Tenants in arrears because of the so-called "bedroom tax" should have their debt written off and "charges" refunded, according to a Scottish Labour MP.
Ian Davidson, who chairs the Commons' Scottish Affairs Committee, said the SNP administration had taken too long to address the impact of the controversial UK welfare reform policy, which cuts benefit payments for people deemed to have a spare room.
The Glasgow South West MP's call comes less than a week after Scottish Finance Secretary John Swinney announced he was topping up a fund to £50 million so he could offset the benefit cut.
Mr Davidson spoke out after visiting West Lothian, where his committee of MPs heard half the council tenants were in arrears.
Concerns were also raised that simply addressing debt would "penalise" those who scrimped and saved to pay their bills.
"All of these problems have been created by the Scottish Government's delay," he said. "Households and councils have been left to deal with it at great personal and administrative expense. The Scottish Government has the power and the money to resolve this mess. The only question is why they haven't."
Dr Eilidh Whiteford, the SNP's work and pensions spokeswoman, said: "The best way to mitigate the impact of the bedroom tax is to make payments directly to the individuals affected. If the Scottish Affairs Committee wants to do something useful it should be backing Scottish Government calls for the cap to be lifted."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article