Will the cruel Tory welfare reforms save any money?

First topic message reminder :

My personal opinion is that the current spate of tory reforms to the benefit system are cruel, regressive, and worst of all won't save money (the alleged intention).



In a supposedly modern civilised country one would think housing would be considered a human right.......rather than simply an investment / a chance to make a fast buck.

I note there is talk of a yacht for the biggest benefit claimee of them all. I note over £10billion has been spent on the olympics. I note £32billion is being spent on a high speed rail link (london-birmingham) - this will shave, a no doubt absolutely vita,l 32mins off the journey (essential??!!!) and be used by a miniscule % of the UK population.

How about investing this money in affordable social housing instead? Or do government no longer care to invest in those they view as peasants and serfs?

The tories efforts to turn the nation against those unfortunate enough to find themselves unemployed via vile smears, and an insidious propaganda campaign, are reminiscent of Nazi germany's propaganda campaign against the jews.

Iain Duncan Smith is a disgusting human being and has blood on his hands.

Instead of kicking the weakest targets that can't defend themselves....maybe the Bullingdon bullies should try picking on somebody their own size.....like the bankers, or benefit leeching corporations like Tescos.

They currently resemble a 20st thug stamping on a little girls head.

Welfare is essential and if we are to remain a civilised country we owe it to ourselves to provide for those less fortunate; unless we want to see people starving and homeless turning into savages.

The biggest burden on the UK in recent times has not been the unemployed.....welfare is not a burden - it is an essential expense in a civilised nation.

The biggest burden, and the cause of much unemployment, has been the rich greedy bankers who have cost this country, and us taxpayers, untold £billions in order to benefit a few. They have placed the real burden on the UK.

boatlady wrote:They're almost psychotic, this lot - it's just impossible to believe any sane person could seriously make half the statements they make.
Actually, maybe I mean sociopathic rather than paychotic.

I think sociopathic is just about the perfect word! Mind you, psychotic - as in separated from reality - would also fit.

oftenwrong wrote:Separating the sheep from the goats is simple, but distinguishing between the Deserving Poor and the undeserving variety seems to be far too difficult for our Leadership.

I think it's too difficult for pretty much anyone, which is exactly the problem with it. Take someone who's drunk all day and in too much of a state to even think of looking for work. The Tories' first instinct would be 'skiver!'.

But what if you're then told that this is an ex-soldier who's suffering from PTSD? Or a child-abuse survivor. Or a man whose wife and children died in an accident. So many possible 'back-stories', and no chance of understanding them for every individual before deciding who 'deserves' help - and even then, a subjective decision.

In the end it comes down to the kind of society you want to belong to. I'd rather give 100 genuine 'skivers' a free ride than than abandon one person in genuine need, and to my mind tax is a price worth paying to know I'm living in a society that tries to catch everyone before they hit the bottom. Others may feel differently - and all too evidently do.

http://skwalker1964.wordpress.com/2012/11/21/the-tory-assault-on-the-unworthy-poor-what-kind-of-society-do-we-really-want-to-be-2/

skwalker1964 wrote:

oftenwrong wrote:Separating the sheep from the goats is simple, but distinguishing between the Deserving Poor and the undeserving variety seems to be far too difficult for our Leadership.

I think it's too difficult for pretty much anyone, which is exactly the problem with it. Take someone who's drunk all day and in too much of a state to even think of looking for work. The Tories' first instinct would be 'skiver!'.

But what if you're then told that this is an ex-soldier who's suffering from PTSD? Or a child-abuse survivor. Or a man whose wife and children died in an accident. So many possible 'back-stories', and no chance of understanding them for every individual before deciding who 'deserves' help - and even then, a subjective decision.

In the end it comes down to the kind of society you want to belong to. I'd rather give 100 genuine 'skivers' a free ride than than abandon one person in genuine need, and to my mind tax is a price worth paying to know I'm living in a society that tries to catch everyone before they hit the bottom. Others may feel differently - and all too evidently do.

http://skwalker1964.wordpress.com/2012/11/21/the-tory-assault-on-the-unworthy-poor-what-kind-of-society-do-we-really-want-to-be-2/

The majority of us know that the only people that deserve help in the eyes of the Tories skywalker is the banks hedge fund managers and Tory donors and that is it in a nutshell.

Ah yes! That customary sneering face which is the Tory trademark, particularly for its more prominent members. Does it come naturally - or do they have to practise ...?

