Benefit cuts will cost the economy.

[MistressoftheDarkSide]

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/apr/29/labours-benefit-cuts-will-cost-uk-economy-billions-charity-says

Interesting article which repeats what some of us have been saying about the likely consequences of the proposed measures, including increased pressure on services.

In what world is less than £400 a month equal to a workers full month wage.

Thats the going rate for basic UC for over 25s under 25s is even more abysmal.

The ignorance on here is astounding.

oh but they "GeT FReee DEntiSTs"

yes, when there are no NHS dentists anywhere anymore.

Oof. Was just entertaining myself on the "Demonic possession" thread for a little light relief - not something I believe in in the Hollywood form / religious sense - however, checking out some of the new posts on here I might have to revise that opinion.

Perhaps those so invested in the idea that people only count in terms of monetary contribution would care to spell out what should happen to people who for any reason cannot make that contribution? Go on, I dare you......

I think I could do with some demonic possession for light relief myself. 😒

Why not turn the question round and make it useful? Instead of cutting benefits, why not come up with some great ideas to raise an extra £5 billion a year, every year, to prove it is affordable for benefits to stay as they are?

Then you can lay this issue to rest once and for all.

Those that can work, but choose not to are already sanctioned for not doing so.

Still waiting for the pitchfork mafia to come clean about their feelings towards the economically disadvantaged and inactive, and spell out what they want to see happen to them.

Oh get real, loads of people are getting away with it

Still waiting for you to suggest how we find the extra £5 billion year on year?

Are they? Any evidence?

The system is in place to prevent people committing fraud, people will always find a way around the rules if they're desperate to. But this notion that there is a whole raft of people not working (and able) as a lifestyle is nonsense.

And if they are, I can't imagine they're getting very far on their tiny amounts of standard rate, sanctioned UC.

It’s common knowledge that there are, if you are not aware of this you must be residing under a rock

The government could stop spaffing money up the wall on taking disabled people with medical diagnoses from a doctor to court all the time. That would save a lot. The same with employing private companies to make a complete hash of their assessment of whether someone with a diagnosed illness is actually ill or not.

The amount of money that gets wasted trying to prove people diagnosed with terminal cancer are charlatans comes out of your wages, you know.

a lot of things with no evidence seem to be common knowledge on mumsnet

This is exactly the thing.

People are in uproar at cut backs but there isn’t a money tree, and there aren’t so many people making realistic suggestions of where the extra money can come from. As lots of people have pointed out wages are shocking in this country for lots of people so increasing tax just isn’t a viable option, there is no magic solution here.

You are quite defensive about such matters, why is that?

because I think that the idea that there are people out there being paid thousands to stay at home through choice is absolute nonsense, with no evidence to support it. And people yapping about things that aren't happening is irritating to me.

If you are actually interested in having a look at the evidence then you can look a the government info on this.

In FYE 2024 £7.5bn in benefits was overpaid due to fraud.

Yes, I have looked at the statistics.

That figure you've quoted doesn't relate to people who are claiming when they could be working though? It means all fraud. So people claiming when they have no eligibility, people overpaid due to run ons of legacy benefits, people saying they don't live with a partner but do, people working cash in hand but also claiming benefits and a whole raft of other things

Yes, and you can see that’s a huge amount of money lost to fraud, yes? Hence the need to tighten the rules across the board to try and prevent so much of this occurring.

It is a lot of money lost to fraud yes. But to sweep that under the 'people are choosing not to work' umbrella is disingenuous.

A lot of that figure will be from mistakes that the DWP have made themselves and have to recover (rightly), particularly since the total switchover to UC. Of course a lot will also be from people claiming incorrectly too. But the idea that people think you can just say to the DWP "I'm not going to work" and they'll say, "OK no worries, here's £xxxx a month to play with" is nonsense.

Regardless, the proposed cuts are to PIP...which has a 0% fraud rate and is nothing to do with employment.

It is 2% of all claims. That's a tiny proportion.

Also, again, there are no jobs. There are not enough jobs for those who want to work.

Cutting benefits is not going to save money. It is going to have a massive financial and social cost. Those unable to work are not going to suddenly recover, and the 2% of fraudsters who can work are not going to be able to find a job when there are half as many jobs as there are active job seekers, and they are up against people with a long history of work experience.

Instead, what will happen is people will starve, as proven the last time we tried something like this. People died. Suicide and self-harm rates will skyrocket, and crime, sex work, and drug use will skyrocket. The cost to the NHS, the police, and wider society will be immeasurable.

Now, forcing massive conglomerates like Tesco, Asda, Starbucks, and Amazon to pay the real living wage would not only save money by reducing the amount of UC paid out, but would also help grow the economy, as most of these businesses are foreign-owned.

It wouldn’t be irritating you if you were one of the many tax payers working in part to fund their lifestyles

It irritates me, and I've paid tax and worked full-time since I was 15 years old. What I don't do is read the Daily Fail or get my "news" from Twatter. Try it. You might learn something.

The thing is that a fraud rate for PIP is meaningless because it cannot be reliably measured.

The reason PIP is being focused on for proposed change is because there has been a significant increase in those claiming recently, the amount of those claiming literally doubled between 2021 and 2022, and a substantial amount of those claiming are claiming for mental health reasons. The stats showed something like 2 in 5 claimants last year were claiming under mental health. This is a UK specific problem hence the government realising that actually this is a symptom of how benefits work rather than a genuine rise, and so they have realised that actually there are now probably a lot of people claiming who shouldn’t be.

These changes are not aimed at taking money from the people who need a carer to get to the toilet and can’t cook themselves a meal.

And how do we know the rise in mental health issues is caused by the benefits system and not by the total decimation of mental health services, early intervention services, and poor handling of COVID?