Opposition Day — Housing Benefit Penalties for Social Tenants Deemed to Have Excess Bedrooms — 17 Dec 2014 at 16:09

George Galloway MP, Bradford West voted to abolish housing benefit penalties for social tenants deemed to have excess bedrooms.

The majority of MPs voted in favour of housing benefit penalties for social tenants for deemed to have excess bedrooms.

MPs were considering a motion:

  • That this House
  • believes that the housing benefit social sector size criteria, otherwise known as the bedroom tax, should be abolished with immediate effect.

An amendment had been moved stating:

  • leave out from “House” to end and add:
  • 'regrets' that the Government took over a housing benefit bill which was out of control, and without reform would have been more than £26 billion in 2014-15;
  • 'notes' that the reforms the Government has implemented have brought housing benefit spending under control and helped to tackle over-crowding and better manage housing stock;
  • 'further notes' that the Coalition has protected vulnerable groups through £165 million of discretionary housing payments in 2014;
  • 'notes that', following the interim evaluation of the policy, the part of the Coalition led by the Deputy Prime Minister has proposed reforms to introduce other formal exemptions to the policy, including where claimants have not been made a reasonable alternative offer of accommodation; and
  • 'believes' that the Opposition’s failure to support the Government’s wider welfare reforms, including the wholesale abolition of this policy, is financially unsustainable, and would put at risk savings of nearly £50 billion over the present Parliament, as well as leaving people languishing in over-crowded accommodation.”

The motion which was supported by the majority of MPs taking part in this vote was:

  • That the proposed words be there added.

The majority of MPs taking part in the vote preferred the amended motion over the original version.

Debate in Parliament | Source |

Public Whip is run as a free not-for-profit service. If you'd like to support us, please consider switching your (UK) electricity and/or gas to Octopus Energy or tip us via Ko-Fi.

Party Summary

Votes by party, red entries are votes against the majority for that party.

What is Tell? '+1 tell' means that in addition one member of that party was a teller for that division lobby.

What are Boths? An MP can vote both aye and no in the same division. The boths page explains this.

What is Turnout? This is measured against the total membership of the party at the time of the vote.

PartyMajority (Aye)Minority (No)BothTurnout
Con261 (+2 tell) 0086.8%
DUP0 3037.5%
Green0 10100.0%
Independent1 10100.0%
Lab0 246 (+2 tell)096.1%
LDem38 0067.9%
PC0 30100.0%
Respect0 10100.0%
SDLP0 1033.3%
SNP0 60100.0%
Total:300 262088.3%

Rebel Voters - sorted by party

MPs for which their vote in this division differed from the majority vote of their party. You can see all votes in this division, or every eligible MP who could have voted in this division

Sort by: Name | Constituency | Party | Vote

NameConstituencyPartyVote
no rebellions

About the Project

The Public Whip is a not-for-profit, open source website created in 2003 by Francis Irving and Julian Todd and now run by Bairwell Ltd.

The Whip on the Web

Help keep PublicWhip alive