Tavish Scott: Conference must unite against bedroom tax

‘Well, at least you are good for business,” observed a Glasgow taxi driver. I was a late arrival at the Liberal Democrats annual conference this week.
Tavish Scott. Picture: Neil HannaTavish Scott. Picture: Neil Hanna
Tavish Scott. Picture: Neil Hanna

So, better late than never, I pitched up by taxi at the Exhibition Centre. Party conferences used to be beside the sea. Blackpool, Bournemouth and Brighton. Now, we travel to vast halls beside rivers. The wind howling through Glasgow this week gave the Clyde an Atlantic look with waves and spray. That storminess also extended into the conference hall.

Leading the Lib Dems is a challenge at the best of times. Unlike the neutered conferences of all the other parties, Lib Dem activists love a good debate. Most take the view that a good debate is one where the leadership is beaten – or at least stumbles off the stage bloodied by the experience. Now that the Lib Dems are part of the UK government, this collective letting off steam has become all the more pronounced.

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I recall some tricky days at Scottish party conferences during the time of the Lib Dem-Labour coalition at Holyrood. But enough work had usually been done at the conference bar the previous night to minimise the rebellion down to what the leader always claims are the usual suspects.

Lord Oakeshott is now the chief Lib Dem suspect. He is no longer a suspect. This highly-opinionated working peer always gives an interview to a newspaper on the eve of conference and calls for the leader to resign.

For obvious reasons, there is always a newspaper or television camera more than happy to promote such language for posterity.

But the difficulty is that when you become a serial voice piece for the leader’s resignation, the conference gets bored with you. So, Lord Oakeshott’s musings have been ignored in Glasgow.

What has not been ignored by the leadership is a desire by delegates, councillors and many parliamentarians for an end to the “bedroom tax”. There may be some policy merit in making more homes available for rent by moving people into properties more suited to their needs, but that approach only works when a council or a housing association has enough homes in the first place.

As national housing statistics proved again this week, the country is not building anything like enough new properties. So, the bedroom tax does not work. The UK and Scottish governments are now pouring more money into tackling the pressures that the policy is creating. So, the savings to the welfare budget are less than forecast.

Government ministers have been appearing on television to say that it is not a bedroom tax and is instead a single room subsidy. That is a sure sign that the policy is holed below the waterline. Remember the poll tax. Tory ministers used to say, no Mr Paxman, it is not the poll tax. It is a community charge.

The bedroom tax is bad policy and bad politics. It should be dropped.

• Tavish Scott is the Liberal Democrat MSP for Shetland and his party’s former leader in Scotland