Trouble is, you can see the potential for all this to get worse.
With the increased inequality in society, it's easier than ever for the 'haves' to avoid knowing all these 'back stories' - none of the experiences of ordinary people are shared by those with a private education, access to private health care, a trust fund and a hopuse in a gated community - and if you can't see it, it ain't there!

boatlady wrote:Trouble is, you can see the potential for all this to get worse.
With the increased inequality in society, it's easier than ever for the 'haves' to avoid knowing all these 'back stories' - none of the experiences of ordinary people are shared by those with a private education, access to private health care, a trust fund and a hopuse in a gated community - and if you can't see it, it ain't there!

As long as the Tories are in power things will get worse boatlady, and in April we will all find out how bad, that is the time I am expecting the UK public to stand up and tell Cameron and Clegg to get to FCUK, hence an early General Election because we have let him away with things for 3 years it will be a shock to his system.

QUOTE Phil Hornby: "....do they have to practise ...?"

Clearly not, since that expression comes with the territory, but what nasty smell does the Official Tory Photographer place under their noses?

Is it (a) Ammonium Chloride?
(b) Hydrogen Disulphide?
(c) Cyanic Acid or
(d) Poor people?

answers on a postcard

What I find strange about the Work Capacity Assessment is the fact that ATOS and the like are told to ignore reports from GP's...........

Is this because these same GP's who will take over the huge budget for the NHS can not be trusted to decide if some one is disabled or not?

astradt1 wrote:What I find strange about the Work Capacity Assessment is the fact that ATOS and the like are told to ignore reports from GP's...........

Is this because these same GP's who will take over the huge budget for the NHS can not be trusted to decide if some one is disabled or not?

Plus astrad1 ATOS do have targets from this gov't and for everyone they get off benefit ATOS get £300.00 a pop. Being the greedy private sector they do not care abut sick or disabled people money turns them into Monsters and backstuds.

Source: https://twitter.com/bluenose_carl/status/294906076036489216/photo/1

They haven't have they?

The ATOS experience of one nurse, J. Stoker, RGN.

"I resigned from ATOS in 2012.

As a nurse, I was taught to care and be compassionate about the people I was in contact with. This was not the case with ATOS. It was very much a target driven role and you were under constant pressure to meet these targets. We were monitored closely on how many clients we put into 'Support Group'. If our totals were above the national average, we would have to ask an ‘experienced’ member of staff for permission to put a client into a support group, even if it was plainly obvious they could not return to work.

I assessed a client with visual problems, due to her diabetes, who could not read 16 point print, nor could she see hazards in the street. Although not registered blind, she was under the care of a consultant, was receiving treatment and needed constant support from her family. I put her in a higher group and recommended she was recalled in 18 months, after she had received treatment from her consultant, to assess her condition. I was instructed, by my manager, to downgrade her. I was told to add her to a lower group and recall her in 6 months. I strongly disagreed, due to her current condition and underlying medical problems, but was told, in no uncertain terms, not to question my manager’s judgement.

It was at this point I decided to resign. I could not live with the knowledge of what I was doing and the effect this could have on somebody’s life. Although there are a number of people who are more than capable of work, the majority are genuine, sick people who need our help, not to be demoralised in this way."

For the nurse’s full story:-
http://atosvictimsgroup.co.uk/2013/01/31/ex-atos-nurse-reveals-the-real-inside-story/

One suspects that there are things currently happening 'out there' with the full connivance ( indeeed at the behest) of this government, which are far more horrible than we imagine.

One day they will become known but- tragically- not until far too many people have suffered, or had their already-miserable lives ruined completely. We can but hope that those responsible eventually suffer equally horribly for their crimes against the innocent...

Original including links at: http://wp.me/p2sftc-4OY


‘You’ve got to pick a pocket or two’ – but IDS and his gang are picking the pockets of the poor and putting ever more children into poverty.

Since I blogged a couple of weeks ago on the reality that the Tories’ changes to the benefit system are going to force at least 1.2 million more children into child poverty, I’ve been challenged several times on Twitter and elsewhere by right-wingers along the lines of:

Relative poverty isn’t real poverty! No child in this country is poor compared to children in Africa!

They were parroting, knowingly or otherwise, government ministers. On 15 Jan Esther McVey, Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, told the House of Commons:

The Government strongly believes looking at relative income in isolation is not a helpful measure to track progress towards our target of eradicating child poverty…the Government is currently consulting on better measures of child poverty that will better reflect the reality of child poverty in the UK today.

