THE underoccupancy penalty was introduced on April 1 as part of the government’s Welfare Reform Act.

The penalty has been branded “bedroom tax” by opponents — but is not technically a tax.

It applies if someone in receipt of housing benefit is living in social housing or private rented accommodation which is classed as too big.

Anyone the charge applies to has a 14 per cent reduction in their benefits if they have one “spare” bedroom, or 25 per cent if they have two or more spare bedrooms.

Backers of the penalty claim it will “reintroduce fairness” to the system and free up larger houses for bigger families who are on housing waiting lists.

But opponents have branded it a “one size fits all” approach, claiming the policy makes no allowance for individual circumstances, such as if one partner in a couple is ill and needs to sleep in a separate bedroom, or single parents who only see their children at weekends and no longer have a spare room for them to sleep in.

The government this year trebled the amount of funding it gave to Bolton Council to help vulnerable people pay their rent and tax, providing more than £600,000 for Discretionary Housing Payments, although that figure was branded “a slap in the face” at the time by Bolton’s Labour chiefs. Since the charges were introduced, more than 75 per cent of tenants affected by “bedroom tax” at Bolton’s biggest social landlord, Bolton at Home, have fallen into rent arrears, costing the arms-length organisation £120,000 in lost rental income from its many tenants.