THE 'Bedroom Tax' will hit more than 15,000 households in Glasgow when it begins next month, figures reveal.

City tenants who rent from a housing association will lose an average of £52 a month if they are deemed to have a spare room, which the UK Government will no longer pay housing benefit for.

A breakdown of figures for the 633 constituencies of the UK's MPs shows areas in Glasgow to be among the worst hit, with Glasgow Central home to the 16th highest number of tenants who will lose out.

Across the UK, 660,000 households will lose 14% or 25% of their housing benefit, with 80,000 of them in Scotland.

In Glasgow, Central has the highest at 2556 households. Six of the seven city constituencies will see more than 2000 homes lose out under the new rules.

The 'bedroom tax', officially known as the under-occupancy rule, will cut benefit if people in social housing have a room they do not need for the number of people in the home. Pensioners are not affected by the new rule.

But the reforms – aimed at cutting the UK's spending on housing benefits which are £22.8billion a year – have been branded, "cruel and unfair," by housing officials and politicians in the city and "perverse" by the National Housing Federation, which produced the latest figures.

These show the extra amount tenants in Glasgow will have to find to pay their rent reaches almost £10m a year.

The figures show that, when added together, the number of affected households in the four constituencies of Prime Minister David Cameron (566), Chancellor George Osborne (802), Work And Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith (723) and Home Secretary Theresa May (362) is still less than that of Glasgow Central. Their total is 2453.

The highest affected constituency in Scotland is West Dunbartonshire, where 2714 households will lose some of their benefit.

David Orr, National Housing Federation, chief executive, said: "This perverse tax is doing exactly what the Government promised it would not do – hitting the most vulnerable in society.

"The tax is ill-thought, unfair and will force thousands of people to cut back further on food and other expenses to stay in their homes.

"It takes no account of disabled people's adapted homes, of foster parents who need rooms to take children in, or of parents sharing custody who will lose the room for their child at weekends."

Anas Sarwar, Labour MP for Glasgow Central, said: "This policy was not based on people's needs but purely on cutting an arbitrary figure.

"And it will hammer families in Glasgow already struggling to make ends meet and still fail to accomplish Government aims.

"With a chronic shortage of social housing people can't move to smaller homes and are trapped through no fault of their own with an average bill of £728 per year.

"If they cannot afford this they will be forced into the private sector at greater Government expense. The policy is a shambles.

"Iain Duncan Smith must swallow his pride, stand up for the most vulnerable in our communities and scrap this draconian tax on the poorest Glaswegians."

A DWP spokesman said: "Councils in Scotland have been given an extra £10m this year so they can help vulnerable tenants.

"However, with many thousands on housing waiting lists, we need to end the spare room subsidy and ensure a better use of social housing."

stewart.paterson@eveningtimes.co.uk