Goodbye Spongers!

This is an interesting question and long overdue. My understanding is that most people are in favour of the £25k benefits cap...but I really feel it does not go far enough and the coalition should use this opportunity to really grapple with an out of control system. One of largest costs in terms of benefit payments is housing benefit. Therefore, to mitigate the cost to the taxpayer I propose the Coalition should introduce a licencing scheme to have children. I understand a similar scheme has been piloted in Austria. So, how would it be implemented? Well, from birth your fertility would be 'frozen' i.e. your capability of producing offspring would be severely restricted by the use of drugs at the same time you are given vitamin K at birth, but, for the purposes of recreation, you would still be able to mate with your partner (or anyone/species) but of course you would not be able to produce children. However, should you wish to have children you would need to apply to a panel of experts, such as but not limited to, doctors, social workers etc.. you get the picture. The panel's decision based upon your suitability to raise effective (not defective) future UK Citizens would then lead to your fertility being reinstated. This is a draft and I still have much more detail to thrash out in the bierkeller......

Rent capping would just create another artificial market ... not what you want at all.

What is rally needed is somebody to slay NIMBYism and dispose of all the red tape associated with planning appplications/approvals for new houses. There's plenty of space but you can't build there because it greenbelt or the local baby boomers object to it ruining their idyllic village.

Perhaps then we could try building houses (I mean family houses not more crappy flats).

It's a good question lal. I don't think anyone has an answer yet, although sadly I think whomovedmychocolate's response might end up being closest to the truth

well, yes, lal123. But even those slums are expensive.

Round my way, (London overspill) it's all 'luxury apartments' as far as the eye can see - even the flats build practically on top of the railway line. And they are all cost a fortune, as lots of people moved out of London during the recession to somewhere more 'affordable', with the result that there also aren't enough school places to go round.

I think Gideon's going to tell us he means 'floating hulks' and to rejoice because it will bring shipbuilding back to Tyneside, or some such. Or perhaps the prisoners will build them...

How on earth did you come to that conclusion from my posts, whomovedmychocolate? That's just bizarre. Rent capping might be an idea though.

Onagar

I'm not talking about chucking people out on the street. They clearly need alternative cheaper accomodation. But benefits is about providing a minimum safety net, not comfort or an ideal lifestyle.

People seem to forget that the money for these benefits comes out of somebody else's pocket. The whole of the public sector comes out of the private sector's pocket. The more the company has to pay the workers the less competitive they are and the more chance they go bankrupt or offshore all the jobs.

No of course not lal123, we'll keep a few in the cellars to make up the beds obviously

Won't the fact that "poorer" people will have to move out of London and other expensive cities just make the gap between those cities and the rest of the Country even wider?? WHat about all those who provide public services to the rich folk living in London - will we just bus them in daily from the slums?

ZephirineDrouhin - but they'd get their mortgages paid by private tenants too!!!!

I don't villify the tenants - there's bog all wrong with being poor.

Are you saying that there should be some sort of housing grab where houses are co-opted into government control because the general public don't want to pay for private owners to have the cost of supplying the houses covered?

I believe that's called adverse possession and I can't see any landlord continuing to rent property again if that happened. They'd just dispose of them and then where are you proposing to put all the tenants?

Siasl, I think it's a bad situation too, but come on and tell us how it would work in practical terms.

Like this?

"Kids, Daddy lost his job today. Wrap up warmly as we have to go live on the street in some other area that has low rents until we can get a flat there. We can't stay in this area as we count as 'poor' now"

"we can't justify paying £60000/year for one family"

Well we can justify that much for MPs families.

whomovedmychocolate, of course HB landlords are not necessarily rogues - I should think a very small minority are. But the fact remains that they do get their mortgages paid by the state and are thus the real beneficiaries of the housing benefit system, and it seems to me that if you are going to vilify the tenants you should vilify the landlords too. Of course you shouldn't do either, but it is absurd and wasteful that the state should be paying their mortgages, and is a key part of the picture of wild and damaging house price inflation that we have seen over the last 15 years.

