Bedroom Tax protestors collect hundreds of signatures

Middleton Heywood & Rochdale Against The Bedroom Tax collect signatures on Yorkshire Street

Middleton Heywood & Rochdale Against the Cuts (MHRAC), handed out leafleting for the No Bedroom Tax campaign, on Yorkshire Street, Rochdale on Sunday afternoon and collected around 200 signatures.

A steering group spokesperson said: "People were literally queuing to sign the petition and there was massive public support for the campaign.

"We will also be encouraging people who may have already been forced to move to reserve their right to claim retrospective compensation from RBH Mutual Board & Employees under Regulation B13 of the Housing Benefit (Amendment) Regulations 2012 – that states the Bedroom Tax is incompatible with its clients’ and their children’s rights under
Article 8 and/or Article 14 of the European Convention – and thus unlawful under section 6 of the Human Rights Act.

"Lord Freud is Minister for Welfare Reform. He lives in an eight-bedroom country mansion in the country. Has a £1.9m property in London. He is ‘under occupying’. He made his money as a banker.

"The Lord of the Bedroom Tax is here for a Housing 2013 Conference, held in Manchester, a city with the highest levels of child poverty in the country.

"Freud cares not for those children’s mothers and fathers, nor their grandparents, their neighbours. He is out force them to go hungry. To get them to hand over extra rent - to pay the Bedroom Tax.

"At a special conference reception Freud will spend £55 for a cup of coffee 'to celebrate our achievements'.

"Meanwhile thousands of people in Greater Manchester are expected to live for a week on that amount! That is what the Bedroom Tax would mean if people paid it out of their existing benefits.

"Lord Freud has the policy of a gangster. It’s pay up or you can get out!

"Freud wants the threat of the courts, bailiffs, and evictions to force people to pay the Bedroom Tax.

"Most are not paying the tax. Support them and the fight against the Bedroom Tax. Join the protest."