United Nations report on UK housing conditions calling for the suspension of the bedroom tax has been dismissed by the government housing minister Kris Hopkins as a "misleading Marxist diatribe".
The full report by the UN's special investigator on housing, Raquel Rolnik, who made a research trip to Britain last August and September to look at housing provision, was published by the UN on Monday. Her report described the impact of bedroom tax on low-income tenants who "faced hard choices between food, heating or paying the rent" as they struggled to stay in the house they had lived in all their lives. It said: "Many felt targeted and forced to give up their neighbourhoods, their carers and their safety net."
In it, Rolnik reiterated her earlier call for the bedroom tax policy to be suspended and reviewed because it negatively "impacts on the right to adequate housing and general wellbeing of many vulnerable individuals and households".
The report said lack of investment in housing over several decades meant Britain now faces a crisis of housing affordability and availability. It called for increased protections for tenants in the rapidly growing private rented sector who find themselves with "very few rights and little security", and called for a series of welfare reforms to be re-assessed to ensure they do not impact disproportionately on the most vulnerable individuals. Britain's previously good record on housing was being eroded by a failure to provide sufficient quantities of affordable and social housing, the report said, with the result that "the structural shape of the housing sector has changed to the detriment of the most vulnerable". It called on the UK government to invest more in social housing.
The report did not hold back from documenting the combined impact of welfare reform and the housing crisis on vulnerable people, which Rolnik found on her visit had left many low income, disabled and homeless people in "tremendous despair". The report added: "While in principle the [bedroom tax] policy does not force people to move, the reality of people's experience, many of whom are working people with no income to spare, left no doubt in the special rapporteur's mind that many have no other option, which has left them in tremendous despair."
A former urban planning minister in Brazil, Rolnik met dozens of council house tenants during her visit last year, when – at the formal invitation of the UK government – she travelled to Belfast, Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh and London and visited council estates, food banks, homelessness crisis centres, Traveller sites and new housing association developments. She also reviewed hundreds of written testimonies. Ms Raquel Rolnik is one of 72 independent experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council – the lead UN body responsible for human rights – on the basis of their expertise and independence, and following a competitive selection process.
Prof Aoife Nolan, a human rights law expert, told the Guardian that despite the UK being party to the UN covenant on economic, social and cultural rights the government would not be forced to act on the findings of the report. She added: "The special rapporteur is not putting forward an alternative 'Marxist' vision – she is simply highlighting where current government policies are not compliant with the international human rights standards that it voluntarily signed up to. Putting the housing rights of the most vulnerable and marginalised at the heart of national housing policy is not 'Marxist'; it is simply what any decent society should be trying to do."
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The full report by the UN's special investigator on housing, Raquel Rolnik, who made a research trip to Britain last August and September to look at housing provision, was published by the UN on Monday. Her report described the impact of bedroom tax on low-income tenants who "faced hard choices between food, heating or paying the rent" as they struggled to stay in the house they had lived in all their lives. It said: "Many felt targeted and forced to give up their neighbourhoods, their carers and their safety net."
In it, Rolnik reiterated her earlier call for the bedroom tax policy to be suspended and reviewed because it negatively "impacts on the right to adequate housing and general wellbeing of many vulnerable individuals and households".
The report said lack of investment in housing over several decades meant Britain now faces a crisis of housing affordability and availability. It called for increased protections for tenants in the rapidly growing private rented sector who find themselves with "very few rights and little security", and called for a series of welfare reforms to be re-assessed to ensure they do not impact disproportionately on the most vulnerable individuals. Britain's previously good record on housing was being eroded by a failure to provide sufficient quantities of affordable and social housing, the report said, with the result that "the structural shape of the housing sector has changed to the detriment of the most vulnerable". It called on the UK government to invest more in social housing.
The report did not hold back from documenting the combined impact of welfare reform and the housing crisis on vulnerable people, which Rolnik found on her visit had left many low income, disabled and homeless people in "tremendous despair". The report added: "While in principle the [bedroom tax] policy does not force people to move, the reality of people's experience, many of whom are working people with no income to spare, left no doubt in the special rapporteur's mind that many have no other option, which has left them in tremendous despair."
A former urban planning minister in Brazil, Rolnik met dozens of council house tenants during her visit last year, when – at the formal invitation of the UK government – she travelled to Belfast, Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh and London and visited council estates, food banks, homelessness crisis centres, Traveller sites and new housing association developments. She also reviewed hundreds of written testimonies. Ms Raquel Rolnik is one of 72 independent experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council – the lead UN body responsible for human rights – on the basis of their expertise and independence, and following a competitive selection process.
Prof Aoife Nolan, a human rights law expert, told the Guardian that despite the UK being party to the UN covenant on economic, social and cultural rights the government would not be forced to act on the findings of the report. She added: "The special rapporteur is not putting forward an alternative 'Marxist' vision – she is simply highlighting where current government policies are not compliant with the international human rights standards that it voluntarily signed up to. Putting the housing rights of the most vulnerable and marginalised at the heart of national housing policy is not 'Marxist'; it is simply what any decent society should be trying to do."
From here
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