No benefits for under 25s?

[noddyholder]

How the hell will this work?

[niceguy2]

It won't. It'll make the bedroom tax look like an organised and well thought through policy.

Of course we shouldn't be funding workshy youngster's but to cut benefits totally for everyone under 25 regardless of situation?? That's just bonkers.

Right now it's like we're being asked to vote for dumb or dumber.

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

So people who have been to college or uni and can't get a job do what? return to education? even in they have a good degree?

[viperslast]

The obvious flaw here is that they can't leave children in poverty so under 25s with dc will get benefits thereby actively encouraging people to have children just for benefits - something that is currently largely more myth than reality will become very very real.

[Catkinsthecatinthehat]

It's madness. Someone could have worked since 16, paid nearly 9 years tax and national insurance, and would be denied help.

I've worked all my adult life, with a couple of short periods of unemployment, one of them in my early twenties. HB and dole kept a roof over my head and ensured I could eat for a couple of months. I don't think I'm atypical, and in fact I know very few people who haven't ever had a period of unemployment.

[TheABC]

Seems really woolly - something to throw to the party faithful, rather than a proper policy. Plus, it's a headline (always sceptical of broadbrush statements in the press), designed to get you to read it. In practice, I can't see the Tories taking away under 25 benefits without a massive outcry or legal challenge. In practice, I can see them making benefits more conditional - and messing it up as usual. We do need better training and apprenticeship schemes, but cutting benefits will not exactly help with that.

I sometimes think the only way we will ever get away from this toxic and depressing scrounger debate is if we make everything contribution based, with workable exceptions for certain circumstances, such as disability. Thus, reminding people (especially politicians) that unemployment aid is not charity, but an insurance policy, run by the state. Scrounging should not even come into it. And yes, if you are fresh out of education, you will not have had the chance to build up contributions and therefore have special circumstances, for say the first 18 months.

[noddyholder]

They plan to start with housing benefit I think. They spoke about this before and assumed anyone under 25 could live with parents. And definitely back home after uni as no benefits of rent paid if out of work.I for one think they will do it And I really can't see this student loan low repayments threshold lasting either nor the writing it off after so many years

[meditrina]

It was all terribly non-specific

The only bit that was definite was commissioning a review that is to be published before the end of the year. And the only 'policy' trailed is an end to automaticity - which doesn't really amount to much.

[breadandbutterfly]

The Telegraph AND The Mail readers both hate it.

Can't see this going anywhere fast. Or ever. It's lunatic. It would make the riots of 2011 look like a walk in the park, if every under-25-year-old out of work was supposed to survive on air and live on the street, unless they had family or friends willing/able to support them potentially for 7 years from 18 (when child benefit runs out and parents' legal responsibility ends) to 25.

Clearly the purpose of this policy is to leave us with an underclass so desperate they will work for anything just to avoid starvation.

The Tories - the party that make the Victorian policies on welfare look generous and open-hearted. At least they had the Workhouse.

[stephrick]

My son is 20 and flatshares, he works for min wage, £4.98. He is a farmer and works 45 hours a week. Great when in season but has to cut hours. in the winter.4 months of the year he struggles to pay rent. He can't work anywhere else as we are seasonal rural.

[dialpforpizza]

Is anyone else a leetle bit pleased the lib dems blocked the no housing benefit plan for under 25s in the coalition?

It seems the Tories were just dipping their toe in the water with that one.

[ShadeofViolet]

It will also surely bring down the value of a university education even further, if more people are going just because there is nothing else to do. Are the government going to make universities offer more courses and spaces?

I am assuming the plan is that people stay with parents until they are 25. But it doesn't work in practice.

[ttosca]

This isn't going to 'work' as it's not supposed to work.

The aim is simply to dismantle the welfare state.

