So David Cameron (we are in it together) really wants to fuck up our children then!

[belleMarie]

How can anyone be taken in by this muppet? whilst him, Sam (and her £1000 pound frocks) and kiddies eat good, sleep good, shit good - we're basically screwed?

His hate for the poor/have-not is staggering and apart from a a couple of grunts here and there, this man is unstoppable.

Cameron to axe housing benefits for feckless under 25s as he declares war on welfare culture
Prime Minister gives exclusive interview to the MAIL ON SUNDAY
Reveals housing benefit will be scrapped for under 25s, who'll be forced to live with their parents
Dole money will be stopped for those who refuse to find work
Mr Cameron shares his views on Euro2012, Jimmy Carr, and what really happened when he left his daughter in the pub

Radical new welfare cuts targeting feckless couples who have children and expect to live on state handouts will be proposed by David Cameron tomorrow.
His bold reforms could also lead to 380,000 people under 25 being stripped of housing benefits and forced to join the growing number of young adults who still live with their parents.
In a keynote speech likely to inflame tensions with his deputy Nick Clegg, the Prime Minister will call for a debate on the welfare state, focusing on reforms to ?working-age benefits?.

Among the ideas being considered by Mr Cameron are:
Scrapping most of the £1.8 billion in housing benefits paid to 380,000 under-25s, worth an average £90 a week, forcing them to support themselves or live with their parents.
Stopping the £70-a-week dole money for the unemployed who refuse to try hard to find work or produce a CV.
Forcing a hardcore of workshy claimants to do community work after two years on the dole ? or lose all their benefits.
Well-placed sources say Ministers are also taking a fresh look at plans to limit child benefit to a couple?s first three children, although Mr Cameron is not expected to address this issue directly tomorrow.
Speaking exclusively to The Mail on Sunday, Mr Cameron said: ?We are sending out strange signals on working, housing and fa8milies.?

He argued that some young people lived with their parents, worked hard, planned ahead and got nothing from the State, while others left home, made little effort to seek work and got a home paid for by the benefits system.

?A couple will say, ?We are engaged, we are both living with our parents, we are trying to save before we get married and have children and be good parents. But how does it make us feel, Mr Cameron, when we see someone who goes ahead, has the child, gets the council home, gets the help that isn?t available to us???
?One is trapped in a welfare system that discourages them from working, the other is doing the right thing and getting no help.?
Asked if he would take action against large families who were paid large sums in benefits, he replied:
?This is a difficult area but it is right to pose questions about it. At the moment the system encourages people not to work and have children, but we should help people to work AND have children.?
His plan to axe housing benefit for the under-25s will have exemptions for special cases, such as domestic violence, but he said: ?We are spending nearly £2 billion on housing benefit for under-25s ? a fortune. We need a bigger debate about welfare and what we expect of people. The system currently sends the signal you are better off not working, or working less.?
He also favours new curbs on the Jobseeker?s Allowance, demanding the unemployed do more to find work. He said: ?We aren?t even asking them, ?Have you got a CV ready to go?? ? A small minority of hardcore workshy, an estimated 5,000 to 10,000, could be forced to take part in community work if they fail or refuse to find work or training after two years.
The Prime Minister wants to show he is committed to radical policies, but his speech could exacerbate strains with Coalition partner Mr Clegg, whose Lib Dems oppose drastic welfare cuts.
It follows the row over plans to revive O-levels and will fuel rumours the Coalition could end long before the 2015 Election. ?As leader of a political party as well as running a Coalition it?s right sometimes to make a more broad-ranging speech,? said Mr Cameron.
A Government official said: ?Decent folk are fed up with the increasing abuse of the welfare system. Responsible people who work damned hard, often on low incomes, to support themselves, are sick and tired of seeing others do nothing and live off the state.
?Labour threw ever greater sums of money at the problem and made it worse. If we want to encourage responsibility we have be bold enough to tackle these issues. We suspect some of those who refuse point-blank to seek work are working on the black market and claiming fraudulently.?
But a Labour source said: ?It is easy for rich Tories with big houses to have grown-up children at home while they find their feet. It?s different if you live in a tiny council flat and your daughter is a single mum.? Ministers said curbs on housing benefit for the under-25s, had helped slash the welfare bill in Germany and Holland

"Labour did fuck all to help the housing crisis, they made it far worse by spending billions on HB thus pushing up rents."

Rents went up during the housing boom in the 80's. Rents did not increase during labours time in office. People made money on housing and lending was such that everyone could buy a second house and be a landlord, coupled with the attitude that morals could go out of the window as long as there were profits being made.

Thatcher cut investment in housing and wanted home ownership, then people wised up that what they were doing was investing in their care home fees.

The problem that we have today are identical to the ones that we had at the turn of the 19th Century.

Not enough adequetly paid stable employment.

And there were rent controls until John Major's government. They should be reintroduced.

It's the landlords who are doing best out of the recession. And still putting up the rents. The v small 2 bedroomed terraced house next to me has just gone up from £800 to £900 a month between tenancies. No repairs, not even a lick of paint.

Lurking, and agree with all posters who think it is a ridiculous idea to penalise the majority of honest benefit claimants to punish the very small minority who play the system.

However I have to chip in and say it's not all landlord's fault - we rent out our house because we had to relocate and couldn't sell it. We are now forced to sell at less than we bought it for because the banks have put up our mortgage repayments, the tenants can't afford to pay more rent because of changes to their benefits so the rent we get does not cover the mortgage repayments. However despite giving notice our tenants are refusing to move out because they cannot afford to rent anywhere else. The council have advised them that if they leave at the end of the notice period they will consider them voluntarily homeless and won't house them unless they are legally evicted. I feel for the tenants, I am angry at the council, and the bank, and furious at this government for so many reasons. It is all a big mess and this government's policies are ultimately screwing us all over.

the system needs to differentiate between someone who has worked then been made redundant and someone who has never worked.

