Benefits...following on from unfit parents thread...

[anais]

Well, who wants to start?

That's true as well sed- too many people lose sight of what the majority of people in this world actually survive one. I just used 35k as I think that's when the higher rate tax kicks in.

Some doses of reality from the Guardian today

www.guardian.co.uk/famine/story/0,12128,994506,00.html

ummm, forcibable adoption huh? Well its good to know that thinking has moved beyond this isn't it?

I really don't understand how people can tar all people on benfits with the same brush because they have read or met someone who makes their blood boil. Sounds a bit like someone I knew who became suspicious of all black people after being mugged by one.

A very intersting discussion that I was following on the other thread yesterday...A very very grey area. IMO Society should support those less fortunate, we have a moral duty to do so. I don't mind my taxes going towards those who need it But - benefit fraud needs clamping down on in a big way. It is that minority(?) that fuel bad feeling. I don't want to comment on the numbe r of children people should have on benefit (any attempt at a solution sounds too Nazi -like!)but We've made a choice on the size of our family v's our income so why shouldn't everybody?

I'm a middle incomer and have been hit very hard in the past few years - To be honest I couldn't afford to vote for Tony if their was a general election tomorrow .
I agree with the points that Princesspeahead made about the rich contributing to jobs in society. I would also like to add that many better off people use private education and private medicine thus reducing the burden on our education system and NHS whilst still contributing towards the cost!

I agree that the tax system hits those on 35K harder than on 150k, but that is mainly because of taxes other than income tax, specifically VAT, taxes on petrol, insurance etc, none of which bear any relation to what you earn. VAT particularly pisses me off, since we pay for it out of income that has already been taxed, but there you go.

I'll tell you what pisses me off about VAT PPH, that it is placed on sanitary products. Since when are tampons and sanitary pads a luxury??????

I think that women should not wear any for 6 months and then the govt can see what a luxury they are

Sonnet

I really don't want to get into a major battle about this, but if the consultants doing work partly in private hospitals didn't, but carried on doing it in NHS hospitals, wouldn't the time people waited for operations go down? I believe that the NHS is now going down the line of paying the private hospitals to do operations to reduce waiting times. So instead of getting the op done at cost, the charge to the NHS is the private hospitals charge, i.e. cost + hefty profit to private hospital and consultant.

This is not meant to be a dig at anyone with private health insurance / waiting for an op / or who is or lives with a consultant

Its just that I do not believe that private medicine "lifts the burden" from the NHS.

(Light blue touch paper and retire to safe distance..............)

Gumdrop, they would still need the theaters and also the nursing staff to do the ops and the beds for them to recover. And the nursing staff to make sure the recovery happens

These will be the nursing staff trained in the NHS and lured away by higher pay will they?

Why - now when education at university level (did not go - could not be bothered, maybe this should be degree level or something like that!) is not free should the consultants work for the NHS.

And Pie - how about next time we all have a free moment and are menstruating we go and sit on No10's doorstep - sure he will see what a luxury it is then!!

No, they are the nurses that we don't have enough of because of the low levels of pay and higly demanding job they are expected to do. They are the nurses that we don't have because they leave early (like my cousin) burned out by the stress of the job, the asaults and abuse that they get. They are the nurses that we cannot employ unless we take them from developing countries (whos need of them is far greater than ours). They are the nurses who don't exist because they have realise that if they have io get a degree to nurse they will get a degree in something else that will lead them to a job where they get better pay, easier hours and less chance of having a knife pulled on them (happened to my friend when she was working in a cardiac unit)

Hey I'm not saying that nurses don't leave the NHS for reasons other than money, all of which are valid. Its just that I'm not aware of any private hospitals which are teaching hospitals.

I could just be ignorant.......

Hope these nurses aren't having children since they are so poorly paid

No VAT on sanitary products any more (one of the things we can be satisfied about from this government, it's nice to have 1).

Personally, I'm proud to live in a country where we consider how much worse society would be if we didn't suppoprt those on low incomes. At least we are looking at the big picture on this one. Of course, that doesn't mean the detail is all correct.

And, frankly, I'd say anyone who can successfully afford all the things a kid needs (let alone wants) on income support is a miracle worker and should be praised not criticised.

So because you have trained in a teaching hospital you have to spend your whole life working in the NHS? When I went to university I don't remember being told that I would have to work for the public sector for the rest of my life to pay back the cost of my education. I do that by paying taxes and so do the medics. Why should nurses and doctors be the ones who have to pay back their training for the rest of their working lives while the rest of us are free to choose. (as it happens I am now a teacher in a comprehensive school, but I have worked in industry in the past)

Philippat, according to this VAT is still charged at 5%.

