The government has just lost a vote in the House of Commons on the ‘bedroom tax’/removal of the spare-room subsidy/underoccupancy penalty/Size Criteria for People Renting in the Social Rented Sector (the correct, if rather clunky, name). There was a three-line whip from the Tories on the vote, but the Lib Dems had decided they would support their colleague Andrew George’s bill to exempt those who cannot move to a smaller home, or who are disabled and live in an adapted property.
The Bill had its second reading in the House of Commons today, and passed 306 votes to 231. Jacob Rees-Mogg moved an amendment that the Bill should be considered by a select committee, in an attempt to slow it up, but it was also defeated.
It’s less interesting that the Coalition parties have voted in different ways on this Bill: we’ve got rather used to this by now.
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