Obviously children leaving care etc. need special support but this is not the majority & the system should not support the average person leaving home funded by the work of others.

the last 10 years have been an illusion where we spent money we didnt have. now the days of cheap credit are over & we need to rebalance the books.

Ignoring all the other issues, this isn't saying to people we understand your problems and want to help by doing X,Y and Z. It's demonising people, telling them they are the problem, they are worthless, destroying their self esteem even further then cutting them loose. Not exactly a recipe for empowering people to move forward.

excellent news, the entitlement culture needs to join the real world

Does this mean me and my DP who are both under 25 would have to move back in my our parents with our DS if we lost our jobs and needed help?

yoyo - HB supports people who work too. This could prevent someone finding a job in another area if they can't afford rent. It could trap poor kids at home in an area of high unemployment.

only 1 in 8 housing benefit claimants are unemployed

This is what I mean Warren would you have to have moved back in with parents if you hit bad times? I don't understand how he's going to do it!

frothy - but someone moving to start a job is different than someone wanting to leaving home.

you cannot pay HB for all when only some of those are moving to start a job.

(my DP has 2 relatives who chose not to work for 10 and 20 years)

I think this policy will "hopefully" encourage young people to THINK before making the wrong decisions. Having children too soon, not getting a decent education or some sort of job.

Housing should be there for people that really need it. The priority should be for old people unable to find work easily, families that have fallen on difficult times and have children, people that need extra support such as those with special needs.

There are no words to describe this government.

How can Cameron not be aware of how few jobs there actually are? It's all very well saying that these plans will tackle people who have a child under 25 just to get a nice flat for themselves, with plans to sponge off benefits for the rest of their lives , but I know lots of naice middle class young adults with good educations, who are very hard working and all that, who absolutely cannot get a job. It doesn't work to say 'well you are jolly well going to live with your parents until you pull your socks up'. There aren't enough jobs. It must feel so demoralising to be trying your hardest, to want to work, and when you get nowhere to be labelled feckless.

I'm sure there are people who do have babies simply to get their own place, but I'm also sure that a great number of young people get pregnant because their own family situations are completely dire and they are lonely and want something all of their own to love. I hate all this demonising of people. It might be a situation which desperately needs tackling, but not in this way. And there are also countless young people in abusive family situations who are going to be trapped for another 8 years with their families, putting their mental health at risk.....costing the NHS much more long term, etc. etc.

I agree that rent controls are needed. You only have to look at the thread in chat on when people bought their own houses (often in their early twenties for 20 or 30 thousand k), and see the sums there to understand how shat up the younger generation is.

There are so many things the Tories could be doing to improve things practically, things which don't just demonise the poor.

And I don't buy all this 'there is no money left, we have to cut welfare.' Why then is there money to overhaul G.C.S.E's and bring back O Levels? That will cost a fortune. Why all the talk about the reform of the House of Lords? We're supposed to have no money.

shat upon

Just wondering warren, if you did not have to move back, but neither would you get any benefits, where would you go?

Just wondering if there is an obvious answer really, I think I would try to stay with family, not necessarily parents, maybe grand parents...

There will be exemptions. People with children are already exempt from the single room restriction as are care leavers (although only until 22)
Young people becoming homeless will be exempt. However it is those in the 'grey area' I worry about. People who can't live with their family due to past abuse that was never documented, or people whose parents are elderly, ill or have mental health problems that mean sharing with adult children would be detrimental. People like I was who need a small LHA top up to live for a short time between jobs. It is a fucking awful idea and will lead to a lot of hardship, homelessness and attendant social problems - depression, drug abuse, theft.

seren

"What about the simple horrific unfairness of treating young people as tax-paying adults but then treating them like children when it suits you?"

Quite.

"I'm sure there are people who do have babies simply to get their own place, but I'm also sure that a great number of young people get pregnant because their own family situations are completely dire and they are lonely and want something all of their own to love."

Often those are the same people IME.

It is totally unworkable on many levels and I think it will fade away bedfore coming into policy.

This is what Cameron wants.
Cynically before the holiday season, he get's people talking about the feckless poor instead of keeping a focus on the tax evasion issue that brings in massive donations from donors!

on average you need to earn about £22k per year to pay more in tax than you use in services (be a net tax contritutor).

if you earn more than £22k you wont need HB.

I dont see what wrong with it. If you cant afford to rent your own place then you live at home or share costs with a few friends. Why should the state pay for what, for the majority, is a lifestyle choice of wanting their own place. Maybe our teen pregnancy rate would drop to that of other countries if no benefits were paid until over 25.

If you have spent two years on JSA and not taken any job then they do need to get tougher. Its not easy but there are jobs out there if you are not fussy.

Depends where you live and how much rents are, Yoyo. Average rent in London is now £1k a month, which is definitely not possible on a gross salary of £22k. You could move out and commute in but then you are talking between £1k and £4k a year on travel costs to be far enough out for housing to be cheaper, which is equally unaffordable. If you move out of the South East entirely, there are fewer jobs. And London and the South East does need workers on low wages to staff the supermarkets, drive the buses, clean the offices and so on.

HappyMum - what about people who have left care - who don't have parents? What about people whose parents are abusive? Or poor - the government is forcing council tenants to downsize once their children have left home, so they won't have a spare bedroom. What about people who got a job and left home, but are made redundant?