if you voted for the Tories, you should feel personally responsible when you see homeless people on the streets ...

[aufaniae]

...once their policies start to bite.

They want to removing housing benefit for under 25s, many of whom have children. Just one of their policies which will drive people into homelessness.

I thought this was meant to be a civilised country. If the safety net is removed, many people including children will fall through it, some of them ending up on the streets.

How can anyone support that?

cinnamonut.

In fact I am not fully right wing either, I firmly believe we are very lucky to live in a country that has a safety net for people that fall on hard times, I just don't think people she expect the state and the tax payer to fund them and their children when they couldn't afford to have them in the first place .

In my early 20'a I was living in a houseshare and loving it, no way would I have expect to be receiving HB for my own place and no way would I have had any children because I couldn't afford it.

London- child benefit is a difficult one, i also agree that there is probably a better use for it, paying into the education system for example, every child would still benefit from it as schools etc would be better. I don't see why people should receive or expect this money from the government. And before people ask yes I do claim it for my DD, this money however goes straight into a savings account for that we can't touch - we will however not be receiving this benefit next year when the new rules come in - but that's a whole other debate.

you're talkin rot and such hyperbole doesn't add anything.
fwiw overall we are a civilized country esp with regard to health,social care and voluntary sector
food banks,social services,charities all trying to provide support to the needy

I'm describing my current situation which will be made even more dire if my dh & me don't both find 35 hr jobs by next octobers new UC system!

Pumpkin, of course I have already said I support temporary nemployment benefits, which could probably be more generous if we didnt just handout cash for giving birth!

But of course as some of you say, me & dh should have never had kids because he was on £17,000-a very good wage in my area and of course i should have taken into account he was going to be made redundant 7 years before it actually happened

So because i decided to have a family when dh was WORKING and now he isn't my kids should suffer.
You say i shouldn't take tax creds or hb or child benefit-so with £100 jsa a week between 6 people you expect me to live off that because i shouldn't have got pregnant at all ever.

bling my understanding is that child benefit won't be cut for everyone will it?

Just those that work hard etc

I do kind of agree in retrospect of the longterm unemployed having child after child but who are we to take money from childrens mouth, after all they didn't ask to be born and cannot feed themselves.

I do think child tax credits should be limited to two children, as should all the other benefits especially for those out of work long term-that would save a lot of money and to be fair £38 a week per child in tx is too much

No you shouldn't have had FOUR children you can't support. You should have stopped at one. Though to be honest having a baby at 19 when you have no qualifications seems like pretty poor decision making to me.

This is point I was trying to make pumpkin I think several people would not have several children if they knew they were not going to get paid for them.

Well i'm 28 now london, like i said at the time i had my first baby me & previous partner were very well off but we split up!
Splitting up was not on the cards

No london, you are the one who is really not getting it.

Most people on benefits are because their circumstances have changed

Up thread you said "People get given mortgages on the strength of their earning capacity, not on the amount of HB they are entitled too. The big difference is that people who get mortgages are taking the risk themselves, they aren't setting out in life expecting taxpayers to fund their choices.

I realise that in the past mortgages were given out too freely to people who were inevitably going to struggle to pay them back, but I still have more respect for people that took a risk than people who put their name on the council house list and then had children."

Many people on HB used to have mortgages. They took the risk you so admire and it didn't work out, because of unforeseen circumstances. If it's a risk there will always be some people it doesn't work out for, by definition.

I do not think i should be recieving benefits for all four, i think the benefits should stop at two.
But that wouldn't have stopped me having four as my dhs wages did us fine, yes we got a small amount towards hb but tbh the other benefits were all spare money we used to save for christmas and things like furniture, we didn't actually need to benefits but we applied for them because we were entitled to them.

pumpkin do you mind me asking what provisions you have made for you dc?

Do they have trust funds/saving accounts?
Do you and your dp have life insurance?

You didn't need them but got them because you were entitled!!!!

You bloody cheeky mare! Stop havin dc get off your arse and work for a living!!

No we didn't have life insurance.
But they do have savings accounts that a substantial amount of money has been put into.

Fairy my partner worked

The idea that people should abort their children if they are on benefits is totally abhorrent.

Fairy do you mind me asking what salary do you earn and how many dc do you have?

32k a year my dp 20k and have 2dc

Fairyjen

How would you deal with it if you and your DH split up, you got care of the kids. Then one of your DCs ended up in an accident which meant you had to leave your job to look after them. Then your insurance wouldn't pay out because as far as they were concerned you chose to leave your job. So your mortgage remained unpaid. You have no income. You apply for other jobs which you can fit around care of your child but can't get one. If you apply for HB, they will pay for the interest on your mortgage if you can make it through 13 weeks with no help.

Do you apply for it, do you?

Or do you use your savings to pay your mortgage? For how long? What about when they are at the point of running out?

Fairy if you had to see the conditions my dh worked in with no paid lunchbreak yoi would realise what he did to pay for his children!
12 hrs a day in a filthy, stinky factory, working nights fixing machines and doing manual labour-Off course if thats not getting off your arse then what is exactly.
Skilled or not he worked bloody hard so that i could stay at home and look after our children. He also supports my eldest and treats her as one of his own- her own father is a usless shit who has not bothered with her since she was 7mo!-he is rolling in it, and yet he don't pay for his own child-maybe people like him should lose their money ffs

Aufaniae, it was me that said that, not London.

Although I do very much agree with London's post at 19.43.

Well Fairy, if thats the case you don't earn enough to support your dc either.