OK, all of you who are worried about the amount of benefit fraud: do you have any figures to back this up? Presumably if it "needs clamping down on in a big way" to quote someone earlier, it's a lot of money, right? And a lot of people? I sincerely doubt it (but am perfectly willing to be corrected). It is actually quite hard to get benefits in the UK and even if you do manage to jump through the necessary hoops, they're damn hard to live on. I agree with Tinker, the whole idea that there are lots of people living a life of luxury on oooh, a whole £80 a week or whatever it is (please do tell me if someone has accurate figures) is laughable. Most of us here couldn't contemplate how we'd manage on benefits alone, although I know some mumsnetters do.

It seems to me that there's a lot of talk on this thread of the 'deserving' and 'undeserving' poor but categorising need and the poor like this is dangerous IMO. That's what led to the workhouses IIRC.

Gumdrop, I agree with you about private health care but I won't say more here since I've already had that discussion on another thread.

PPH, VAT pisses me off too and I agree with you that refusing/reducing benefits to our hypothetical single mother on benefit with 4 kids "would be to punish the children...and just seriously increase child poverty, and that is no good for society from a moral point of view let alone a social point of view (poorer educated population, higher crime, poorer health etc)"

Winnie1, I nearly didn't join in either but I agree with your post too. No-one has yet convinced me that we're just too darn generous with our welfare system.

Some people might take the view that having children isn't a luxury which should only be available to those that can afford it, it's necessary for the survival of our species.

www, according to this benefit fraud amount to an estimated £2billion a year. And according to this the 2002 budget projected social security benefit as £113 billion. The later figure include working tax credit as they are classed as a welfare and pensioners. Interesting enough, according to the Telegraph anyway, 1 in 3 adults claim some sort of benefit. 6m families where there is a working adult included.

Us tax burdens are everywhere....

Ah, thanks pie, so it's about 2%? (based on govt. estimates) Which means that 98% are genuine. Interesting.

Also interesting transcript of a Panorama programme here about govt spend on advertising in general and on the crack down on benefit fraud campaign in particular towards the bottom of the page.

being a tax burden myself (and with a child who's a tax burden) the main problem with benefit fraud is that it is then assumed that everyone on benefits is cheating the system.

Tax avoidance is conservatively estimated to be 20 billion per year - some suggestions that it is 80 billion

Tax avoidance - Guardian article

And Jimjam it means that there is less money for those people who need it and should get more. 2 billion isn't as much as is cheated from the tax (and that is wrong) but it would still help to fund a hell of a lot of SALTs

Soupie...

"By having, say, one child that they can afford, they can invest everything in that one child and ensure his future is a little bit brighter and full of opportunity than theirs"

But that is the very reason I (speaking for myself) am on benefits. To be able to invest time in my children. It's not about how much money I have to spend on them. I am on benefits so I can be a sahm. And I am trying bloody hard to get off benefits - as I have been since I was first on them. I am in the process of starting a job talking to perverts on a sex line while my children sleep, and once I've moved out of the area I will childmind, and then hopefully I will finally be able to get off benefits.

Maybe I'm not typical, but I think there are very few people who claim benefits because they want to (except the benefit cheats, who claim and work). I am sick of everyone getting tarred with the smae brush because of a tiny minority.

I chose to have another child because I didn't want to have to put my life on hold. If I had the chance I would have more children.

PrincessPeahead makes some excellent points - you penalise people for being on benefits and it is the children who would suffer.

Winnie and www - well said.

Soupdragon - my comment about children being a privilege was not saying that they weren't, it was in reference to prufrock's comment:

"Somebody said in another thread that having children is an inbuilt need and a right - it's noty - it's a privalege, and one that we shoudl all have to work for."

Perhaps I should have emphasised the 'all have to work for bit'. I disagree. Of course children cost money but the logical conclusion of that argument is that 'the poor' shouldn't breed. I would have thought 'time (to be) invested in them ' was the thing that most people without work have plenty of.

I think Peter Hain's comments about higher taxation were welcome (and obviously hurriedly dismissed since it would scare off the middle Englander). Surely there needs to be some sort of mature debate about this now (not on here, I mean ). Saying the rich do pay more in tax is fairly obvious but there are some fairly obscene avoidance measures going on - that Guardian link earlier:

Rupert Murdoch's main British holding firm, Newscorp Investments, paid no net corporation tax in the UK throughout the Nineties and it is highly likely, although unconfirmed, that it still does not. Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group is based in the Caribbean, yet Virgin Rail has had £500m in public subsidy over the past year.

Also (posted this before but stil shocking):

Mohamed Al Fayed's estimated income for the last 5 years is £160 million but he pays just £240,000 per year tax. Being a higher rate tax payer is no guarantee of paying more tax.

Personally, I'd feel very rich on 35k never mind 150k!

Tinker Al Fayed doesn't pay any tax now- the IR ended his agreement so he sodded off to Switzerland.

I'm amazed how much money is lost through tax avoidance (thanks for the link). Shouldn't we be cracking down on that- it would pay more more teachers and nurses than cracking down on benefit fraud. Of course it wouldn't work because one rule applies to the very wealthy and another to the rest of us.