Don't cap my benefits - BBC1

[SoleSource]

Anybody watching?

The single mum who was a student was quite adamant that she wouldn't work unless she was better off and even when it was pointed out to her that she would be £300 pw better off working she refused to accept it and look for a job.

I felt sorry for her up until this point- then I felt she was an idiot

Pisses me off that people want the right to have as many children as they please, but don't accept that it is their responsibility to provide for them.

When ex left I had to claim benefits. I am looking forward to going back to work next year (when my baby is older) but I can understand why some people might chose to stay on benefits - I get a seemingly massive amount of money and would be hard pressed to get a job that will equal it, especially factoring in childcare.

If you want to live in the most expensive area of a country, get a job that pays the rent/mortgage.

Otherwise, like the rest of the population, you live where you can afford to.

I'd love to live in a much better area or in a nicer house. We bought what we could afford.........

1) None of these people are "earning" £x000 a month in benefits. Their landlords are - big difference

But the people are being given £x000 every month in benefits to pay their landlords. If the money isn't coming from their own pocket then they shouldn't be able to live in expensive housing regardless of who is making the profit.

4) Why the hell was the woman who was studying not exempt from the cap? What long term benefit is there to society in forcing someone out of education and worthwhile work experience and into a dead end job?

Because if she wasn't exempt she would spend the rest of her life being a student. She had the time to do voluntary work so she had the time to get a paid job. She said it herself 'i will only work if I am better off ', but then decided that it wasn't worthwhile working to be £300 pw better off after all.

Any fool can see that the £300pw better off figure was utter fiction.

"If you want to live in the most expensive area of a country, get a job that pays the rent/mortgage."

No, I won't accept that. These are scummy areas of London where landlords are somehow getting away with daylight robbery, because there are enough idiots prepared to pay them out of choice. These people moved to London many years ago, probably before they yuppies spread out of Islington and into Hackney and other equally lovely areas. Who is going to do the essential work in London if nobody can afford to live there unless they're on a 6 figure salary?!

Who is going to do the essential work in London if nobody can afford to live there unless they're on a 6 figure salary?!

And at that point, it becomes an even worse place to live; so the market adjusts accordingly. Who would want to live in an area where you couldn't get your kids educated, or your house burned down for want of a fireman?

Who is going to do the essential work in London if nobody can afford to live there unless they're on a 6 figure salary?!

Somebody on minimum wage working at least 24 hours per week will not be affected by the benefit cap, so will get housing benefit to enable them to stay living in London. The problem isn't with low paid workers, it's with people who are unemployed but want to live in an area where a flat costs £400pw to rent. The landlords can charge whatever they like, because that is how supply and demand works, but the govt can't afford to pay £400 pw in rent plus however much in other benefits just so that people can choose to live in expensive areas.

One of the problems in other areas though is that large numbers of unemployed people are moved to cheaper housing, this can lead to "ghettoes" in other towns and cities.

I live in a seaside town and we are getting huge areas of town where hotels are converting to HMOs and filling up with people shipped in from other areas. There are no jobs here either so this is condemning those who would like to work to a dim future and the social problems are increasing due to the number coming in with mental health and other problems

When I moved to a city outside of London it was not exactly a choice, nor was it for my parents when they did it. It was for economic reasons, just like those in the programme. And we didn't have money to visit friends and family. We left them behind and made new friends, it's often easy to make a new support network when you have dc.

And there are lots of workers in my council block who are on NMW, so I can't see a massive lack of workers willing to do those jobs, and they won't be affected by the cap with council rents. Also lots of key workers in shared ownership housing (which the teachers/firemen will qualify for) - I know a few people who have bought flats in zone 2 on brand new shared ownership developments.

"Is it a good idea to cart your baby around while handing out your CV? Yes, of course it is. What a strange question."

Well I asked it and I don't think it's strange. If I was a prospective employer, it would make me think that the mother couldn't organise herself. I would have similar misgivings about the half-purple hair (though it would depend on the job).

So you're saying that if, for example, the woman in question went out to run some errands, taking her two children with her as she didn't have short-term childcare available on tap, and decided to hand out some CVs while she was at it, you would consider her disorganised? I would admire her for multi-tasking.

And having purple hair does not prevent you from being a good bar-maid. Things have moved on since the 1950s

Impatient, why are you falling for that rubbish? It is not the fault of these people that London prices have gone insane . All they need is a roof over their head. Why should they be kicked out simply so landlords can continue charging those crazy rents for such dreadful properties? Round here houses much nicer than those featured are 400 a month!

gaelic Actually, it sort of is. The majority of the people featured on the show yesterday were immigrants. Immigrants are driving the ever-increasing demand in London (and always have done).

