A message from Harriet Harman - Minister for Women and Equality - how is the credit crunch/recession is affecting you and how do you think Government can help?

[JustineMumsnet]

Harriet Harman writes:
We want to protect families from the credit crunch with real help. And we want to hear what Mumsnet are concerned about during this recession; what you want us to be doing about it; and what you want to see changed for the future. Prime Minister Gordon Brown is hosting an international Economic Summit in London (which President Obama will be coming to) in April to agree with other countries how we work together to get the global economy back on its feet and growing again. I want to hear from you and feed your views in to this summit.

Opinion polls tell us that women are more concerned about the impact of the recession than men, is that your view?
Is the recession affecting your family life and if so how?
Are you getting the advice and information you need if you ask for help?
What do you want to see government doing to help with that?
What do you think about bonuses?
How can we help women who want to start their own businesses?

scrap the child trust fund rubbish and put the money into a little extra child benefit or something. also allowing people who ARE NOT on benefits to have their child benefit paid weekly would help massively too.

ooh, also allowing lea voucher rules to be more relaxed-eg so that you could use more that 6hrs worth in one day, then at least you could have 1 day a week completely paid for by lea and be able to work for the whole day.

Is the recession affecting your family life and if so how?
Yes, I work on a basic (minimum wage) plus bonus in the financial sector, this is the norm for myself and thousands of others. The current climate means we are all working on minimum wage. However the system for tax credit means that we are assessed on our last 12 months earnings. Therefore, we get no extra help when times are bad. Next year we will get higher rates of tax credit but if the economic climate improves between now and then we will all get our bonuses and so be overpaid tax credit and have to pay large amounts back. The tax credit system currently has an appaling record for clawing back random amounts at random times, sometimes in more than one reclaim. All of this means that we will spend this year in poverty (both in real terms and in terms of the governments minimum income) and then the next year terrified that a reclaim notice will drop through our door any moment asking for (potentially) thousands of pounds back.

Are you getting the advice and information you need if you ask for help?
In truth, there is no real help available for the situation we are in as we are some of the many that fall between two systems. Benefit agencies cannot help, tax credit are unable and unwilling to allow for bonus based work and the government sites have no information on who we need to contact to resolve this.

What do you want to see government doing to help with that?
A. I would like to see means tested benfits all bought into one pot so that if a person earns £x and pays £Y in rent/mortage and £z for chidcare then they go to a single agency where they will be awarded any help they are entitled to. I think this would work on many levels;

1. accountability, currently it is always another person/department/agency who are at fault when a problem comes up meaning (when it goes wrong) it can leave people in financial hell (I once had my tax credit stopped for 8 months because of a glitch [it seems my claim simply "fell off the system"] during that time I was twice offered £50 to "get me through" despite my claim being over £1200 per month at the time. I am still paying off the debt I had to get into to survive. I nearly lost my home, I did lose my car and yet I was told that I could get no help with the mess I was left in even though the fault was with the tax credit office)
2. ease of access, everyone would know exactly where to go to get help and everyone would automatically be assessed for all the help that is available.
3. fraud, it would be much more difficult for people to claim fradulantly if there was one file on one system containing all the details of the help a person was getting.

B. I would like to see proper state run childcare (preferably attached to schools) run in the same way as a school. ie every child can have a place if they so choose. These nurseries should have proper standards and fees that make them accessable.

What do you think about bonuses?
If you mean those paid to industry big wigs (eg in banking) then I think I am well placed to be very very angry about them. We, being the little people in the industry, are having to suffer the hardships caused by the situation and continue to work hard to create enough money so that the bonuses can be paid...just not to us. It is increadibly wrong but not in the least surprising. A performance based bonus should have some basis in actual performance. We have lost our bonuses because the banks did not perform well enough, yet they get to keep theirs because they performed well enough - apparently.

How can we help women who want to start their own businesses?
Get us out of the recession we are in so that new business starters have a hope in the first place (regardless of gender).
Make proper childcare available.
Have a decent benefit run-on system that understands the difficulties and cashflow issues that happen in a new venture.

crikey that was long

sorry

We were skint before, so it isn't actually doing all that much to us.

Promoting cloth nappies as a way of saving money for families would be fabulous though as that would indeed help my finances

Is the recession affecting your family life and if so how?
Yes. DP is (rightly) worried about losing his job. Our household bills have gone up slightly and our income has gone down slightly. We were just making ends meet before this, and when we went slightly over our overdraft due to badly timed bills going out, we are now looking at nearly £400 of bank charges going out of our account in less than a fortnight.

Are you getting the advice and information you need if you ask for help?

Not really. We spent almost all day saturday in the bank. They cannot possibly waive our bank charges, and have instead frozen our account so we don' get anymore. This meant i woalked out of the bank on saturday with no access to any money to feed us this week and DP had to cash a cheque for food.

