Tories exempt army families from vicious bedroom tax

Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith also told councils that money is available for disabled people who have had to significantly alter their homes and people whose medical conditions make it hard to share a bedroom.

And he said that foster parents will be allowed to have one spare room, whether or not a child has been placed with them, so long as they have fostered a child or been approved to do so within the past 12 months.

Meanwhile, members of the armed forces who live with their parents will be regarded as still occupying their room while away on operations, removing the threat of housing benefit deductions.

But Unite union leader Len McCluskey branded it a "cynical ploy" that will not help the hundreds of thousands of others set to be hit by the tax.

He said it showed the government is "fully aware of the needless pain this policy will bring.

"Huge numbers of families will still be uprooted and some of the most vulnerable people in society will be plunged even deeper into poverty.

"These exemptions are a crowd-pleasing attempt to deflect attention away from a chaotic policy that is set to cause misery for ordinary people."