Welfare spending to rise by £73.2bn to £406.2bn

[topicalaffair]

Over the next five years, the OBR is forecasting that UK welfare spending will rise by £73.2bn to £406.2bn.

How does everyone feel about this? I’m livid because I pay lots of tax. I don’t mind paying tax to maintain a civilised society - but this? This is surely taking the piss and will result in weaker and weaker services as the amount of £ available reduces day by day.

YANBU - it’s totally deranged. The every growing uk population can’t function effectively on such a benefits for all basis.

YABU - this welfare spending bill is truly representative of need.

My DW is in that category and she's physically broken working the hours she does but she keeps going but there will come a time she won't be able too.

Exactly, and before the usual suspects start saying 'well, just get a second job then' brigade rock up - that doesn't work. Because if you have a second job, your original employer will still demand total flexibility from you - or they won't give you any hours, and then you're back to square one.

If you want everyone who can to work - and I agree we do - then you have to make it possible. Everyone has a part to play in that, employers more than anyone else. But they don't want to, because it would cost them money.

Until workers are considered as important as profits, we'll get nowhere.

Hopefully you aren’t in accounts/any role that requires attention to detail - I stated she pats more than the people the other poster was complaining about

This is actually an amazing point and touched upon in a DWP report from the year 2000 - "whatever happened to light work"
There are no light duties jobs any more it's all or nothing

@Cappuccinodelight
Do you include disabled children in your paradise of doctors for pain management and basic food and “occupational therapy” that involves gardening and so on (do you know what occupational therapy actually is? - evidently you do not).
Let me help you out..
Occupational therapy involves such things as helping stroke patients (you could be one tomorrow for all you know) to eat and drink, to stand to walk and to talk. The assistance can include aids to dress oneself, wash oneself, stand, walk.
Specialist chairs to keep people with spasticity or paraplegic conditions, severe cognitive impairment.
Food and feeding equipment for people who need tube feeding of various sorts.
Do you think a bit of paracetamol is enough for someone who cannot swallow properly or needs eyegaze technology to communicate?
Have you ever seen or met someone with cerebral palsy, severe stroke, severe heart conditions, progressive disease like MS or Motor neuron disease - you know people who lose abilities over time and become “useless “ to your vision?
And as for their healthy caring partners or parents - and siblings - are they all in your prisons too, oh sorry I mean dormitories?
Or is it put all the dementia patients, stroke patients, violently mentally ill, disabled babies and young children all together in the harmonious world of a bed (not even a medically adjustable bed and not even with a wheelchair!!) do some people don’t ever ever face a 1p tax rise…?

Those shrieking ‘tax the billionaires’ are missing the point. We can’t be a country of very very high unemployment and benefit claimants propped up by a handful of highly taxed billionaires. This is not a valid or sustainable model.

What about diabetics who NEED sugar to live?
What about disabled people who need to pay their carer, their cleaner, the gardener etc. doubt they will take vouchers neither will their landlord.
The voucher model doesn’t work. Stop pushing it.

I do agree however the child cap should of stayed at 2. It’s ludicrous.

A lot of working people claim benefits. Would you stop that?

Exactly, lots of people on threads about the cost of uni, just say breezily "they'll just have to get a job" as if there are enough pt jobs for an entire city of uni students and all the people who live there. And even if there are if they are zero hours it doesnt guarantee a constant income.

My first job (in the late 1990s) was Saturday and Sunday, time and a half for Sunday. Now most retail contracts will just be any 3 days out of 7 , or any 5 days of 7, no separate weekend vacancies.

DDs job in the summer was 2-3 4 hour shifts, in a shop she could get to by train in half an hour. A couple of days they asked for staff to volunteer to work at a different store, not especially far away, but not easy to get to on public transport. And then got shirty that no one wanted to spend eg 3 hours travel (1.5 hrs each way) and extra money, for a 4 hour shift!

A consequence of the NMW.

@Cappuccinodelight calm down, Jacob Rees-Mogg.

Why did you quote me then?

