THURROCK Labour candidate Polly Billington has slammed Jackie Doyle-Price for ‘betraying Thurrock families’ at Christmas after the Tory MP voted to retain the hated bedroom tax.
Doyle-Price sided with other Tory and Liberal Democrat MPs and voted against abolishing the bedroom tax In a House of Commons vote on Wednesday (17 December). The motion was only narrowly defeated in the House of Commons.
According to government figures, 898 households in Thurrock have been hit by the tax on a spare room. The average cost to each family since the tax was introduced in 2013 is £1,260. Only a very small number of people have been able to move to smaller accommodation and a high proportion are struggling to be able to make the payment.1
Polly Billington said:
“The bedroom tax doesn’t solve housing problems, it causes them. Hundreds of people in Thurrock have been punished for the ‘crime’ of having an extra bedroom. Many of these are carers for people with disabilities or separated parents who need the space to see their kids. Families bear the burden of debt as they struggle to pay.
“Jackie Doyle-Price was offered the opportunity just a few days before Christmas to show that she cares about the most vulnerable people in our community. She turned it down and betrayed hundreds of Thurrock families.
“The next Labour government will repeal the bedroom tax and bring some respite to those at the sharp end of the government’s cost of living crisis. We wanted to do it even earlier than that. But thanks to Jackie and her mates in parliament, the pain continues.”
