To be agreeing with new conservative benefits proposal re alcohol etc

[Tigerthebreadroll]

They will cut benefits for people that haven't paid into the system and been unemployed for over 6 months (don't quote me on that number ) by 30 % and it will be given on a prepaid type card. Meaning it won't be accepted by betting shops, for alcohol or cigarettes. I feel that's right . Why should tax payers money be spent on funding cigarettes etc but I have no problem with funding the basics like food etc.
Thoughts?
Basically you will claim full benefits if you've worked and paid into the system. Should reduce generational unemployment hopefully

You’re right, that was my parents and all the other parents who were in the pubs with my parents most nights. Then there are the parents hanging around the local food banks where I live now who spend all their time off their heads buying cans at coop smoking vapes outside school while saying they can’t feed their kids. Sadly it’s far more common than your alleged scrimping to afford a single bottle of wine at a weekend.

Which "sense of entitlement" are you havering about?

Taking a UC top-up in a low-paid job is not demonstrating a "sense of entitlement". It's precisely what you are expected to do by the government in order to have a basic minimum income, the self-same government which permits employers to pay pathetic wages by subsidising with UC in the first place.

It would need to go hand in hand with disability reform. Or everyone would even more claim too disabled.
i think 5yrs paying in before benefits makee sense.
However then morally they need to

• stop pushing up pension age
• make jobs available for teens and people who want them!

my dc seems mildly asd/adhd but with such competition for jobs and pretty crap education locally i cant see her getting a job. All customers service is out.

There arent even shop jobs really to get work experience

Not a tax loophole. Until 2020 under EU rules education cannot be taxed with VAT as education is deemed a merit good. This is ideological. Labour hate private schools and private thinking. Thank God private schools are protected by the ECHR.

Tell you what, those unskilled basic job employees will be employment royalty when AI takes all the jobs that don’t need to be done by a human.

Told that many people who get given things-as in vitamins, books, vouchers for "healthy" stuff sell them and use the money to buy alcohol or whatever anyway, so not sure how much difference it'll make.
6 months maybe used to be long enough to find a job, but there's so few nowadays that I know well-qualified people with excellent CVs struggling to get work, so I don't think that's right.

Sure they will!

You very much remind me of the person I described further upthread

So much this. All the people currently in remote, desk-based 'thinky' roles are the ones in for a shock. Just because they're more likely to neck a bottle of red than a can of cider won't make them any better than anyone else in the benefits queue.

To anyone longing for a Tory government, you have worryingly short memories. The myriad ways in which they have fucked up this country are too extensive to list. Plus, they used Covid to enrich themselves and their mates. Michelle Mone, Matt Hancock’s pub landlord and God knows how many others either became millionaires or added to the millions that they already had. Where’s the outrage about that gone?

The EU offered to delay Brexit because of the major upheavals caused by Covid. They gave the government an out. Did they take it? Of course not! Johnson used blamed the inevitable shitshow that arose from Brexit on Covid. They’re still claiming that they had no choice but to spend billions of pounds on PPE from abroad, through dubious suppliers… when we had British producers of PPE telling anyone that would listen that they had offered to provide PPE at cost but, after being continually blanked by the government, ended up selling it abroad. The tory government pocketed hundreds of millions, if not billions, through covid… gave out massive loans to non-existent companies… but, yeah, let’s on focus on the other end of the spectrum.

…and while I’m here… Has anyone found out who the hell Charlotte Owen is, yet? I only ask, coz Johnson gave her 29 year old arse a life peerage, which means that any time she rocks up to the House of Lords, she gets paid nigh on four hundred quid, just for turning up. There she can scoff subsidised Michelin star level food and drink at subsidised bars. Just wondering what qualified her for the peerage and how many others are in there for no apparent reason. But, yes, let’s focus on the benefit claimants. Nothing to see here…

I have a genuine question for those opposed to this idea - how would you bring the benefits bill down?

The current expenditure on supporting benefits in the UK is unsustainable, that is a fact.

Arguments such as tax corporations more or tax the rich are mechanisms that can be implemented but won't rebalance the problem. The welfare bill is in itself unsustainable at it's current level and needs to be brought under control. It needs to be reduced and it's going to be painful to do it whatever is implemented.

So genuinely interested in what posters opposed to this idea would do instead?

I'm not for or against this proposal but there does need to be serious action in tackling this problem.

Please don't come at me with whatabouttery arguements relating to other areas of public spending. That doesn't address benefit spending which we as a country need to have a serious conversation about.

So what would you do about benefits to bring the bill down?

