Education minister says children from less affluent backgrounds suffer because they do not have their own bedroom

Michael Gove appeared to set himself at odds with the "bedroom tax" on Thursday when he said children from less affluent backgrounds suffer at school because they do not have their own bedroom for homework.

The "bedroom tax", introduced in last year's welfare reform act, reduces housing benefit in certain circumstances if children are given separate bedrooms. Two children under the age of 16 of the same gender are expected to share a bedroom. Two children under the age of ten are expected to share regardless of their gender, according to guidelines issued by the National Housing Federation.

Speaking in support of planning changes allowing larger homes, Gove said at the Policy Exchange think tank: "My colleague Nick Boles has been making changes to the planning regime. These are changes which are social justice changes. Virginia Woolf wrote about A Room of One's Own and about the fact that throughout history, women did not have a chance to fulfil their potential because they did not have a room of their own in which to write.

"There are children, poor children, who do not have rooms of their own in which to do their homework, in which to achieve their full potential.

Nick Boles' planning reforms will make it easier for more homes of a larger size to be built. That's why when people oppose these planning reforms I think they are actually standing in the way of helping our children."