Unless they work full time or close to it, and unless they had genuine disability preventing work, then yes.

and those who have allergies, food intolerances, ARFID etc?

What about disabled who can only work part time?
Or people in zero hour contracts who are not offered full time hours?

So true. "Light" duties used to be paid less, but with NMW, they have to be paid the same as "heavy" duties. And often the "Light duties" were "Nice to haves" for the organisation rather than essential, so the first to be dropped. Especially with the increase in employers NIC, etc.

And.. do you have the vaguest idea of that cost?
Do you know how much ANY of those cost?
A carer/PA to care for a person 1-1 for an hour.
A feeding pump?
A gastrostomy (operation)?
A basic wheelchair?
An electric wheelchair?
A hoist (portable)?
Incontinence pads?
Ceiling hoists?
Widened doors for electric wheelchairs to access?
Suction machines?
Suction catheters?
Eyegaze? - or any AAC
Helmet when necessary for maintaining head control after certain situations and medical conditions?
Slings?
Education for disabled children who have that legal right but no legal right to work? (Even if living in your dorms)
Medically necessary special food (liquid form as I’m sure you won’t have a clue what I mean)? Even one bottle, let alone a day’s supply?

Now you - and several others want “NO out of work benefits for under 25s”. Are you including DLA and PIP and Carer’s Allowance for their parents who have to give up full time employment?

? I have said those that need medical help should receive it.
It also helps the individual to integrate into the larger community. Win wn all round.

What if they care for a disabled child?

His exact circumstances will be unique. I don’t know them all, just like I don’t know the full details of any other disabled people’s qualification, job or employment status and recognise that due to that it’s not appropriate for me to start making any judgements. That’s the point I’m making as this type of thread seems to always evolve into judging everyone disabled by one person that a certain poster knows who can work so that means all disabled people should be able to. Some workplaces are not open to reasonable adjustments, some are but colleague those needing adjustments are not happy about it and so on. It’s not straightforward all I’m saying is I have an open mind and wouldn’t assume it’s possible for everyone with a disability to work.

@Exhausteddog I also worked through uni as did DH but I was able to work 1 weekend day (often Sunday which was time & a half) & 1 afternoon. I had flexibility etc

My nephew cannot find a job alongside his studies because they want too many hours & expect short notice.

It sounds like you want to give up on them due to cost.

They receive medical help but not other luxuries.

The UK have has structural issues for decades. GDP per capita put the UK @ 21st. Definitely isn't a stat to be proud of. The UK is in steady decline if current course is continued.All the current problems will get bigger if this continues

Housing costs have created a "have/have nots" society. Blair increased immigration but didn't put a housing plan in place so the cost of housing increases was a known "downside". Developers and landlords are making money from UK government paying rents.

The older population were wooed by governments because they vote and their expectations for pension, care costs, NHS, free travel & medications are not reasonable. I have an elderly neighbour who has no direct relations so not worried about inheritance but cannot spend her money, however objected strenuously to not getting Winter fuel allowance.

Due to successive government policies youth work is practically impossible. The days of independents small companies having Sat staff are long gone which means the youth have no work experience..hence sending them all off to Uni, irrespective of academic ability. Meaning their salaries post Uni are lower due to repayments. There are industries that need UK workers, such as construction but they can't get UK workers. Historically workers started younger through summer jobs etc which then opened doors for them.

There is a section of society who can live a reasonable life by being on benefits/pip. It's foolish & naive to say this isn't the case. The criteria for claiming disability could be tightened up.

Employee/company legislation should be reduced for smaller/start up companies. The UK doesn't innovate because its simply too difficult to get a business off the ground. There needs to be incubator legislation to help companies develop.

@topicalaffair
Im a perfectly healthy and intelligent and accomplished adult - I can’t work full time because I have a profoundly disabled child.
I am one of several million unpaid carers.
Whats your plan for me?
I could outearn many many others in the UK - except I can’t any longer because of my daughter’s needs/lack of care for children like her such that full time work would be remotely feasible.

Just medical help, but no life beyond that.
I take it you will be offering assisted dying in these dorms too?