I haven’t read the full thread but my main issue is the fact that in the media I saw some compare it to systems in Germany and other countries . However the difference in those European countries is that people who have worked and paid enough in taxes start off on 2/3 of their former salary for the first 6 months of unemployment .

Why can we not adopt that here too?

Because it’s disgusting someone can work for decades putting in tax and taking very little out then lose their job and be left with £400-500 a month to pay their mortgage and food and other bills. Because yes that is the UC rate you get as a single with no dependents. You will get more if you pay rent but often not enough to cover the full rent.

So my point is in these countries I assume they can afford to pay less to those who haven’t paid in enough NI, because their starting rate is so much higher.

We are already paying tiny amounts to certain people so it can’t get any lower really for some groups.

Reinstate the child benefit cap. Why are we paying people to have 8 kids?

What makes you think there are so many of them out there? It's harder than you might imagine to get and stay on benefits. You're talking as though vast droves of people are turning round the the DWP and saying 'Nah, can't be arsed working' and still getting awarded benefits. It doesn't work that way.

You don't generally get your housing fully covered. Shelter did research recently where only 1.9% of eligible rent was covered

Oh, I've really heard it all now. 😂😂😂

I’d do exactly what the government is doing. Focus first on the million under 25s who have no jobs. Incentivise employers to provide apprenticeships and training schemes. Create a generation that expects to work. Then I’d get rid of the triple lock because 55% of the benefit bill is pensions.

We are the only country in Europe that taxes education.

Presumably you feel as strongly about the “separate issue” ie the shit deal that SEND children get in the UK, a growing category that now includes a cohort of children whose parents scraped together the fees for smaller classes, but can’t stretch to another 20%? Personally I’d prioritize fixing the “alternative” before hoofing any vulnerable DC towards it, but maybe sticking it to toffs is more important if you’re a bit of a tit. 🤷‍♀️

I think point the OP was making is that a government that enjoys agitating class war in their core voters can’t really complain when their non-voters reciprocate in kind.

And it seems the maths is on their side: half of all households take out more in services than they pay in tax, and a third of all adults pay no income tax at all. It’s easy to be profligate with someone else’s money - just ask any leftist.

It's a ridiculous proposal because it will cost more to implement than it will save.

Like I say, I don’t have particularly strong opinions on VAT on private schools. Maybe there was an ideological element to it, although a quick google search shows it does seem to have raised revenue as intended: www.parallelparliament.co.uk/question/HL3141/private-education-vat

But all the evidence suggests the reforms the Conservatives are touting today won’t do what they are intended to do: the evidence from Australia suggests they won’t encourage people back into work, and there’s plenty of evidence to suggest they’ll put additional strain on our already struggling public services, costing the tax payer money.

Policy that doesn’t achieve its intended aims is bad policy. Once upon a time, the Conservatives were considered to be the party most capable of making pragmatic, competent policy decisions. This kind of knee jerk, ideological populism suggests otherwise.

I can't imagine it's that hard for police databases to be linked to DWP ones?

I run a voluntary group, we are desperate for volunteers, we got lots of DoE students join temporarily, but really hard to recruit long term adult volunteers. I know lots of other similar groups in same position, some have even had to close due to lack of volunteers.

Glad you can see the funny side of £32 billion in tax payers money having to top up the wages of people who can't afford to house and keep themselves because their wages are so low in relation to the cost of living.
Its nothing to do with feeling entitled to a high wage, it's the simple necessity of being able to sustain oneself, which requires income of a certain level.

You cant have it both ways either people are paid enough to live without having givernment top ups
Or you pay more in govrenment top ups to subdise low wages .

@HareBrewery

I have a genuine question for those opposed to this idea - how would you bring the benefits bill down?

I wouldn't.

The current expenditure on supporting benefits in the UK is unsustainable, that is a fact

No, it is not a "fact". It's an ideologically motivated falsehood pushed by the already extortionately wealthy and their business stripping wealth out of the UK economy, aided and abetted by their media-owning, similarly wealthy and right-leaning chums.

The UK still spends a smaller proportion of GDP on Welfare than similar countries, and the actual payments themselves are smaller than in similar countries.

"We can't afford this", and "unsustainable" are both completely baseless tropes, intended to do nothing but deflect from what is really at the root of the financial death-spiral of the UK, and pin the blame on people who are often the subject of ire anyway from those ignorant and stupid enough to not see the wool being pulled over their eyes in the first place.

Rent controls, not constantly reassessing people for pip and getting it right the first time, not the third time. Some did a calculation recently that pip tribunals cost at least £450 million per year