Only last week her boss, Iain Duncan Smith, gave a speech to a children’s charity which grabbed headlines for its claim that wasteful parenting, and not low income, is responsible for child poverty – and went on to say:

for too long, I believe, the common political discourse has been lagging behind – fixated on a notion of relative income

Those right-wing challengers – and the ministers – manage the neat trick of being partially correct in fact while missing the point entirely.

Child poverty in this country may ‘only’ be relative, and not the ‘absolute poverty’ of some children in Africa and elsewhere – but it is still literally a killer, and a blight both on the lives of the children affected and on the health of our society as a whole.

A killer

Absolute poverty – having so little money that you’re unable to pay for food, shelter or clothing – is an obvious killer. But what is less popularly known is that relative poverty – being poor compared to the average and the wealthy in a society – also costs lives.

But the fact that it isn’t prominent in the popular awareness does not mean that the fact is in question. So many studies have proven the link between inequality in a society and poorer health and shorter lifespans that a journal of medicine has called it ‘ubiquitous‘ (found everywhere).

A study by the British Medical Journal (BMJ) found that

Economic and social circumstances affect health through the physiological effects of their emotional and social meanings and the direct effects of material circumstances

and concluded that

In rich countries wellbeing is more closely related to relative income than absolute income

A conclusive finding that Ms McVey and Mr Duncan Smith couldn’t be more wrong when they claim that relative poverty is not a relevant measure for the UK compared to absolute income.

How can this be? Studies indicate that the sense of injustice, the stress associated with it and with the sense of being regarded as inferior or unworthy all contribute to increased health problems. Combined with poorer diets, poor housing and limited leisure choices, these all add up to more chronic illness and the lower life-expectancy that results.

Whatever the detailed reasons, the fact of the connection is clear. The graph below, from the Journal of Behavioural Medicine, shows the relationship between Socio-economic Status (SES) and morbidity (ill-health) and mortality:


Graph showing how low income and high morbidity & mortality are linked.

Don’t be deceived by what the Tory-led government tries to claim. Any increase in relative child poverty means huge numbers of people suffering not only a reduced quality of life, but a shorter life expectancy.

A blight

The Tories love to style themselves as the party of opportunity. Let’s leave aside the obvious fact that David Cameron’s goal of ‘spreading privilege’ just means more inequality for the moment. Iain Duncan Smith, just last Friday, claimed that there was no need to pay attention to inequality of relative incomes because, among other things, ‘educational failure‘ is a more telling measure.

But studies show that relative poverty is one of the key causes of ‘educational failure’ – in which case trying to divorce educational failure from relative poverty as a measure is meaningless. A study by the charitable Joseph Rountree Foundation (JRF) showed that as well as affecting “health: physical and mental health, public health issues”, relative child poverty impacted on

education: including low educational attainment and skill levels

Children in relative, not just absolute, poverty are far more likely to leave school with poor qualifications and commensurately worse life prospects – condemned to a high probability of being trapped in the same poverty in which they grew up. In his study for the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG), Donald Hirsch reached the following shocking conclusions:

• By age three, being in poverty makes a difference equivalent to nine months’ development in school readiness.

• At each stage of compulsory schooling, the poverty gap grows. In particular, there is a big jump early in secondary school, with poor children nearly two years behind by the age of 14

The blight on the lives of children growing up in relative poverty is not limited to lower achievements at school. Through this poorer educational performance, relative poverty also leads to the following disadvantages that last for life:

• low status and precarious employment, worklessness and low levels of employability;

• inhibiting and anti-social behaviour including crime, smoking, substance misuse and suicide;

• income, assets and material hardship;

The report’s conclusions do not finish there. Children raised in relative poverty are also more likely to suffer

• family and personal relationship problems, including family difficulties

• child abuse, local authority care, fewer friendships and more social isolation, future relationship problems and degraded family formation;

• shame, stigma, lack of autonomy and low self-esteem.

A national disgrace

IDS may find that relative poverty and the social and income inequality it represents are irrelevant to the poverty issue and to the welfare of our nation’s children. But the damaging effects of relative poverty, including relative child poverty, are so clear and so uncontested by experts that the UK’s standing as one of the most unequal societies in the developed world is nothing short of a national scandal.

In 1996, after 17 years of Tory government, the UK was officially the most unequal country in the developed world, with inequality as great as that of Nigeria.