[NotYoMomma]

I wouldnt have wanted to live with my parents at 25! I was married to someone younger than me :D both working since 16 and I had a degree.

plus my father votes Tory so I couldnt watxh question time without a huge row

its ridiculous

[stephrick]

I would like to shoot the lib dems, but it seems they have done it themselves. No tuition fees my ass.

[viperslast]

If people are supposed to live at home or work won't the state just end up paying for them anyway in many cases? I.e. where the parents get support or live in council accommodation? Or will they become black hole people who are neither dependent nor supported by the state in times of need?! Urgh tbh it's just the kind of rubbish that I can see happening after all the rest of the idiocy that has gone on so far!

[northernlurker]

Two years ago I employed somebody under the age of 25 as an apprentice. They had wanted to work since leaving school. They had a couple of temporary contracts and a work placement at a charity shop. In between the contracts they claimed jobseekers. After a year at the apprentice rate they got a permanent job in our organisation and then moved on after 6 months to a higher banded job, they now earn a good wage.

Without benefits that person would have been a burden on tehir parents through no fault of their own. They were desperate to work and when given a chance, made the most of it.

That's the reality of being under 25 and looking for work in the UK today. Something the government appear to know feck all about.

[dialpforpizza]

No, tuition fees aren't going to be forgotten in a long time. Thankful for small mercies though. If they'd got the no HB for under 25s through, they'd have had the lib dems even tighter by the short and curlies, tip of the ice berg.

[ArbitraryUsername]

The Tories - the party that make the Victorian policies on welfare look generous and open-hearted. At least they had the Workhouse.

Sadly, I think the people behind this policy would think this was a compliment.

[northernlurker]

Ever since yesterday's 'I don't feed my children value bread' debacle I've had running through my head

'You'll never live like common people
You'll never do what common people do
You'll never fail like common people
You'll never watch your life slide out of view.....'

The tories are just such bastards. How can anybody EVER vote for them? I truly will never get that.

[Jellykat]

So, presumably Cameron and his cronies, are going to plough the extra millions into the education system, to allow for all these thousands and thousands of extra students forced to continue studying are they?
.. and it won't affect the students who genuinely want to further their education in any way whatsoever, will it?

The worrying thing is, i heard an interview today, where the interviewee stated a lot of youngsters would turn to crime in order to get money to survive.

All just another pile of bollocks from David, IMO.

[ArbitraryUsername]

The mere thought of universities being full of people forced into ever further study simply because they're under 25 is utterly ridiculous. Are we really going to insist that 23 year olds with masters degrees they didn't want start PhDs they have no desire to undertake? And where exactly are they going to get the money to pay the fees/actually eat, etc?

[breadandbutterfly]

I suspect the Tories wish to pish more and more young people onto 'apprenticeships'. This sounds good - until you look at them, and realise they are nothing of the kind. I browse jobs and now regularly see what until a year or two ago would have been bog-standard full-time jobs, paid at normal, liveable-on wages, offered as Administration Apprenticeship or whatever - and offered at £2.65 per hour.

This applies across a broad swathe of employment areas - if you click on these adverts, there is clearly no difference between these and the same proper job without the word 'apprentice' added - the same duties, hours, responsibilities. But a third of the pay. And no security of employment.

Of course, this won't only impact on under 25s - as 'proper' jobs are replaced with these so-called 'apprenticeships', the unemployment rate rises for everyone else.

[breadandbutterfly]

push

[ArbitraryUsername]

They've got to find a way to get around the minimum wage, which the Tories didn't want in the first place. Because they know people would be very angry is they got rid of it. So you get all these ways to make it optional.

£2.65 an hour is unbelievable as a wage. I got £2.80 an hour working in bloody McDonalds aged 16, and I look back and wonder why I thought it was worth it!

[Morebiscuitsplease]

Don't think it has been thought through. I know of many young people who struggle to find work, well educated, hard working young people. Frankly I would rather have higher taxes and a safety net. It is called compassion. Yet again it shows how out of touch the Tories are, or are they beginning to believe their own propaganda of all unemployed being work shy and feckless?