That sounds bad (I'm not BNP) but it's true.

Garlic sheep - those people are not being kicked out simply so the landlords can continue charging crazy rents. They are being kicked out because the govt has decided that unemployed families can no longer get in excess of £26k a year in benefits (unless a member of the household is disabled). If people earning 26k (after tax and NI) can't afford to live there then why should people who don't work?
Frankly I don't care what the landlords charge, I would be quite happy for all of their properties to be standing empty due to nobody being willing to pay the rental costs, however, I do object to non working families living in properties which are costing the public purse £400+ per week.

Round here houses much nicer than those featured are 400 a month!

They should all be rehoused near you then and the landlords in London will have to decrease their rents to cope with the decreased demand and the govt will save a huge fortune in housing benefit payments. win win.

As someone from (and still in) the Midlands, I am wondering just how these houses in various other parts of the country are being found?

There are families already in Birmingham, homeless, in hostels etc. needing a house & being told that none are available. But there are some available if you currently live in London & accept the relocation? I am definitely concerned about the issue of social cleansing that seems to be going on too. Move all of the poorer people/out of work people to Birmingham, Luton, Manchester etc. etc. - yeah, that'll help . Because none of those areas already have high levels of unemployment or homeless people do they?!

Landlords should be forced to rent to DSS tenants and should be taxed very heavily on excessive rents. If they refuse the house should be compulsorily purchased as social housing.

You cannot take somebodies house because they refuse to rent it to a social housing tenant. We don't live in a dictatorship.
People can choose to do as they wish with their own possessions. If a house is rented to a private full rent paying tenant do you suggest that the tenant should be turfed out in order to free up the house for a housing benefit tenant who will occupy it following a CPO? Because all those landlords will just fill their houses with tenants who pay their on rent.
If you really think that your plan is feasible then you need to have a rethink.

"You cannot take somebodies house because they refuse to rent it to a social housing tenant. We don't live in a dictatorship."

Really? What do you call what's going on then?

Impatient unemployed families can no longer get £26k a year benefits unless a member of the household is disabled PLEASE DO NOT assume that this is the case ALWAYS folks, as stated before when you care for a member of the household who is disabled although it's a 24 hour a day task to do so we also have a REAL problem making ends meet...we have not had a holiday for a number of years (never been abroad) do not drink, socialise very often (hardly ever) and have to survive on whatever the Government sees fit to throw at us (which is NO WAY near £24k) when I was able to work (while my daughter was a at school/college I also worked as a carer (as many of us do) so £6-£7 an hour in a job that because of cuts means that the work load is extremely higher than what it used to be. I would love to hear from MNs from areas that these people have been relocated to.

Quite right salsmum I have my DS who is disabled and I also get DLA for myself, so our benefits income is actually quite close to the cap, if I had more dc it would probably take it over. But we have a higher than average costs of raising a child, it costs about 3 times more to raise a disabled child. Normal public transport often isn't possible, you have to replace items more often, pay for special diets and equipment. And the time taken to look after a disabled child means that you often have to pay more for things out of convenience. I can't work even when DS is in school as I might get called out at any time to collect him, plus that is the only time in the week that I'd have to do chores/errands without him in tow. We have had holidays as a disabled family though - Family Fund pays for us to go each year (albeit in the UK). It is worth searching for charities which fund that kind of thing, there are a few different charities which offer it and an application is likely to be awarded when on benefits.

The lady from Ethiopia annoyed me when she turned up her nose at the house in Luton - what the hell was she expecting?! And why couldn't she get a job in somewhere like Pret?! They're always looking for staff. Sorry if that sounds glib but you get my drift.

Tracey and her 'I'm not working minimum wage cleaning toilets full time because it would set a bad example to my kids' needs someone to talk some bloody sense into her. I thought there was much more to her story in particular, which her landlord hinted at.

The chap who chose to have seven kids while he had a job and his partner didn't - what kind of lifestyle does he expect to provide for his kids, even before the benefit cap was introduced?

Nobody has the right to live in one particular place, which is what some of the deluded individuals on the programme fail to understand.

Thank you stripedteatowel my DD is 25 so any charity that help families with children stop at 16-19 that includes holiday, laundry equipment etc...we have recently had to apply for a 'hardship payment' which just about paid some off my overdraft (which we live in). MAYBE if I had 8 kids......instead of the 2 which we could afford then...