By 2010, the subsequent Labour government had managed to bring the UK ‘down’ to number 5 in the world table:



But this government’s cuts and caps to the incomes of the lowest earners in the UK are inevitably widening the gap again – as Esther McVey’s convoluted defence of her government’s performance on child poverty inadvertently demonstrated.

For the UK, even after the financial crisis still one of the world’s most prosperous countries, to have almost 4 million of its children in poverty – relative or otherwise – is a national disgrace.

IDS, Esther McVey and others can wriggle and squirm, or posture and bluster, all they want. The facts tell their own story – and they say that the government should be hanging their heads in shame.

Let’s make sure they’re hanging them in defeat at the next election.

Original including links is at http://wp.me/p2sftc-4So

Bedroom-tax will hammer disabled, single/grand/foster parents, forces, bereaved



Chances are you’ve heard of the ‘bedroom tax’, or the ‘under-occupancy’ sanction to give it its government name. But you might not have heard of the various ways in which this policy, which comes into force in April, will impact upon people – ways which make it a glaring example of this government’s programme of ‘planned misery’ aimed at punishing people for the ‘crime’ of needing support.

The Premise

The government’s logic on which the bedroom tax is based are as follows:

• There is a shortage of social, council and low-cost housing

• People are ‘blocking’ housing by staying in properties which are bigger than they need

• People need to be ‘encouraged’ to go through the pain and inconvenience of a move to a smaller property

• This will ‘liberate’ the larger houses

Of course, it might seem a much better solution – especially when the economy is in desperate need of a boost – to solve the problem by building houses rather than twisting the arms of ordinary people through an ill-advised, even insane programme of financial penalties.

But that would require sensible things like redistribution through well-enforced taxation – not to mention planning, competency and a genuine concern for the economic wellbeing of the majority – so it’s not really an option the government wants to look at.

So, true to form, the government is forcing through its plan, with either no thought of the consequences for ordinary people, or else with scant regard for them.

And it is doing so in full knowledge of two facts that, to any non-sociopathic person, would scream ‘don’t do it!‘:

1. The government knows and admits that there are not nearly enough smaller houses for people to move into even if they wanted to – so the ‘incentive to move‘ is actually just a ‘punishment for daring to exist‘.

2. The policy – according to the Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) own assessment! – will disproportionately penalise disabled people, who are already struggling under the weight of unfair Atos assessments and the change from Disability Living Allowance (DLA) to the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) that will push hundreds of thousands into poverty. According to the DWP’s own figures, more than two-thirds of households affected will include tenants with long-term disabilities.

But the government is not deterred by such ‘minor inconveniences’.

How it will ‘work’

The policy will apply to every housing benefit claimant. Those who are assessed as having one bedroom ‘too many’ will lose 14% of their benefit. Those considered to have 2 or more will lose 25%. This is expected to mean an average loss of £14 a week for affected housing benefit claimants, but more – £16 a week – for social housing tenants.

Among the assessment criteria that you might not be aware of are these:

• children under 16 of the same gender are expected to share a bedroom

• children under 10 are expected to share regardless of gender

• no allowance is made for couples using separate rooms because of medical issues, for example the space required for breathing equipment

What will the consequences be?

Because of the way families and properties will be assessed, there will be a wide range of clearly-unfair impacts:

• Because of the room-sharing requirement for children, families with a number of young children are likely to be regarded as having ‘excess’ rooms, even though commonsense says that they ‘fill’ the property

• Children will be deprived of the stability of a familiar home, and of the ‘luxury’ of privacy – low-income families will have to stay in cramped accommodation until their children grow enough, and then wait for a property to become available

• Families with suitable accommodation will face financial pressure to move as soon as the first child leaves home, with massive impact on friendships, social integration and education for younger siblings

• Because of the likely unavailability of suitable smaller/larger housing locally, people will be forced to move out of their home areas, estranging them from the support of family, friends and communities

As the tweet pictured below from MP Tom Blenkinsop shows, foster-children will not count as part of the household for assessment purposes. Foster-parents will suffer financially if they keep rooms available for foster-children; vulnerable children will suffer because of the lower availability of foster-parents with available rooms and of the downward pressure the penalties will exert on foster-parent numbers

• Parents with children away on service with the armed forces will be penalised for keeping a room available for their child(ren), or forced to move to smaller properties with no rooms for their returning heroes

• People with disabled or chronically-ill spouses needing special equipment, or whose condition makes it difficult to sleep in the same room with them, will be penalised if they keep their own room. I know personally of one couple where the husband, whose wife suffers from COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder), currently sleeps in their spare room because of her breathing equipment and in order to get enough sleep to care for her. When he queried how they were going to manage with reduced benefit, he was told:

You’ll have to move somewhere smaller and sleep on the sofa.

