Socialist Lawyer is the magazine of the  Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers .    It has published my article on council tax debt problem in the UK.

I have noticed a dramatic change in my line of work as a debt adviser following the introduction of Universal Credit in 2013.  It has become common to see clients who are in rent and council tax arrears. In areas where it was initially rolled-out, 73% of claimants were in arrears and owed on average £772. Ian Duncan Smith, former Secretary of Department for Work and Pensions, stated that the policy was meant to take people out of poverty.  Its impact has been to the contrary.  It was one of several welfare reforms introduced by the 2010-15 Coalition Government under the Welfare Reform Act 2012 which was planned for implementation by March 2022 as part of overall austerity measures. Universal Credit replaces the following benefits: Job Seekers Allowance, Employment Support Allowance, Housing Benefit, Working Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit. Universal Credit affected claimants of working age. Claimants would now receive the benefit monthly and would be r...

‘I have not been able to pay my council tax for last four years. Bailiffs have lied to me to get money from me. I still can’t afford it!’  says Joanna Robinson on Money Matters show on East London Radio in March 2018.   During the period 2016-17, bailiffs were used by councils on nearly 1.5 million occasions in order to attempt recovery of council tax arrears. As in Joanna's case, residents were summoned to court for being too poor to pay - accruing court costs, subjected to the ignominy and anxiety having to face enforcement agents, and already too poor to pay, further indebtedness.   As I hear the horror stories of bailiff’s knocking on debtors’ doors under the new Council Tax Reduction Scheme (CTRS), I am beginning to worry that the Scheme is really just a Poll Tax rehash. I was too young to remember what the Poll Tax was when it was first introduced in the late 1980s. My parents never spoke about it. In my work I started to notice ...