PAUL Egan, in his letter of July 10, plays fast and loose with the facts on the “bedroom tax”.

Firstly, the spare room subsidy is not a tax and to keep referring to it in such a way is designed to mislead.

If the taxpayer were to stop subsidising the Royal Opera House — I think they should, by the way — would he call that a “tax on being posh?”

The spare room subsidy is an extra charge on those social houses with empty bedrooms. Why do this?

In 1970, about 15 per cent of the population lived on their own; since then that figure has doubled.

It seems we don’t want to live with each other any more and it’s the single biggest pressure on social housing.

We can build more “affordable” housing for those who want to live alone in subsidised houses, but the money has to come from somewhere.

Given the government is still borrowing £100 billion a year and the average family hands over about 50 per cent of their income in tax, more tax rises would force more people on to welfare.

This has been a difficult choice but it is only one measure in many which trying to fix a welfare system that subsidised poverty, encouraged people to live alone and wrote off a large section of the population.

Both parties have a poor record in trying to reform welfare.

We have made mistakes, but welfare dependency is a problem most reasonable people want fixing.

Cllr Martyn Cox Westhoughton North and Chew Moor