Ah now you see I agree with that Siasi. Frankly I think the housing market needs to wipe 30% off everyone's houses and start again and it'd be hunky dory. But right now it's la la land.

In terms of rental higher housing prices are not necessarily the problem. A lot of the people who rent would probably never buy anyway, and not just because of high house prices, but because they do not have a high enough or reliable enough long term income to do so, or do not wish to.

In a lot of European countries there is not such an obsession with being an owner occupier and it works. We've just failed to learn how to do it over here.

Whomovedmychocolate

I'm insulting myself then since I'm a landlord aswell!

I'm an Aussie and rent out my house over there. The problem is both countries suffer from a fanaticism about owning property and that "higher house prices" = GOOD and "lower house prices" = BAD. If the UK doesn't wean itself of the addiction then I don't see how the children of today will get get out of the debt trap we are in.

Siasi, I agree the costs are dreadful but a) those cases are very rare and b) there should be affordable housing available for people who need it. Remember council houses?

Chibi I agree with you completly. It's low wages and high cost of housing that causes the real problems.

Ms bucket. I'll just have a cup of tea with one sweetener. Thanks.

"Hopefully be setting a maxmium rent of £500/week or the 30th percentile of rental costs in the area, we can create a negative feedback loop that might drive down these rents."

Hopefully and might. Useful words those. If the HB was forced down then I'd be surprised if rent would actually follow, would save the landlords having to say "no DSS" is all. In an ideal world, yes, but as someone on HB and who is currently (desperately) searching for a home I can already tell you that the amount of HB you get rarely matches the market price as it is.

Cinnamontoast

I'm sure it would feel bad but we can't justify paying £60000/year in HB for one family when this could help for 5+ families. Getting £60k/year rent is like a salary of £92k or four times the national average. The money just goes to the landlord anyway!

How many working taxpayers would like to live in a house with a rental of £5k/month for free? I would.

And another thing, Siasi, the onus is on the council to house them - the responsibility can't just be passed on to another area. And in that area no doubt there would already be waiting lists for housing. Do they get to queue jump?

Siasi - scumlords - my that's an emotive term.

Given the choice between having private tenants in a house and HB tenants the vast majority of landlords would prefer private tenants.

Yes there are rogues. I agree those rogues cause localised pressures by offering homes to people for whom it's a last resort, but these are the minority and to tar all landlords with the same brush is frankly quite insulting.

Incidentally, I think you'l find the taxable benefits are no longer available and in terms of offsetting rent against mortgage costs - unless there is a rising housing market this is a zero sum game.

Whomovedmychocolate

The housing benefit system is a scam that has been utilized by scumlords to obtain higher than market rentals for properties. The tenants don't benefit. The wider effect has been to push up private rental costs by creating an artificial floor in many areas of London, raising the cost of living for everybody. So HB has to be reduced to allow rentals more generally to fall.

Hopefully be setting a maxmium rent of £500/week or the 30th percentile of rental costs in the area, we can create a negative feedback loop that might drive down these rents.

BTL speculators already get unfair taxable benefits through lower CGT and being able to offset rent vs mortgage costs.

Ok, Siasi, so if you lose your job and live in London you'd be happy to be shipped out of town by the council? What if you'd been born there and grown up there and were part of the community? How would you feel to be sent to a place where you knew no one? And your children would be uprooted and forced to go to another school?

Cinnanmontoast

what about them living somewhere further out of London at say £1000/month and commuting like most people to work.

The other £4000/month could then be used for people who actually needed help.

Can I just point out that landlords do have to buy and maintain the property. They don't get housing benefit payments from tenants having plucked the house out of the air. Also HB tenants may not pay other bills or be able to afford to take care of the property (e.g inadequate heating causing damp etc.).

So it's not really fair to point the finger and say they are just massively profiteering.

The fun thing about people gloating like the OP is that if you make a mental note of their name and wait a bit you're likely to see "oh my god I've been made redundant and ... I can't live on that!!!it's not fair!!!"

We're seeing it already with the child benefit thing "oh no I meant the poor should have less not ME!!"

:o

And where exactly would you like them to go, Blosi? Shall we build a poorhouse for them?