The United Nations' special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing has told the Tory-led coalition that it should abolish its controversial bedroom tax.
Raquel Rolnik spoke to social housing tenants across the country during a two-week visit and heard "shocking" accounts from those hit by the under-occupancy policy.
A tenant has won one of the first tribunal appeals against the bedroom tax.
Annie Harrower-Gray had her appeal against Fife Council’s decision to cut her benefit upheld by a first-tier tribunal in Scotland following a hearing on 26 August.
Labour will pledge to find £50 million in Scotland’s budget in order to negate the impact of the so-called “bedroom tax” in Scotland, its finance spokesman has said.
Iain Gray, newly appointed in the post, used an interview with The Scotsman to call on the SNP government to find the cash, saying they could easily raise the money.
Shocked staff at a Fife centre looked on in horror as a man said to be desperate for help over the ‘bedroom tax’ pulled out a knife and tried to cut himself.
According to one person, who asked not to be named, the apparent suicide bid ended in “blood everywhere — all over the walls and counters”.
A United Nations representative is to take part in a meeting to hear how the bedroom tax is affecting the UK's social housing tenants.
Raquel Rolnik, the UN's special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, will hear from groups from all over Britain at the Anti-Bedroom Tax and Benefit Justice Federation meeting in Manchester next week.
Anti-bedroom tax campaigners across the country will take part in a mass sleep out tomorrow night.
The sleep out is taking place in over 50 towns and cities across the UK in a bid to raise awareness about the government's controversial under-occupancy policy.
Liberal Democrat grassroot supporters are planning a revolt against the coalition’s controversial bedroom tax.
Activists have tabled a motion for next month’s party conference to demand a review of the policy, the Daily Mirror reported.
The vast majority of social housing tenants affected by the bedroom tax have no smaller properties available to them to downsize to.
Freedom of Information requests of local authorities by the Labour Party found that 96% of people hit by the government's controversial under-occupancy policy are effectively trapped in their current homes because of a countrywide lack of smaller accommodation.
Housing groups and charities have been left ‘deeply disappointed’ after the High Court dismissed a legal challenge to the government’s bedroom tax.
David Orr, chief executive of the National Housing Federation, said the policy is unworkable, while Campbell Robb, chief executive of housing charity Shelter, said the ruling was ‘devastating news’.
Half of Universal Credit claimants in some areas could struggle to use the government’s online system because they lack IT skills and have limited internet access, local government pilots have found.
The findings come in a report by the Department for Work and Pensions about 12 local authority pilots of the new benefits system. It has been published as the Universal Credit system is rolled out to job centres in Oldham and Warrington, having been started in Wigan and Ashton-Under-Lyne earlier this year.