Suella Braverman - comments on cutting welfare benefits.

[stayingpositiveifpossible]

I have just heard the interview where Suella bemoaned the alleged 'culture of dependency' - and the way in which she referred to 'people on benefits'.

It was pointed out that she failed to mention the vast numbers of people who are in paid work and claiming U.C because they can't manage.

I personally was appalled at her comments and feel they risk stereotyping a great many people. I feel the facts should be presented much more clearly. Can we have some transparence about the numbers of people who are in work and going to food banks, for example?

Tories gonna Tory, unfortunately

Well your gonna get asked .

Why have a third child when you struggle with 2 .

It feels like it's 2010 again. Expect lots of nonsense about friends of friends who sit on their arse all day and magically get benefits well above the actually existing benefits cap. Ignore people like my own disabled friends who had to fight like hell to get any money at all. Rinse and repeat.

Off the top of my head the benefit fraud rate is about 3%. That's percentage of benefit overpayments which are fraud. Another 2% is due to error — either claimant error or process error.

Most of that is within UC. The fraud rate for PIP is tiny, something like less than a third of a percent.

It's a tiny minority. 95% of benefit payments are correct and legitimate. 97% are either correct, or wrong because of a genuine error. That's a pretty good number to me.

The truth is, you get people trying to game the system at every level. And in reality it's probably about 3%, whatever level you look at. Wealthy self-employed people fiddle their taxes. Lucrative government contracts are handed out to a minister's mates. Multinational companies jiggle things around to avoid paying tax. Some people get paid part of their salaries in bonuses to avoid a heavier tax liability.

Maybe the benefits system needs a few better administrative checks and balances, or a new IT system to cut that 3% a bit. It's not a reason to start attacking the system itself. Suella Braverman knows this, but she is singing for the cheap seats.

@hattie43 Frankly by having a third child she's probably doing us all a favour. www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/01/22/depopulation-timebomb-facing-west-explode/

But only if she can afford it .
I'm playing devils advocate but for people hating benefits this will grate when they make the decision to stick at two because they can't afford a third .
That's the nun of benefits I think when people see others relying on benefits when they use their own finances as a guage of what they can and cannot afford .

Well exactly.

You don’t get benefits for more than 2 children.

Do disabled people routinely die in their forties or before in this country?

According to the LeDeR report 2020, 50% of the deaths of people with learning disabilities between 18 - 74 were medically avoidable. Causes include respiratory conditions, coronary artery disease, epilepsy, cancer, etc. Even before Covid, women with a learning disability had a life expectancy 27 years less than “normal women”, and it’s 22 years less for men with LD compared to “normal”men. Factors include poor medical care and diet!

That poster's 'mate' needs to start being honest and declaring their increased income to the school, which needs to fill in the paperwork properly.

Can't stand cheats and liars, myself, who use their own or their pals' cheating and lying to justify hammering the working poor with their silly narrative tales of supposed benefit luxury lifestyles.

Pupil Premium continues after the correct paperwork is done. It continues until the end of the stage of education.

It was so predictable wasn't it. When the Conservative party members are the ones that vote for the new leader how do you ensure they support you? Of course, demonise people on benefits.

These people have no idea. Claiming benefits is humiliating. You are made to feel a much lesser person. I would really like it if those people moaning about the benefit scroungers had to live as a single parent with a disabled child who will never live independently.

How much would it cost the government if they had to provide carers for all these people who are currently cared for by unpaid carers? I know the answer would probably be that they just wouldn't provide them but I get so angry with these privileged and selfish people who have no empathy for anyone who is not like them.

I don't deny there is benefit fraud but I would think that pales into insignificance when compared to tax evasion (i.e. fraud) and also tax avoidance. I was listening to someone talking about how footballers managed to avoid tax by using a complicated string of companies. All legal apparently but hey let's go after "benefit scroungers" instead.

I really despair of some people's lack of empathy and humanity at times.

The archaeological evidence has revealed some very touching stories of Neanderthals with healed fractures who clearly survived severe trauma, and had to have had help to eat, drink and move around. At least one is thought to have had a congenital disability which would have required a lot of care for survivival of infancy.

