Grant Shapps defends 'bedroom tax' by saying his children share a room Mr Shapps described the changes as a "common-sense reform." "It is wrong to leave people out in the cold with effectively no roof over their heads because the taxpayer is paying for rooms which aren't in use," he told Sky News. It's just a common-sense reform which in the end will help house more people. Mr Shapps, the MP for Welwyn Hatfield, added: "People share rooms quite commonly - my boys share a room." It comes as a Coalition minister clashed with church leaders who have branded the Government's benefits changes "unjust." The Baptist Union of Great Britain, the Methodist Church, the United Reformed Church and the Church of Scotland have sent a report to all MPs and said that poor people will pay a "disproportionate price" because of the Government measures. However, Steve Webb, the Pensions Minister, said there is "nothing in what the churches are saying" and insisted that the Government is protecting "the most vulnerable." Paul Morrison, public issues policy adviser at the Methodist Church, told the BBC that the benefit changes are not fair to the UK's poorest people. Our feeling is that these benefit changes are a symptom of an understanding of people in poverty in the United Kingdom that is just wrong. It is an understanding of people that they somehow deserve their poverty, that they are somehow lesser, that they are not valued. The churches believe that they are valued and we believe that they should be treated much more fairly than they are being. Mr Morrison added: "Whatever problems the country faced it wasn't [the poor] that caused it and shouldn't be them that pay for it." The reason why cuts to benefits and services to the poorest and most vulnerable in society are acceptable is that we have come to believe that the poorest and most vulnerable are in some way deserving of their fate, and that is straightforwardly not true. Mr Webb told BBC Radio 5 Live that the Coalition has a "battle" to get the UK's finances back under control. He said: "Whenever we've made a change, yes we've had to save money, and there's nothing in what the churches are saying, and I speak as a member of my local church, there's nothing in what they're saying that helps us with the battle to we've got in getting the nation's finances in balance. But what we're trying to do is protect the most vulnerable, and very often when we make changes, we exempt particular groups to protect them. Council tax benefit will also be replaced tomorrow by a new system run by local authorities but with 10 per cent less funding. Anti-poverty campaigners say around 2.4 million poor families face an average £138 a year rise in their bills, with nearly two million having to pay for the first time. Working-age benefits and tax credits will rise by a below-inflation 1 per cent from the start of the tax year on April 6 - the start of a three-year cap that represents a real-terms cut. Two days later, disability living allowance begins to be replaced by the personal independence payment - which charities say will remove support from many in real need. And later in the month, trials begin of a £500-a-week cap on any household's benefits in four London boroughs.