EADIE CHALLENGES MUNDELL TO ACT ON BEDROOM TAX
Jim Eadie, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, has written to Scotland Office Minister David Mundell MP this week urging him to support the call made by the Scottish Government for Lord Freud and the UK Government to lift the cap on discretionary housing payments (DHPs), so that The Scottish Government can provide further financial assistance to those affected by the bedroom tax.
Mr Mundell stated in a Scotsman article on 13 January that The Scottish Government already had sufficient powers to rid Scotland of the bedroom tax. However, this ignored the restrictions placed on The Scottish Government’s legal ability to provide further DHPs to those affected.
In a statement, Jim Eadie, who raised the issue of raising the DHPs in a question to the First Minister at FMQs last week, said:-“Mr Mundell knows full well that the Scottish Government currently does not have the powers to provide further financial assistance to families being affected by the bedroom tax.
“He has a brass neck to suggest that the Scottish government is failing to support families affected by the bedroom tax when it is his own government that is imposing this hardship on 80,000 people across Scotland.
“I have today written to Mr Mundell urging him to add his weight to the call on Lord Freud to recognise that the majority of MSPs in the Scottish Parliament now want to see the DHP cap lifted.
“The Scottish Government has earmarked a further £15 million to help people affected by the bedroom tax, yet the DWP has stated that to spend this without the cap being lifted would be breaking the law.
“The UK Government must act, and they must act now.”
Mr Eadie asks the question at FMQs on 6 February at 24:38.
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