• Grandparents below retirement age (pensioners are currently exempt from this policy) will be unable to keep a spare room for their grandchildren to visit, or will have to suffer the financial penalty.

• Divorced parents will be unable to keep rooms for their children to use when they visit. Even parents with shared custody will be affected, as the new rules state that one of the parents must be designated as the ‘main carer’, and the other parent will be subject to the penalty.for any ‘excess’ rooms. Imagine being a young child whose parents are divorced. On top of the emotional trauma, you will now be faced with not even having a bedroom to sleep in when you visit your estranged father/mother.

• If your husband/wife/partner/child dies, you will have only one year’s ‘grace period’ before being penalised if you don’t move. The pain of bereavement will be compounded by the loss of the home that houses all your shared memories. Worse still, when Universal Credit is rolled out this will be shortened to only 3 months.
  Could there be a clearer example of the flint-hearted, inhumane people currently masquerading as our government?

• Lose your job and face an instant penalty – under current benefit rules, tenants who could previously afford their rent without claiming housing benefit, and whose circumstances change through job loss etc, will have a 13-week ‘protection period; to get a new job, recover from ill health and so on. But under Universal Credit, the penalties will start from the moment you have to claim the benefit.

These are just the impacts that I’ve been able to uncover myself so far. As people comment on this post, and as I continue my own reading on the subject, I’m sure that more will come to light.

But even what can be seen so far is enough to demonstrate beyond any reasonable doubt that the heartlessness, callousness, venality and viciousness of this government make even Mrs Thatcher look like Mother Teresa.

God help us – and may He bring the power of these terrorists to a rapid end.

Source: twimg.com

Is the principle to be extended to "Grace and Favour" dwellings, one wonders?
How many "spare bedrooms" is the taxpayer financing at Chequers, Dorney Wood, Chevening, Admiralty House and the like?

Chances are you’ve heard of the ‘bedroom tax’

Skywalker......When people learn the difference between a TAX and a Benefit Cut then the topic can be discussed seriously

blueturando. That's just a semantic smokescreen. The forthcoming tax cut for millionaires will put a lot of money in their pockets. The bedroom tax or housing benefit cut will take money out of the pockets of some of the poorest people in the land; to them it's exactly the same as a tax increase.

skwalker,

Excellent post highlighting the cruel and ridiculous 'bedroom tax'. It should be noted that this starts in April when people in need, and on benefits, will also find themselves having to pay more towards their council tax. This double whammy is going to cause extreme hardship - I don't think most have realised this.

Will these cruel reforms save any money? I think they are simply punitive measures on the poor - and an insight into tory thinking.



oftenwrong,

Separating the sheep from the goats is simple, but distinguishing between the Deserving Poor and the undeserving variety seems to be far too difficult for our Leadership.

I imagine it's quite straightforward for the Tory party. They simply don't believe there is such a thing as the 'deserving poor'.

Lets be specific. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A BEDROOM TAX! is that clear enough. Benefits are for those in need not a life style choice. If your bills are being paid by the state and your happy about that and you have spare rooms in a caring society you should downsize and make way for somebody else who has need of the extra room.

Councils have always had a system where under 10's share a room. Nothing has changed.

Every case should be looked at individually.

My council has reduced it's council tax and is not removing or downsizing the services, strangely it would seem that it's labour controlled councils that are raising them?

Every case SHOULD be looked at individually, but I'm pretty sure every case will not be looked at individually.
Downsizing from a property that's too large is doubtless a solution many would welcome (for one thing, heating a smaller property is likely to be cheaper).
However, that would depend for its success as a policy on a number of other factors
!) You have to be able to find a suitable property to downsize to
2) You have to be able to afford the significant costs of moving
3) If you have kids at college, where will they sleep when they come home for holidays?
4) If you're disabled and need overnight care, where will your overnight carer stay?

Those are just the questions that arise off the top of my head, and I'm sure you don't have any sensible answers to them, or maybe you can surprise me with some hard facts to show that I'm wrong to have these concerns.

