A mother has told of the devastating impact the so-called 'bedroom tax' has had on her life.

Disabled mother-of-four Karen Millard, of Mulberry Gardens, Crouch End, says the cap on housing benefit means she is forced to give up the simple human comforts of warmth, food and family.

Ms Millard, 59, has osteoarthritis, a condition that causes joint pain, which can make it difficult to walk and move around, especially in cold weather.

She said: “The bedroom tax affects me in a lot of ways, it impacts the way I heat my house because I can’t afford to have the heating on for very long so it limits how warm I can keep the place.

“The bedroom tax also limits the amount of food I can buy, after I’ve paid council tax and all my bills I can’t properly support myself when buying food.

“I am in pain every day due to my condition and not being able to keep warm or buy the right food makes it worse.

“The stress of the extra financial burden has put my blood pressure up too also worsening my condition.”

Karen used to live in a one-bedroom council bungalow in New Southgate, but took part in a house swap three years ago between Barnet and Haringey Borough Councils to move back to her home town of Crouch End and closer to her friends and family.

Shortly after she moved into her two-bedroom house, the Government changed its benefit policy and introduced restrictions on the amount of housing benefit people can claim if they are deemed to have one or more spare rooms. 

This means Ms Millard now has to pay £20 per week towards the cost of her extra bedroom on top of her existing commitments.

This has had a significant effect on her family and social life.

She said: “I can’t spend much time with my four adult children and 12 grandchildren as I simply can’t afford it and they can’t always afford to pay for me to do things with them.

“The bedroom tax affects every part of my life and if it was abolished I’d be so happy, it would make a big difference to my life.”

Labour Shadow Minister for Work and Pensions Rachel Reeves, along with fellow Labour MP Helen Goodman and Labour candidate for Hornsey and Wood Green Catherine West, visited Karen on a trip to Hornsey and Wood Green to talk to some of the 700 people in the area affected by the bedroom tax.

Ms Reeves said: “Karen moved into this house not knowing that she would have to pay the bedroom tax like hundreds of other people in this area.

"Over the course of another Tory government the bedroom tax would cost £5,300 per person affected, which is a huge amount of money and not something that Karen and people like her can afford.

"The first thing that I will do if I become secretary of state for work and pensions in May is to cancel the bedroom tax.”

A statement from the department of work and pensions said: “Ending the spare room subsidy was absolutely necessary to get the soaring housing benefit bill under control, return fairness to the system and make better use of social housing stock.

“We have given Haringey council more than £5m in Discretionary Housing Payments funding since 2013 to support vulnerable people, and we will provide an additional £1.5m this year.

"Councils have discretion over how they allocate this money to support people living in their area.”