A QUARTER of all benefit claimants in Copeland are having their subsidies cut because of the bedroom tax, official figures confirmed yesterday.

According to a new report by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), over 1,200 of Copeland’s less than 5,000 residents will see their benefits shrink by £15 a week.

The Cumbrian borough has the highest figure in Britain — the average is 9 per cent.

The tax was brought into force by the coalition government in 2013 and slashes council tenants’ housing benefit if they have any “spare” rooms in their homes.

Defend Council Housing spokesman Paul Burnham told the Star: “I think this is a reminder of the severe adverse impacts that the bedroom tax continues to have on the quality of life of working people.

“It’s also intensifyig the cost of living crisis — it’s forcing people to chose between the limited benefits they get and the home they lived in, often for decades — it’s wrong.”

The DWP numbers also showed that nearly one in four of all 4.79 million Brits claiming housing benefit are in work — the highest number since records began.

Only two-thirds of claimants live in some form of social housing.

A spokeswoman for the People’s Assembly, which has been campaigning against the subsidy cut, said: “The bedroom tax, like so many other policies that the Tories instigated since coming into government, is simply another mechanism for transferring wealth from the poorest to the richest.

“This policy increases rather than reduces inequality.”