Bedroom Tax fury at "running scared" Iain Duncan Smith who laughs off Commons absence and mocks Mirror reporters

IDS answered Mirror questions by saying: "“I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you!” and then explained, with a smile, “I am not there because I am here”

Supporters of The Mirror's Real Britain & Unite the Union's campaign to abolish the bedroom tax protest outside the Houses of Parliament on the day a debate is held on the social tax.

Iain Duncan Smith was accused of “callous disregard” for victims of his hated Bedroom Tax yesterday after he dodged a Commons debate by dashing off to Paris.

The Eurosceptic Work and Pensions Secretary was happy to scuttle across the Channel for once as MPs spoke of the distress and heartache caused by the policy in his own back yard.

Labour’s Rachel Reeves accused the former Tory leader of snubbing 420,000 disabled people clobbered by the tax.

The shadow Work and Pensions Secretary told MPs: “He doesn’t want to answer to this House or the British people for the distress and damage he is causing.”

Mocking: Iain Duncan Smith in Paris as the Bedroom Tax rages in Westminster

A Labour source said he was “running scared”.

And at the presidential palace in the French capital, Mr Duncan Smith had no regrets about skipping the debate.

“I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you!” he shouted constantly as a Mirror reporter fired questions at him.

After choosing to go to a youth unemployment conference in France, Mr Duncan Smith explained: “I am not there because I am here.”

Not a single member of the Cabinet was on the frontbench to defend the policy.

Junior ministers sat there as Labour MPs told how the Bedroom Tax had taken money from patients needing kidney dialysis, the terminally ill and vulnerable families.

Shockingly, some Tories in the Commons were joking among themselves as Jack Dromey MP told how his Birmingham constituent and mother of two Stephanie Bottrill had committed suicide as a result of the tax.

Ms Reeves praised the hundreds of campaigners who had come to Parliament to tell how the policy had affected them.

Mirror