There is, I'm aware, a very small pot of money to support exceptional circumstances - I'm very sure this money will be inadequate for the purpose and that many people on benefits (including many in full time work claiming Housing Benefit) will struggle to pay the extra on their rent and will in due course succumb to debt and in the worst case scenario become homeless.
I know this because I weekly see hard working respectable people who are desparate to find cheaper housing becaquse their Housing Benefit already does not come near meeting their housing costs - the cheaper housing isn't in most cases out there.
If you can't afford your rent you have some simple choices, freeze, starve, incur debt, or become homeless. Homeless people usually can't hold down a job, care for their families or make very much of a contribution in their community.
This policy is not properly thought through - in common with a lot of what we've seen from this government it is ideologically driven, and has very little basis in the reality of life as experienced by most working class people in England today.
Back in the days when there was a decent stock of social housing, you might have been able to make a policy of this sort work - today with most people housed at inflated rents, in prrivately let accommodation there's no chance.
Personally, I'm getting in a stock of blankets and insulated cups because I can see myself offering informal support to street sleepers as a regular thing in future

tlttf wrote:Lets be specific. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A BEDROOM TAX! is that clear enough. Benefits are for those in need not a life style choice. If your bills are being paid by the state and your happy about that and you have spare rooms in a caring society you should downsize and make way for somebody else who has need of the extra room.

Councils have always had a system where under 10's share a room. Nothing has changed.

Every case should be looked at individually.

My council has reduced it's council tax and is not removing or downsizing the services, strangely it would seem that it's labour controlled councils that are raising them?

It amounts to a tax on poverty. Where are all these smaller properties to 'downsize' to? People will end up moving to privately-rented accommodation that will cost the same or more, will have less protection and will probably be of a lower standard - and there still won't be enough properties.

Looking at every case individually will cost a fortune - it would be a far better investment to spend the money on building new houses, which would also bring down rents in the private sector and reduce the level of housing benefit people need to receive in the first place. Kill several birds with one stone, or penalise the poor for the sake of being able to claim you're doing something, anything? No contest, for this government.

Tory councils are able to reduce council tax because the reductions in their funding from central government have been in the very low single digits. Labour councils in poorer areas were hit with 8-10% in year 1, and similar since. My own local council, in one of the areas with the worst poverty and unemployment in the whole country, got hit with 9.8% - and is looking at having to cut another £3m in the coming financial year. It can't provide even the most essential services without reducing council tax benefit to the poorest by around 20% - hence Chip's point is absolutely correct.

The Tories chose to protect the rich (and their vote) at the expense of the poorest areas because they will never vote Tory anyway - cynical politics at its very worst, and the cost is misery for millions, with increases in homelessness, family breakdown and suicide.

boatlady wrote:Every case SHOULD be looked at individually, but I'm pretty sure every case will not be looked at individually.
Downsizing from a property that's too large is doubtless a solution many would welcome (for one thing, heating a smaller property is likely to be cheaper).
However, that would depend for its success as a policy on a number of other factors
!) You have to be able to find a suitable property to downsize to
2) You have to be able to afford the significant costs of moving
3) If you have kids at college, where will they sleep when they come home for holidays?
4) If you're disabled and need overnight care, where will your overnight carer stay?

Those are just the questions that arise off the top of my head, and I'm sure you don't have any sensible answers to them, or maybe you can surprise me with some hard facts to show that I'm wrong to have these concerns.

There is, I'm aware, a very small pot of money to support exceptional circumstances - I'm very sure this money will be inadequate for the purpose and that many people on benefits (including many in full time work claiming Housing Benefit) will struggle to pay the extra on their rent and will in due course succumb to debt and in the worst case scenario become homeless.
I know this because I weekly see hard working respectable people who are desparate to find cheaper housing becaquse their Housing Benefit already does not come near meeting their housing costs - the cheaper housing isn't in most cases out there.
If you can't afford your rent you have some simple choices, freeze, starve, incur debt, or become homeless. Homeless people usually can't hold down a job, care for their families or make very much of a contribution in their community.
This policy is not properly thought through - in common with a lot of what we've seen from this government it is ideologically driven, and has very little basis in the reality of life as experienced by most working class people in England today.
Back in the days when there was a decent stock of social housing, you might have been able to make a policy of this sort work - today with most people housed at inflated rents, in prrivately let accommodation there's no chance.
Personally, I'm getting in a stock of blankets and insulated cups because I can see myself offering informal support to street sleepers as a regular thing in future

Great post, boatlady. The only slight correction needed is that students count toward the headcount for 'surplus' room assessment as long as they're not away for more than 12 consecutive months, or 6 months once Universal Credit comes in - I believe those are the right numbers but I'm working from memory.

http://t.co/8Y4g2OQN
This forum is certainly improving my computer skills!
I think I have [posted a link to an interesting piece by Demos about the 'bedroom tax'

And, thanks for the kind words and correction, Steve

boatlady wrote:http://t.co/8Y4g2OQN
This forum is certainly improving my computer skills!
I think I have [posted a link to an interesting piece by Demos about the 'bedroom tax'

You certainly did - and very interesting, too!

