Should children be required to share a bedroom?

A report in the Scotsman expresses concern that one child in five has to share a bedroom, with more than half the respondents wishing their children had more space.  Another way of putting that, of course, is that four children in five have their own room; that is now the norm in the UK.  Former Education minister Michael Gove is quoted as saying that every child should have a bedroom of their own.

That might raise the question as to why the government’s ‘underoccupancy penalty’ – the bedroom tax – requires and expects children to share bedrooms up to the age of 10, and children of the same sex to share a room until they are 16, and the government docks people’s benefits if they presume to live as other people live.

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