The Tory lord plunging 95,000 into poverty with his “bedroom tax” stays in an eight-bedroom country mansion … when he’s not living in his £1.9million London home, the Sunday People has revealed.
Welfare Minister, who also has a £1.9 million London home, is labelled as an ‘out of touch hypocrite’
Lord Freud was accused of being an out of touch hypocrite last night after provoking a storm of criticism this week defending the tax which will see some of Britain’s poorest families charged for spare bedrooms.
And thousands face being turfed out on the streets if they cannot afford it.
Lord Freud owns a huge, historic country pile – one of the oldest in England – in Kent, which he uses for weekends and holidays.
During the week, the father of three, 62, whose children have grown up and moved out, lives with his wife Priscilla in a four-bedroom townhouse in Highgate – that’s three MORE spare bedrooms – while working as David Cameron’s Welfare Minister on the front benches of the Tory party
It will astonish those in social housing who face losing their homes if they cannot afford to pay bedroom tax when the reforms are pushed through in April.
Labour MP Jon Cruddas said: “The bedroom tax is one of the most abhorrent attacks yet by this Government on some of the poorest people in Britain. Now we learn one of its architects has ten spare rooms himself.
“This is rank hypocrisy and more evidence of how out of touch this Government is with normal people. How would Lord Freud feel if he was told to downsize his properties?”
The tax – officially called “under occupancy tax” – means people in social housing who have a spare bedroom will find housing benefit claims reduced by £40 to £80 a month.
Anyone in housing association homes or council housing with a spare bedroom will lose 14 per cent of housing benefit, or 25 per cent if they have two spare rooms – despite the lack of one bedroom council homes. The bedroom tax will see 666,000 working-age social tenants losing an average £14 a week. Housing association tenants face losing £16 a week. It is estimated 95,000 people will not be able to afford the changes.
All claimants with at least one spare bedroom will be affected, including separated parents who share child care and may have been allocated an extra bedroom, foster families and those with disabled children.
Lord Freud, the great-grandson of psychoanalyst Sigmund, has been responsible for overhauling the benefits system after leaving Labour as an independent advisor and joining the Conservatives in 2009. He is also behind the controversial Universal Credit – due in the autumn.
He went into meltdown when he tried to defend his policy on BBC Radio Five Live this week when he told Graeme Gair from Inverness that he did not deserve a spare bedroom for his children as they only stay with him on weekends and holidays.
Flustered Freud tried to bluff his way out of it by repeating the policy. His attitude provoked a storm on social networks.
But the Lord’s Eastry Court, a listed building, has plenty of room for guests. One local said: “It’s an enormous place. There are passages going off in all directions.”
