Cut benefits before increasing council tax

I am no miser.

Why is someone who has metal illness more worthy of a brand new car on lease though the mobility scheme then any other person?

You would be highly unlikely to get pip for social anxiety especially a mild form which you can just work through. You may not realise it but what you are describing is very mild anxiety. Anxiety disorder covers agoraphobia, panic disorder, ocd, ptsd, selective mutism. There is no pip criteria for going red from talking to someone

Well, to echo you: I don't think you need UC as you're perfectly capable of working. You just need to work more....

See how difficult it gets when you start highlighting specific groups as the "reason" the Welfare Budget is "too high".

State pensions account for half the Welfare budget. Removing the triple lock would reduce Welfare spending by £5bn-£10bn over the next five years. Seems like a good enough place to start as any, no.

People lying to get benefits and steal ‘your’ tax money is a right wing myth made up to get you to hate the disadvantaged of society. The fact is, we do not pay nearly enough into the system for those with disabilities to live a comfortable and dignified life and you are privileged to be in a position where you can earn money to pay for your lifestyle. The least you can do is offer some of that up to the less fortunate you miser.

Is the person with epilepsy the driver or is the car for their carer to drive them around?
If the epilepsy is controlled enough they can drive then they shouldn't be claiming anything surely? I have epilepsy which has been controlled for many years but even in the years it wasn't and I couldn't drive I still didn't claim anything I just got on with life. Never even occurred to me I might be disabled in any way.

How many workers have experienced traumatic personal lives, attempted suicides but carry on in automatic pilot. Why, because they know they would lose their house and everything.

MH is experienced by everyone to some degree but to succumb to it is only an option for the wealthy or those able to rely on benefits. I speak from experience as I have witnessed harrowing examples. I find this so upsetting.

I have. in fact I still do and as such I don't get on well in jobs, and I've tried and tried but they have on numerous occasions threatened to ruin or end my life due to it.

I had no choice but to persevere. Now I am freelance and it's much better, but I still need benefits to top up my income.

I could probably be on PIP but I'm not, I'm on UC.

The problem with council tax is the bands bear little relation to today’s values. OP lives in a fairly normal house and is band F. There are £700k houses that are band G paying £4k a year. Meanwhile most of the houses on our London suburban road in a low tax borough are worth about £2m but are band E, £1200 council tax a year.

So if they double the rates for bands G and H, you’ll get £700k houses paying £8k p.a. tax and £2m houses paying £1200 pa. Grossly unfair.

So what you are saying is that working people should work harder and harder to fund the enormous number of people claiming benefits?
You may well be genuine, but at what point do you want working people to be broken?
Does your husband work long hours?

I agree. We are band F, as are a lot of the houses in the surrounding area even though they probably shouldn’t be. All because some idiot councillor in the 70s thought we were a pretty area and a potentially desirable holiday destination. But we couldn’t afford to buy a studio flat in London for the sale price of our family home. Plus we don’t get the amazing public services Londoner enjoy. Our local bus service has been cancelled. The village GP surgery closed and amalgamated in a hub in a larger village. The bin collections have been reduced. There are potholes everywhere that never get fixed. And people are on their knees financially because small local businesses are being eviscerated. This will bankrupt people.

Well, we're talking about completely non-tangible things here so we can't really pin it down.

I suppose I do question the validity of it to a degree. I remember having really, really bad anxiety growing up, they used to call it 'social anxiety'. I couldn't even speak to people without going red.

But I left home as a young adult and simply had no choice but to push through. It worked like exposure therapy.

I don't know how great it is to say 'okay you can just have this money and work less'

I don't know why that's more valid either than saying that to someone like me, a mother working part-time to properly raise children.

If you are crippled by anxiety you can still work, and it is too open to abuse. So I think if we have to cut benefits, it should be for that.

You chose a house you could barely afford, no one chooses a disability…….

You work hard for satisfaction and to fund your own lifestyle don't you?

Wow...the ignorance on this thread is insane.

From what I've seen in the job I do the vast majority of people on benefits work full time - in over half of the cases we see both adults in the house are working full time - and yet they do not earn enough to live, so they are topped up by benefits.

It's incredibly selfish to sit and say that those who are working full time and just scraping by should have to suffer more simply because you don't want to have to suffer at all.

Benefit fraud makes up less than 1% of benefit claimants - but the rich people who run the press keep convincing the middle classes that people on benefits are the issue.

Honestly - all of you need to do some research and stop blaming the poor, who already have nothing, and start looking at the super rich who continually benefit whilst vilifying the very people they're taking from.
How people constantly fall for it is beyond me. Open your eyes.

Oh FFS, another benefit bashing thread.

Because those of us claiming are living the life of Riley didn’t you know? Foreign holidays, sports cars, latest tech…

Honestly, you have no clue. If my benefits were reduced, we would be in serious difficulty. Our income barely covers the essentials (my husband works). But that’s ok is it? Because we are poor and deserve to be poorer?

Yabu.
London council tax is well below the national average. It’s about time things were evened up. Band F in Westminster is only £1500/yr, whereas Band F in my deprived rural area is £3500/yr.

The Government are Fabians check out fabian society the are trying to follow the one world government playbook make everyone poor rather like communism. They care not for wealth (apart for themselves). Blair started the push, and is behind starmer. The country allowing open borders, treating them well and with leniency...unsettling the population... its being played out the same across europe, australia, canada and, until Trump, in USA. Remember Klaus Scwab of the World Economic Forum quoted as saying "you will own nothing, but be happy" google it all. This is why we are gradually unable to afford housing, have to cut back endlessly. Homeowners will lose houses , farms close etc watch lots of news channels hunt around on these topics. Get following it all. Are we happy enough yet....sadly not i fear !!

Oh FFS, another benefit bashing thread.

Because those of us claiming are living the life of Riley didn’t you know? Foreign holidays, sports cars, latest tech…

Honestly, you have no clue. If my benefits were reduced, we would be in serious difficulty. Our income barely covers the essentials (my husband works). But that’s ok is it? Because we are poor and deserve to be poorer?

mumsnet….

The only place where every single person who is claiming benefits is deserving of them.

No one has an issue with genuine people in need of benefits. But I know of at least two people who have a brand new car on lease through the mobility scheme one has metal health issues and one has epilepsy. How is that right? Why is it for brand new cars too? This scheme is being abused.