Burials also show great care was taken, with grave and funerary deposits of flowers and minerals.

They loved each other, and seemed to treasure their bonds.

Pupil Premium continues after the correct paperwork is done. It continues until the end of the stage of education.

You can ask for it to be discontinued, as should happen when pupils move school or are otherwise 'off rolled' or for other reasons.

from gov.uk
Pupils who are eligible for free school meals, or have been eligible in the past 6 years (including eligible children of families with no recourse to public funds)
the person in question is therefore doing nothing wrong

I'm not bothered about this at all - its not a personal budget for the child. The school will be making good use of it

My point is that if 'the mate' is so bothered by it, she can request a change.

I agree it goes to school and rightly so as it's a demographic marker of its catchment.

This is why talk of a universal basic income become relevant and is going to become more so especially in view of the cost of living crisis.

We need to stop the vilifying of people who are reliant on benefits. Despite universal credit being an in work benefit so many people still just hear the word benefit and assume lazy, scrounger, a drain on the economy etc. The fact is the vast majority of families and households are now reliant on some sort of benefit despite working. This does not make them lazy people, blame low wages, the cost of property both purchased or rental, the ever increasing cost of childcare and now add to that energy, fuel and food too!!

The real drain on our economy is tax loopholes for the super rich, for the corporations who operate in this country and yet do not pay corporation tax. Far to much magnification is put on the benefits system and not enough put on companies and others who make vast profits and can afford to pay their bit but don’t, are they not the takers or indeed the scroungers?….just because it’s some faceless corporate entity operating in some backward legal loophole makes it no less culpable for the same amount of admonishment!

The amount of tax lost in legal loopholes and legal tax avoidance is much more of a loss to the country in economic terms that could ever be comparable to the small amount percentage wise of people who abuse the benefits system.

Want to fund the NHS adequately, the police, the GP’s, Dentists, Councils, Education/schools and many more. Create a fair tax system that can’t be avoided, because average Joe/Jane struggling to feed their families, pay for childcare, afford fuel to get to work, food to put in the fridge and the energy to cook it can’t avoid it, so why the hell should anybody else!!!!

Anyway sorry for derailing the thread.

Suella Braverman is an idiot.

Despite the number of posters on here who seem to know people who are earning thousands each month from benefits, it is relatively rare.

I think tax fraud and avoidance costs us, the taxpayer, far far more, and is much less enforced , and also seemingly unimportant to the Daily Mail readers.

As a pp says, most people on UC (apart from those who are disabled), work and the real issue in this country is now the amount of in-work poverty.

The way the govt treats disabled people and the poor is just inhumane.

It should be discontinued when the child leaves the school, but it shouldn’t when they don’t.

There’s also nothing to say the mate wants it stopped, just that the PP thinks it should.

Exactly

and people seem to be acting as if the pupil gets the money…they don’t

its extra resources for the school for them to use as they see fit

PP is also given depending on the parents employment…not necessarily due to income

This is why talk of a universal basic income become relevant and is going to become more so especially in view of the cost of living crisis.

Yes, @Lillygolightly - it's going to be the best way forward through the quagmire that is the UK benefits (including in work benefits) system and the morass that is education funding.

I hope it gets the national debate it deserves soon. I do notice though that the idea send some MNers into a rather angry zone. I'm just saying it deserves a decent conversation.

Suella has some very bloodthirsty policies which combined with the whole “Priti Patel” approach to life and her relative obscurity will ensure that she is never elected. The doors that way Suella >>>>>>

Do we find out who is backing each candidate?

It's disgusting. I've never claimed any benefits but I can see that this is so wrong.
Low salaries are being subsidised in the U.K. by the government.
This is wrong on all levels, the companies who are making gigantic profits ( a few large supermarkets for example) are hiring people on very very low wages, the government will then top this up via benefits. Why can't the companies be held responsible for actually paying a reasonable living salary in the first instance using their own massive profits.

Instead, the government want to blame those claiming benefits.
Of course there are people dependent on benefits and of course there are people not bothering to work and would rather survive on benefits than ever get back to work, but sort the biggest problems out with corporations not paying their staff enough and then go after those that are simply lazy.