All-round Budget thread

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But trade barriers never did us much good and we need to fight against those in all directions.

On the childcare issue thankfully you can employ a nanny without qualifications in the UK. Indeed you can employ someone without paying any tax if they earn up to the single person allowance and NI levels. If they are over that then they do have tax to pay and you have employers' NI at 12% of their pay but there is no legal requirement that they have qualifications if they look after a child in your own house.

Sadly the budge proposal that no new UK laws will be introduced for businesses with under 10 staff form now on unless imposed by Europe is not going to help as 99.9999% of new rules come from EU law anyway and we have a huge number already in place which will not be removed.

22k -30k is my target salery for the end of the year part time - crazy costs for childcare.

Niceguy, you realise people can and do acutally work whilst receiving DLA?

It's paid to help people with disabilities and chronic illnesses to access normal lives, that most of us are lucky enough to take for granted.

Some DLA claimants are genuine but a huge lot have supposed faked mental illnesses because their mates told them you get more on DLA than other benefits. It's how to distinguish the two categories which is pretty hard. Both last and this Government are trying / were trying to do something about it.

Um, the fraud rate for DLA is about 0.5%. It's the lowest fraud rate for any benefit except the state pension, and is incredibly hard to get, especially for mental health problems.

A lot of people who receive also work. For a lot of them it's the only thing that makes it possible for them to work (paying for adapted car, for example).

People seem to forget that we're all only one major crisis, accident or disease away from disability, it's not just something for other people. A support network is incredibly important.

Xenia, that's a ludicrous and offensive statement to make, based upon fuck all evidence.

Do you reckon people put themselves thorugh chemo for a giggle and £63 a week? This coalition lot think they might just be doing that and spending some of our very precious funds on making sure they catch the buggers.

Oh god is this still going on?

Wubbly. Yes, my friend who had "OCD" as her reason for claiming DLA worked. My point was made to illustrate that we all have different measures for what is a "genuine" claimant. And that is the hard part isn't it? I mean deciding where to draw the line. Because as much as I'd love everyone to live in a socialist utopia where noone is poor and everyone lives on a "living" wage, the reality is that we can't afford it.

Lastly, the fraud rate is completely irrelevant. You could reduce it to zero by giving it to anyone who applies. My point is that the net is too wide, not that too many people claim it fraudulently.

"the fraud rate for DLA is about 0.5%".

How do you know? Given that there are no definitive tests for many complaints such as ME, depression, back pain**, etc, how can we possibly know what the fraud rate is? Not saying that this figure is wrong, just curious to know how it was arrived at.

** I've had lower back pain and sciatica for periods of several months. They were horrible and debilitating. I had x-rays, MRI scans, the works. They couldn't find anything wrong at all. If I'd had a mind to, I could have faked most of it very easily. Eventually it got better own its own. Luckily I work from home and can lie on my back on the floor and tap on a computer suspended above me, so I didn't need any time off, but I could see it being a prime target for fraud.

The net is too wide? Not if you're a cancer patient it isn't. The rules of DLA make it almost impossible for anyone going through cancer to claim DLA, unless they are terminal and are expected to die within 6 months.

The coalition have also now changed the rules on ESA to make any cancer patient taking oral chemotheraphy undergo a medical examination before making an award.

In my case, that would mean I could happily claim ESA whilst I had primary breast cancer, but once it's spread to my lungs, I have to have a medical. That's a great use of rescources isn't it?

My friend, diagnosed with breast cancer last year was asked by the DWP to come in for an interview to ensure her claim could continue, despite knowing she'd had to undergo a hysterectomy 7 days previously!

I'm sure that cancer isn't a special case, I'll be this kind of incompetence is rift in the system.

sorry, typos. I'll bet this kind of incompetence is rife in the system.

cakeretention It's a figure I've heard a lot as the DWP's own figure for fraud - I've just done a search and found this - on page 8.

I don't know the names of the various benefits but there's one you can claim if you are not working and not well which is higher than the standard unemployment benefit and vast tranches of people have moved over to that one because it's paid at a higher rate than the standard unemployment benefit.

I just checked - I meant incapacity benefit - benefit of choice as you get higher sums paid and a vast number claim it for non physical things. Now of course plenty of people have real depression but there are a lot scroungers wrongly claiming it too and it costs us a fortue" it costs £12.5 billion a year and is claimed by 2.5 million people".

Thanks for the link. The document defines fraud as "the basic conditions for receipt of benefit, or the rate of benefit in payment, are not being met".

Let's say that the conditions in this case are that you present a signed-off claim form from your doctor.

So, wicked Fred decides he's "got some back pain" because his mates told him that he could claim DLA that way. He goes to the doctor, makes a big fuss and the doctor signs off his claim.

When he then makes his claim to the government, he presents his duly-signed-off form. He's met the conditions for the benefit, so technically this isn't fraud, even though you and I would clearly see it as such.

Maybe I'm completely mistaken, but it seems strange that a benefit that seems so easy to claim fraudulently is subject to such a low fraud level.

Talking about fraud is irrelevant. There are too many people claiming too many benefits and we can't afford them. It is that simple.
Labour widened the welfare net so far that even those on 50K were getting them.

A woman I know has depression and can't work, apparently. Must be a funny old form of it because she can go out drinking, do school pick ups and hold down several cash in hand cleaning jobs.

Her partner can't work because he can't get to a job because he can't drive.
I wonder if they come under the 99% of benefit claimants busily seeking any job going?

So if/when I get fed up going into work on my zimmer, because the government keeps telling me I have to wait more years for my pension, and feel I should give my job up to a younger person, I can just start drinking more and declare myself alcoholic, hey that's a great idea.

Depression and/or a bad back are where it's at, apparently adamschic.

In actual fact, DLA is massively underclaimed, by at least 20%. I haven't claimed it because I can't face the process. A lot of very ill people feel the same.

Xenia, Incapacity benefit no longer exists, it been replaced by ESA. You don't get it just because you ask for it, you have to attend a medical examination. Even if you had a hysterectomy just 7 days ago or are on certain types of chemotherapy.

But you can get it for depression or a bad back, both of which are nigh on impossible to accurately diagnose and dead easy to fake.

Nigella, have you ever suffered with depression? Do you even care how a depressed person might feel reading your blanket dismissal of their legitimacy to benefits?

I'm not talking about genuine people. Why would you assume I am? I'm talking about people like those I've mentioned above.

Am I alone in thinking that I would, a million times over, rather be in a society that paid a few people who were not entitled, than risked leaving innocent people with no way of surviving?

I've suffered from depression, on and off, for years. Never so bad I actually couldn't work, but for lots of people that's not the case. What's your solution? "Oh sorry, it's too easy to fake your condition, so we'll just leave you to starve"?

So how do you propose we find the money to support such a welfare state?
Are you happy to pay more tax? More council tax? More NI? More duty on fuel/alcohol and higher VAT?

I would have also thought that the very worst thing for depression is to be at home benefit dependant. Isn't poverty and unemployment a major factor in depression?