To be cheesed off with Universal Credit entry fees?

[MaturingCheeseball]

I know it’s been done before, but…

I thought I’d like to visit Chatsworth House with (teenage) dd. The cost is £33 each PLUS parking at £7.50. So £73.50.

Then I saw the universal credit/pension credit/pip etc price. THREE POUNDS. And free parking! So £6.00 for two adults (age 17+).

I do not have 12 times as much money as someone on these benefits. I doubt many people do. I’m not begrudging the disadvantaged a day out, but come on! The price differential is ludicrous.

When I saw the £73 price I just decided we couldn’t go, and so be it. But upon seeing the potential for a £6 entry, it made me feel mugged off.

I like what I have seen in some EU countries, 25/6 years and under you have free entry to important historical & cultural sites like the the Colosseum in Rome, the Louvre in Paris or the Acropolis in Athens. This is regardless of income or employment status. Maybe National Trust & Co could do similar to encourage people from different walks of life to discover different places.

(I know many museums are free to everyone.)

RSPB already do free entry for under 25s in an effort to encourage more young people in.

Absolutely. The demonising of people on benefits is awful. There are some truly disgusting and heartless things being said to and about various vulnerable groups at the moment and it needs to be stopped. Niemoller and all that. I wish you and your DH luck and love in facing what is to come.

@CrosorbledSo you believe that all benefit claimants don’t want to work? So those born with severe disabilities which render them unfit for any kind of work, fall under this category, do they? I had a career & a life altering disability when my husband died suddenly. Leaving DD & I zero choice but to claim. I worked and claimed a top up for years until my disability worsened, now I cannot do any form of work as I cannot stay conscious long enough. But yeah, I just “don’t want to work”…… 😐

Yanbu, but predictably you’ll get the bleeding hearts club accusing you of denying their poor children a day out. That sort of price is beyond a lot of people, but we’re supposed to not complain about that because it hurts the feelings of those who benefit from reduced charges. No doubt the high price is to subsidise those who get in for next to nothing….

Thankfully the UK doesn't do "the EU", so that won't happen here.

So then they either have a child under 2, have a severe disability or are a carer to someone with a severe disability. If you have a child between 3 and 12 you have to work 30 hours or you cannot claim. The 10% that work 30 hours is a historical figure as they do not publish that. The rules are not the same now as they once were.

Not National Trust you say that one. Then my apologies, I've clearly got no point to make.

It’s not impossible I know someone paying less than 800 for a four bed council house. In a town where a one bed apartment can go for 900 and a two bed house can be 1300-1400.

I know loads of middle aged empty nesters who were given three bedroom houses years ago and are still rattling around them. It’s very very difficult for a young family to get a council home these days, it makes a lot more sense feeling a bit resentful towards people in council homes than it does UC claimants.
As soon as you stop being eligible for UC you don’t get it but council housed people can live there cheaply for life.

When the cheap days out for UC claimaints was last in the news I had a few pissy comments from boomers about “scrounging” boomers who were given a super cheap life long rental home from the council decades ago. A council house is the ultimate handout.

Request alternative provision from the LA.

Having a look IPSEA, SOSSEN and Contact’s websites will help you.

You can claim. People may decide, for a multitude of reasons, not to apply and that is a perfectly valid decision, but that is a choice.

I didn’t say you ‘sounded horrible’.

Your original post certainly sounds like you blame others for you not being able to afford it.

But can’t you see OP isn’t necessarily saying UC/PIP claimants don’t deserve the discounts, but it shouldn’t be at the expense of denying others the opportunity to give their children the same experience. Clearly the obscene entry fee is to subsidise their offer, so in fact Chatsworth House aren’t subsidising, it’s the rest of the paying public who are. Just because someone isn’t claiming UC, it doesn’t mean they’re rolling about in money fgs.

If the earnings are below £7.5k ish (the threshold to get FSM) then maybe. But usually UC will allow SAHM's to claim based on their partner's income. There are no work requirements. But a single mum will be made to work and then called a scrounger for getting possibly less UC than her married counterpart. Tory ideology (the driving force behind UC and the cause of all the hate that's been generated) at its finest.

I think that’s rather disingenuous. National Trust membership for a family is very reasonable. It equates to £14 a month for two adults and your children, or for a single parent it’s £9 and if you are a member parking is free. We joined over 30 years ago when the kids were toddlers as it meant cheap days out in London and the surrounding areas when we didn’t have much money.

I thought you needed to have paid in with NI from work?

Because disability of self or a family member is a major reason for being entitled to universal credit. they are very much overlapping issues. People whose lives have been devastated resent the implication that they are an undeserving scrounger who is living the high life off the backs of others.

Irrelevant anyway as Chatsworth House is not National Trust…

Yep.

The only reason I claim UC is due to the fact that I have a disabled child and can't work.

Not true at all. The aim is to get people working 30 hours but many do not and they still get paid the benefits as long as they show they are vaguely looking for 30 hours. To say if you don't work 30 hours you cannot claim is ridiculous. They don't just leave people to starve !

You are such an empathetic soul, it warms the cockles of the heart!

She has children that have left home, all in their 30’s and 40’s now. She rents a room out to a student which apparently is permitted. She receives a state pension and works part time, and gets a free bus pass so no travel costs. I think her total rent was around £940 last time I discussed it with her.

I think you have to earn the equivalent of 30 hours at minimum wage rate. So if you are in higher paid work you can work fewer hours.

How do asylum seekers, ex prisoners and migrants fit into your plan? What did you think of opening the routes for the Ukrainian people? Do you not believe that we need people to be able to have children? Do you agree with child poverty? Or do you think that we should have better controls so we can dictate wages? I'm genuinely interested.

Chatsworth’s entry fee hasn’t changed much since the offer began, according to the bbc article I linked earlier since they brought it in then it’s actually gone down by £2.

The discount scheme is not the reason for the high general entry fee.