What do you want to see government doing to help with that?

Banks should be run as a non profit service, not screwing customers. Paying their workers a fair wage, and bank charges refelcting the true cost of admin fees, not extrotionate amounts that throw families towards the brink of financial ruin.

What do you think about bonuses?

Bankers in the city should be happy they have paid jobs still, and not even think of skimming of government aid money given to them.

How can we help women who want to start their own businesses?

Is anyone thinking of starting a business right now?? I certainly wouldn't consider it!

"What do you want to see government doing to help"

The best thing the Government can do to help is to start behaving like statesmen instead of politicians: there is a lot of short-termism going on. Gordon Brown's policy to get us out of the current situation is to pander to the baby boomers (the generation who got us into this mess in the first place) by going on a spending spree which will be paid for by my children and probably their children too. It is the usual politician's trick of hiding unpleasantries under the carpet in the hope that they will be long gone by the time the consequences surface (PFI anyone?).
There was a lot of talk of financial rectitude, Golden Rules etc in the good times, when it was easy. How about reverting to that idea instead of telling us to spend, spend, spend ? which is what caused the economic meltdown.
Gordon Brown has used this country's financial illiteracy against it. I suppose that we get the politicians that we deserve.

Is there any chance of Ms Harman actually reading this thread? I do hope so.

Read this:

How about not meddling and pouring silly amounts of tax payer's cash into ailing banks?

Let them go to the wall. New banks will open to fill the void. Saver's investments are guaranteed by the government anyway and it would be a lot less money than you have wasted on Northern Rock, HBOS, RBS et al.

Cheap easy credit for car buyers to prop up the car manufacturing industry. Gosh, yes, that's a good idea. It wasn't cheap, easy credit that got people in this mess in the first place. What's so special about the car manufacturing industry anyway? Of, of course, Labour marginal seats.

Oh, and lecturing banks about bonuses (and by the way, many of the staff involved are counter/branch staff on modest salaries struggling to make ends meet like everyone else, "banker" doesn't automatically mean an expense account at Spearmint Rhino you know) whilst your colleague Ms Smith has her nose firmly in the trough, claiming 48,000 of London living allowances whilst kipping on her sister's sofa is called hypocrisy.

You've got your noses in the trough just as much as they have. People are aware of it, we aren't as stupid as you think.

I wold like Ministers to set an example (Yvette Cooper, Ed Balls, Jacqui Smith) and stop taking the piss out of the expense system. They are every bit as grasping as the bankers. Nobody has acted illegally but still taking the piss.

Perhaps if the Labour Govt. had not removed capping levels for electricity and Gab bills I would not be paying the same as 4 years ago for half the consumption.

Gordon Brown needs to resign. We need to regain confidence before we start spending and really, this cannot happen with this idiot in charge.

Thank you for asking.

Please, please can you make chidcare tax deductible. That really would make such a difference to all families in an environment where women will increasingly need to go back to work or indeed want to.

It is such a huge waste of 50% of the population's talent that many cannot afford to return to work and is much more fair than the current vouchers which many employers don't go for (mine for example) and only work with certain types of childcare.

Chauffeurs are tax deductible and childcare is not!

Please look at Sweden and indeed Reggio Emilia in Italy if you need further inspiration on how to make it work.

I agree with you TCF. We, the public did not vote him in and I for one resent the fact that the position was simply passed to him.

I've got so much more to say but I want to have a nice day so need to keep my stress levels low Anyway, you lot don't listen us. But thanks for asking anyway.

Ah yes and given that this economy needs to encourage people to SAVE rather than rely on debt can you please try and encourage that by having a national savings easy access product with an interest rate of more than 1%. No bank is offering a decent rate at the moment.

Once again the genuinely prudent are being disadvantaged not to mention the retired who rely on savings income.

Oh and whilst you are at it can you please stop taxing the interest on investments - you have already taxed it once and can tax it more when I die, that might actually encourage a decent savings rate in this country (currently worst in Europe)

Dear Harriet

I'm concerned about my children's future. Put simply, my husband and I have worked our bollocks off for decades in order to be able to be self-employed now in a business which is making no money (we expected that bit) while we live off savings and investments. The investments are now worth a third less than they were and if it continues there will be very little left to give our kids a good start in life or leave anything for their future to buy a first home etc.

We're a bit sad about this because we feel it's mainly because of the feckless 'someone else will fix it for us attitude' which has be perpetuated by the nanny state and litigious culture (which btw I don't entirely blame the government for). Part of this is the expectation that people can borrow to the hilt and things won't go wrong. Shit happens! We've accepted that and that's why we are revising our expectations rather than expecting bail outs.