That was my first ever hyperlink - now I'm hyperventilating

Excellent news today regarding the courts verdict on the ridiculous tory 'back to work' programme.

Now people need to stop the ridiculous, and cruel, bedroom tax. People, en masse, should point blank refuse to pay it, and refuse to move from their homes; and the government should be taken to the 'court of human rights' if they begin forcing people from their homes.

Remember you have strength in numbers people - if you all simply say no to paying the bedroom tax and refuse to move......what the hell are this stupid, ignorant, and pompous tory government going to do about it - I think you'll find they'll be pretty powerless and will have to scrap this cruel reform.

sickchip wrote:Excellent news today regarding the courts verdict on the ridiculous tory 'back to work' programme.

Now people need to stop the ridiculous, and cruel, bedroom tax. People, en masse, should point blank refuse to pay it, and refuse to move from their homes; and the government should be taken to the 'court of human rights' if they begin forcing people from their homes.

Remember you have strength in numbers people - if you all simply say no to paying the bedroom tax and refuse to move......what the hell are this stupid, ignorant, and pompous tory government going to do about it - I think you'll find they'll be pretty powerless and will have to scrap this cruel reform.

The problem is that the 'tax' is applied as a deduction to benefits before they are paid to the person receiving them. There is no practical way to refuse to pay.

All in favour of protest, though. May this be the 'poll tax' of our day that brings down this government.

In that case the courts might be the answer to stop it.....perhaps the EU court of human rights. This policy is surely cruel and will plunge many into unnecessary hardship/poverty. A humane court/judge surely wouldn't condone it.

Have the government invested in the building of an ample amount of one or two bedroomed properties for people to move into - and in their local areas? I think not. If they can provide, or had provided, such homes for people than the government might be able to claim the policy is fair - but they haven't, and therefore it is not.

skwalker,

[quote]The problem is that the 'tax' is applied as a deduction to benefits before they are paid to the person receiving them. There is no practical way to refuse to pay.

I don't think that is how it works. Councils/landlords will have to collect the shortfall from tenants themselves.

At present if a persons housing benefit does not meet their full rent, they have to pay the shortfall from whatever JSA / income support they receive. They pay that themselves - the shortfall in housing benefit is not, and can not be, deducted from other benefits.

It will be up to the individual to arrange payment themselves - so they will in fact be able to refuse to pay.

And then be evicted

boatlady,

....I refer you to my above post.

Now people need to stop the ridiculous, and cruel, bedroom tax. People, en masse, should point blank refuse to pay it, and refuse to move from their homes; and the government should be taken to the 'court of human rights' if they begin forcing people from their homes.

Remember you have strength in numbers people - if you all simply say no to paying the bedroom tax and refuse to move......what the hell are this stupid, ignorant, and pompous tory government going to do about it - I think you'll find they'll be pretty powerless and will have to scrap this cruel reform.

Do you really imagine they could evict everybody? The courts would deem this policy to infringe basic human rights.

OOPs - seeking smart quick riposte, omitted to read the whole post - mea culpa.
Civil disobedience in England though?
Can you really see it happening?
I'll have to get back to the history books - where it's worked, I think there was more, and more widespread, desparation and destitution.

[quote="sickchip"]skwalker,

The problem is that the 'tax' is applied as a deduction to benefits before they are paid to the person receiving them. There is no practical way to refuse to pay.

I don't think that is how it works. Councils will have to collect the shortfall from tenants themselves.

At present if a persons housing benefit does not meet their full rent, they have to pay the shortfall from whatever JSA / income support they receive. They pay that themselves - the shortfall in housing benefit is not, and can not be, deducted from other benefits.

It will be up to the individual to arrange payment themselves - so they will in fact be able to refuse to pay.

The bar stewards are ahead of us, as usual. Quite soon, Housing Benefits will cease to be sent to Landlords and will instead be paid to the claimant, who will be personally be responsible for passing the rent on to their Landlord.

