Axe The Bedroom Tax Rally - George Square Glasgow - 1st June 2013
1,025 views · Published 3 June 2013 · 1:44:41 · Indexed 27 October 2026
Channel: Jim Ramsay · 2013 · Travel & Events
Thousands of people have taken to the streets in protest at cuts to housing benefit for those with spare bedrooms. Around 3000 people marched on George Square in Glasgow while up to 1000 people assembled outside the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, according to police estimates. The protesters insist that the new UK Government policy will disproportionately affect disabled people and women, and could lead to evictions and deaths. However, the rhetoric voiced at the rally took a trenchant turn, with Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith branded a "ratbag" and the coalition government compared to the Nazis. The protest, entitled "Axe the Bedroom Tax", was aimed at challenging an under-occupancy measure that forms part of the UK Government's welfare reforms. The change, part of the Coalition's welfare overhaul and shift to a universal credit system, will reduce the housing benefit received by those who have a spare room in their home. The Coalition claims the policy will help tackle under-occupancy, and the knock-on effects on social housing waiting lists, by ending what it calls the "spare room subsidy" that sees tenants using housing benefit to live in properties that are bigger than their needs.