Banks reflected the general populations idea that 'it'll all be fine doesn't matter than our castle is built in the air, it will never crash to the ground'

I would like practically the government to offer more shared ownership of homes to allow people to sensibly get on the housing ladder; I'd like the Olympics to be cancelled (we can't afford it and pretending we can is stupid - what would Iceland do if it were the host next?); I'd like better regulation of investments - if people can lose so much so quickly there is no motivation to save. Also a compulsion on people to save for their retirements. More education for young people - appoint Martin Lewis as 'yoof dosh tsar' if you like - someone has got to get the next generation to understand that money is their responsibility.

Oh and nationalise with a light touch those banks that are buggered. Stop faffing about, it's not that hard - increase governance while appointing and independent board. If I can figure out how to do it, I would hope the govt could too

But you are not doing a bad job overall IMHO!

"Oh and whilst you are at it can you please stop taxing the interest on investments"

As recently as 17.07.08 a Labour politician was musing on the idea of re-introducing Investment Income Surcharge. They really don't like savers, do they?

"Ah yes and given that this economy needs to encourage people to SAVE rather than rely on debt can you please try and encourage that by having a national savings easy access product with an interest rate of more than 1%. No bank is offering a decent rate at the moment.

Once again the genuinely prudent are being disadvantaged not to mention the retired who rely on savings income."

Couldn't agree more Susie100

I am just snurking at "President Obama is going" oooh so its a real proper important conference then Gordon must be very excited.

Removing the cap on statutory redundancy pay would help as it is ludicrously low.

Yeah, but Tony got to meet him first - full steps of the White House, National Anthem treatment. That must have upset him.

Wonder if he chucked any furniture about? He has a reputation for tantrums.

Before and after school childcare should be available (at a reasonable cost) in all state schools for all those who want to use it.

The benefits system should be sorted out so that people can understand it and not be penalised/worse off if they take a part-time job and have associated child-care costs.

School dinners should be free to all children who want them - at least then children would all get a meal each day and parents could save money and not have to be labelled as "free meals" or not.

Have a TV programme well advertised at prime time called Recession what is available to you as it is so confusing what is available and what the government has actually done. It should cover what is available to the following:

For businesses
For those made redundant
For homeowners
For Families
And where you can go to get help showing case studies

I've been made redundant and I feel very let down and the only person who I can relate to on the TV who seems to talk any sense is Vince Cable (I do not support any party). I'm going to become a full-time mum and save myself £1000 a month in childcare.

The main problem for women (or men) starting a new business is the amount of time it takes to get paid by big companies - several months sometimes.
I'd like legislation put in place that companies are legally obliged to pay invoices within a certain time - eg 30 days. The late payment legislation at the moment is toothless and no-one I know dares use it for fear of never being offered work again.
There should be an advertisement campaign showing the effects of late payment on small businesses aimed at shaming big companies into paying on time.

you know how the bank bosses are being hauled over the coals by the Treasury Select Committee? I'd like to see the same kind of accountability applied to the government. You know, the ones that were in charge of things like regulation, of designing and implementing the rules by which the bankers were playing. Ok, I know we have PM's question times and that a general election is, of course, the ultimate in accountability, but I'd really like to see something conducted by someone independent; something that could help us cut through political speak and help us to some genuine answers about the government's role (and the role of others); something that looked at it from all angles - not just this scapegoating-combined-with-rather-meaningless-apologies business we're currently getting; something that was useful and worthwhile, that answered questions, that learned lessons, that made recommendations to ensure our money was being well spent.

What do I want the govt to do? I want to it initiate a public inquiry.

And, just in case you were thinking about it, the last thing I want is patronising advice about cooking leftovers or road running instead of gym membership.

Hatwoman, I think you mean the FSA (Financial Services Authority) rather than the Government. This is a public body set up to regulate the Financial Services Industry. Clearly they have failed massively in their task of regulating the banks. It is incredibly frustrating for the likes of people in my profession (IFA's) who in recent years have had alot of interference in our line of work (Some good, some bad). Then to see the collaspe of the banking system with the same FSA involved who just stood by and watched. The FSA should be held to account in it's inability to forsee events and to prevent such events happening.

recession is effecting our family life. we wuld like to try for dc2 but are really not sure whether we can afford it. have a reasonably large mortgage and not sure if we could borrow more, which we would need to to make room for another child.

childcare is also a big problem. Why is partially funded childcare only avaiable for children the term after they are three? my son was born at the beginning of april which means that he won't get funding until september (5months after his birthday).

I also feel penalised for having a mortgage. Loads of help/benefits are available for people who rent. If i rented i could afford not to work as my rent would be paid. i have to work as i can't get any help towards my mortage.

ensure banks take into account salary sacrifice schemes when looking at income. I can't afford to take a salary sacrifice as my lender would lend what we need to improve our home, this means i can not money back towards childcare.