SIR - The Government’s spare room subsidy, (“bedroom tax”) appears to have plunged many tenants into financial difficulties.

Analysis for the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) has found that only five months after this housing reform, 59 per cent or approximately 300,000 tenants are in arrears.

Effectively a housing benefit cut, it amounts to a loss of 14 per cent for those with one spare room in their home and 25 per cent for two.

It seems one in five tenants have paid nothing towards this, while there is widespread concern that of those who had paid, many had borrowed or made cuts to essentials to do so.

David Orr, the chief executive of the National Housing Federation, which campaigns for affordable housing, said: “Time and again it has been proven that the “bedroom tax” is pushing people into rent arrears and they have been unable to downsize due to a lack of smaller properties.

The figures from the DWP show this is not working and surely it is time for the Government to admit they got it wrong and repeal this ill-thought out policy.”

David Hornsby, West View Avenue, Wrose