Fury as UN meddlers send in human rights team over 'bedroom tax': Officials sent to check houses 'provide adequate standard of living'
- The visit of Brazilian Raquel Rolnik been criticised by MPs
- She will carry out inspection of housing conditions to check they provide 'an adequate standard of living'
- MPs dismissed UN official as 'over-mighty and unaccountable'
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With the crisis in Syria and all the world’s many other problems, you would think that the UN had quite enough on its plate.
But apparently it can spare a top official to investigate a potential human rights abuse in Britain…changes to housing benefit, called the ‘bedroom tax’ by Left-wingers.
Brazilian Raquel Rolnik has been dispatched to Britain to carry out an inspection of housing conditions to check they provide ‘an adequate standard of living’.
UN official Raquel Rolnik will visit Britain to carry out an inspection of housing conditions to check they provide 'an adequate standard of living'
The news provoked a furious reaction from MPs, who dismissed the bureaucrat as ‘over-mighty and unaccountable’.
And it is not the first time that a UN bureaucrat has travelled to the UK to lecture the Government.
Two years ago UN adviser Professor Yves Cabannes joined protesters at Dale Farm in Essex to condemn the eviction of hundreds of travellers from illegal pitches, insisting their removal was in breach of human rights rules.
A spokesman for Mrs Rolnik, described as the special rapporteur on housing for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said she was ‘visiting the country at the invitation of the Government’.
However, it is understood that she in fact invited herself, and the Coalition’s welcome was extended only out of diplomatic etiquette. Indeed, ministers are thought to be privately unhappy at her decision to make an inspection.
The changes to housing benefit, called the 'bedroom tax', provoked protests earlier this year
Cuts in housing benefit for claimants who live in larger homes with spare bedrooms, introduced in April, will be at the centre of her inquiry.
The reforms, which ministers claim will knock £500million off the housing benefit bill, have become a central rallying cause of Labour and the Left against the Coalition, with critics claiming they amount to ‘social cleansing’ by forcing thousands from their homes.
The UN Human Rights office described Mrs Rolnik’s inquiry as ‘the first information-gathering visit to the country by an independent expert designated by the UN Human Rights Council to monitor and promote the realisation of the right to adequate housing and the right to non-discrimination’.
Mrs Rolnik said: ‘The UK faces a unique moment, when the challenge to promote and protect the right to adequate housing is on the agenda.
‘Special attention needs to be given to responding to the specific situations of various population groups, in particular low-income households and other marginalised individuals and groups.’
Tory MPs Jake Berry (left) and Douglas Carswell (right) criticised the inspection. Mr Berry said she does not 'represent the views of Britons who want to get on in life'
She will tour London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Belfast, meeting officials, human rights activists and protest groups. She plans to present preliminary findings and recommendations as soon as next week.
Douglas Carswell, Tory MP for Clacton, responded furiously to the visit, saying: ‘It may be news to Mrs Rolnik, but in this country we have something called democracy. This means people vote for their representatives. They decide how the country is run, and not overpaid, over-mighty and unaccountable UN officials.’
In the past Mrs Rolnik has criticised the ‘negative side-effects’ of the spread of home ownership and the sale of council houses in the UK.
Jake Berry, Tory MP for Rossendale and Darwen, added: ‘This rapporteur is a self-professed enemy of home ownership and right to buy, and doesn’t represent the views of Britons who want to get on in life.’
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