Does anyone feel strong enough to forecast the likely result of this change?

Good post from Vordermont here on the legalities of the 'bedroom tax'.

http://flythenest.freeforums.org/monday-11th-february-t172-50.html

I commented on this on the Guardian pages and received this excellent response from ephermerid, that demonstrates this is indeed a form of tax.

Social security benefits are counted towards taxable income, but they are not taxed as such.
Basic benefit is £71 per week for an adult over 25, which is an annual income of £3,692 PA.
An income that low is exempt from income tax, but the "bedroom tax", or under-occupancy charge, is an EFFECTIVE tax.

I have a friend who has £71 a week to live on. That's what it says on the DWP award letters that claimants get - "this is the amount the governemnt says you need to live on". She has about £28 a week after basic utility bills to pay for food.

She has a bedroom which she doesn't use herself, but which is kept for her son who serves in HM Armed Forces, and who spends weekends with her regularly and needs somewhere to call home and store his personal possessions. Barracks can't do it.
There are also very few 1-bed properties she could downsize to - unless she went to the private sector, and she could get ALL her rent paid in the government-dictated correct size, but it would cost a lot more than her Housing Association place does now.

If her landlord does not get the full rent from the council/housing benefit, she will have to pay the shortfall.
She will have to pay at least £12 a week. On an income of just £71, that represents 15% of her income.

If the government says that £71 is what she needs to "live on" not including housing, they are effectively taxing her benefit.
The government is clawing back money from her benefit because it won't pay for the house she lives in.
It doesn't matter that she can't go elsewhere, or if it were possible it would cost a lot more - what matters is that she, if the council can't help, is paying the government for her home when the government should be paying for it.

They are removing 15% of her income, which is an absolute disgrace.

boatlady,

We stopped the poll tax - we can stop this. Have a little faith, please.

After the judges ruling on the tory 'back to work' programme, I think they can also be challenged, and defeated, on this issue. Their policies and credibility will soon be in tatters.

[quote="sickchip"]skwalker,

The problem is that the 'tax' is applied as a deduction to benefits before they are paid to the person receiving them. There is no practical way to refuse to pay.

I don't think that is how it works. Councils/landlords will have to collect the shortfall from tenants themselves.

At present if a persons housing benefit does not meet their full rent, they have to pay the shortfall from whatever JSA / income support they receive. They pay that themselves - the shortfall in housing benefit is not, and can not be, deducted from other benefits.

It will be up to the individual to arrange payment themselves - so they will in fact be able to refuse to pay.

They'll be able to refuse to pay their local council or their housing association, while central government banks the money deducted from the housing benefit. This government has already shown itself perfectly prepared to starve local government of funds - so refusals to pay will just add to that burden, and the costs of trying to collect arrears will add to the problem.

I agree absolutely on the need for protest - but the government has set it up so that withholding payment won't hurt it directly. If the problem knocks on until lots of people come out onto the streets because their councils can't afford to do anything any more, that's a different matter. But I doubt this lot think that far ahead, or if they do then they assume the police will handle the problem for them - even as they're busy impoverishing the police in a break from the long tradition of looking after them at all costs, because of their privatisation agenda. Greed blinds people to the bigger picture, I guess.

http://www.journalonline.co.uk/News/1012241.aspx

"....After the judges ruling on the tory 'back to work' programme, I think they can also be challenged ...."

Employment Minister Mark Hoban said: "We have no intention of giving back money to anyone who has had their benefits removed because they refused to take getting into work seriously. We are currently considering a range of options to ensure this does not happen."....

...."We do not agree with the court's judgment and are seeking permission to appeal, but new regulations will be tabled to avoid any uncertainty."

Governments have various ways of "tabling new regulations", e.g. by Statutory Instrument, or by an Order in Council, that do not require debate in the House of Commons.

(Further comment on the Appeal judgment): http://lawgeekblog.wordpress.com/2013/02/12/workfare-a-fair-judgement/

oftenwrong wrote:Does anyone feel strong enough to forecast the likely result of this change?

Massive arrears. I hate that it sounds so paternalistic, but the fact is that there are a lot of people who are used to working hand-to-mouth with money, and whose impulse-control and forward thinking isn't good - finding themselves with a lump sum that covers a whole month is likely to be a temptation many will find hard to resist.

Ironic that at the same time as the government is planning to hand a relatively large sum of money to people, its Tory component is also calling for money to be withheld and cards to be issued instead which can only be used for 'responsible' purposes.