"Bedroom tax" rebel MP, Andrew George MP, has said, 'I told you so' after an analysis by the Department for Work and Pensions showed nearly 60 per cent of the 550,000 tenants affected were in rent arrears and only one in 20 had been able to move to a smaller home.

After the party announced they would end their support for the highly controversial bedroom tax in its present form, Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has rejected a claim of hypocrisy, saying it was not abandoning its support for the policy entirely.

Mr George said he had spoken out against the bedroom tax, and voted against it, arguing that poorer families had as much right to a stable family home as the better off.

He has also brought forward proposals in his Affordable Homes Bill to negate the worst effects of the regulations.

Mr George said, “The report findings of the Department for Work and Pensions are no surprise. I take no pleasure in saying “I told you so”.

“I look forward to working with my Liberal Democrat colleagues in making the case for new and fairer rules, seeking to get them in place during this Parliament.

"But, if we cannot convince our Conservative coalition partners during the last year of the Parliament, I look forward seeing to our commitment to these new reforms in our 2015 manifesto.”