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Ministers will spend more appealing a judgment against the Bedroom Tax than ­obeying the judges would cost.

The Appeal Court decided that women who have panic rooms in their homes should be exempt.

But Tory Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith will spend taxpayers’ money fighting the decision in the Supreme Court.

He also wants to overturn the Appeal Court’s ruling that disabled children’s parents should not pay.

The tax sees social housing tenants charged for each room the Tory Government decides is “spare”.

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Exempting abuse victims who have a room where they can escape a violent partner would cost £200,000.

Labour’s Owen Smith , Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, said: “Just the Supreme Court session itself will cost the Government more in legal fees than the £200,000 needed to exempt domestic abuse victims affected.

"If the Tories had an ounce of decency they could have stood by the decision and exempted the two groups.

“Instead they are instructing expensive lawyers to fight in the Supreme Court for the right to drive people further into poverty.”

(Image: D Legakis Photography/Athena)

Paul Rutherford , of Clunderwen, Pembs, who needs a spare room to care for disabled grandson Warren, 13, said: “I’m mad angry they’re appealing.

“I would like David Cameron or Iain Duncan Smith to explain why they are spending taxpayers’ cash on an appeal.”

The Sunday People has led the fight against the tax, which costs hundreds of thousands of ­families about £14 a week.

Ministers were forced to exempt foster carers and some Forces families after its introduction in 2013.

And they backtracked on plans to tax the families of the most severely disabled children.

Read more:Cowardly IDS ducks MPs' furious questions on "rotten" Bedroom Tax

Richard Kramer of deaf-blind charity Sense said: “Parents need extra space to store disability-related equipment or accommodate carers. This is not ‘under-occupying’. It is a necessity.”

The tax has driven many to despair. Stephanie Bottrill, 53, took her life after being forced to give up her home in Solihull.

Mr Smith added: “The Sunday People has been brilliant in showing just how nasty the tax is.

“The court didn’t just say it was illegal to hit disabled children’s families with the tax. They said the same about victims of domestic violence.”

The MP called an emergency debate – which Mr Duncan Smith left to his junior Justin Tomlinson.

Mr Smith said: “Instead of wasting money on lawyers, what they should do is find a conscience, listen to the public and scrap the tax today.”

Voice of the Sunday People: IDS is wrong, wrong and wrong again

Little by little, brick by brick, the ­Bedroom Tax is being dismantled.

And for three years the Sunday People has been doing the heavy lifting as we campaigned against it.

It should have not taken a court ­ruling to exempt families with disabled children needing constant care, and women in fear of their lives.

That should have been a matter of plain common sense and basic ­compassion. But Iain Duncan Smith has neither.

The Work and Pensions Secretary persists with a policy which was so badly thought out he never realised taxing foster parents would mean they could not foster children.

The Sunday People soon put him right on that one.

He did not understand that taxing parents because their sons and daughters were risking their lives in the hell of Helmand would be unacceptable.

We put him right on that, too.

Yet now the Secretary of State for Stubbornness intends to appeal against this latest decision. Only a complete prat would do that.