraries between claimants using computers to make a claim and students trying to meet a deadline.
Librarians will become very stressed.
need i go on!!!!