Opposition grows to benefit cap
Discussion
Mobile Chicane said:
sidicks said:
Mobile Chicane said:
I left home aged 17, simply because the situation at 'home' was intolerable.
I earned £25 or so a week from a part-time job, the rest of my board and lodging was topped up with Housing Benefit.
Back in the day, 16 - 18 year-olds were eligible for this.
This enabled me to get my 'A' Levels, and thence to University. Without benefits, participation in Higher Education would have been impossible.
Funnily enough, I've been a Higher Rate taxpayer ever since...
Unfortunately, you are the exception rather than the rule.I earned £25 or so a week from a part-time job, the rest of my board and lodging was topped up with Housing Benefit.
Back in the day, 16 - 18 year-olds were eligible for this.
This enabled me to get my 'A' Levels, and thence to University. Without benefits, participation in Higher Education would have been impossible.
Funnily enough, I've been a Higher Rate taxpayer ever since...
HB was abolished for 16 - 18 year-olds in the late 1980s if I recall.
I do wonder how many able potential students since then have been excluded from Higher Education simply because their parents could not afford for them to 'stay on' at school.
) To abandon somebody at such an age is criminal - what sort of society do we want to live in ? We're better than that and given the tiny amount it costs compared to the other things we spend millions on, I think it's good value for money. If there's one time a person can learn and better themselves it's when they are 18-24 with no responsibilities or ties, they're free to develop their minds and ideas and to withdraw their housing will just make them till fodder for Tesco/Morrisons/etc - and they will then have to get in work benefits to survive so we're paying them anyway ! The constant agro about benefits really hacks me off - the biggest cost is pensions, housing benefit and in work benefits, the unemployed or disabled actually receive a very small proportion of the budget.
George111 said:
I don't think you will be the exception - there are many people I met at University who had a poor start in life, a surprising number. (I didn't go to a posh uni ) To abandon somebody at such an age is criminal - what sort of society do we want to live in ? We're better than that and given the tiny amount it costs compared to the other things we spend millions on, I think it's good value for money. If there's one time a person can learn and better themselves it's when they are 18-24 with no responsibilities or ties, they're free to develop their minds and ideas and to withdraw their housing will just make them till fodder for Tesco/Morrisons/etc - and they will then have to get in work benefits to survive so we're paying them anyway !
The constant agro about benefits really hacks me off - the biggest cost is pensions, housing benefit and in work benefits, the unemployed or disabled actually receive a very small proportion of the budget.
+1 Well said, that man..... I take my hat off to you sir. ) To abandon somebody at such an age is criminal - what sort of society do we want to live in ? We're better than that and given the tiny amount it costs compared to the other things we spend millions on, I think it's good value for money. If there's one time a person can learn and better themselves it's when they are 18-24 with no responsibilities or ties, they're free to develop their minds and ideas and to withdraw their housing will just make them till fodder for Tesco/Morrisons/etc - and they will then have to get in work benefits to survive so we're paying them anyway ! The constant agro about benefits really hacks me off - the biggest cost is pensions, housing benefit and in work benefits, the unemployed or disabled actually receive a very small proportion of the budget.
xjsdriver said:
Imagine you are a council, and you have - let's say 50 homes and you sell 20, but don't go on to rebuild 20, then you no longer have 50 homes you can rent out..... and a shortfall is the situation that's been created.
This happened with just about every council up and down the country and surprise, surprise it was the nicest, in best state of repair of the council stock that went first. If you can't see this has been anything but a disaster in the making then you are truly deluded - I pity the day my daughter has to try and buy a place of her own.
The houses haven't disappeared! People are living in them. There aren't millions of people homeless and fewer people live in each household today than they used to so they aren't all living together either. The situation with high rents and prices at the arse end of the market is caused entirely by housing benefit. Cap housing benefit and watch rents and prices collapse. Blaming a shortage of houses on a transfer of ownership and not the lack of building is daft but I doubt you will be convinced so I'll leave you to whinge about it.This happened with just about every council up and down the country and surprise, surprise it was the nicest, in best state of repair of the council stock that went first. If you can't see this has been anything but a disaster in the making then you are truly deluded - I pity the day my daughter has to try and buy a place of her own.
rich1231 said:
freecar said:
I predict this thread will not be full of grown up debate and conversation.
Instead it will devolve into a "benefit claimants are all scroungers who tell lies and get free flat screen tvs from our hard paid taxes" thread.
Hmm is there really any need for anyone to receive over £26k a year in benefits?Instead it will devolve into a "benefit claimants are all scroungers who tell lies and get free flat screen tvs from our hard paid taxes" thread.
I can't see any justification at all, apart from disability related claimants.
Just for balance not a dig.
rover 623gsi said:
the transfer of ownership and lack of building are intrinsically linked
Might have been a part of the same policy back in the day but the sell off in the past has not stopped you building since so is completely irrelevant.rover 623gsi said:
The main reason the housing benefit bill is continuing to increase is because private rents are higher than social rents.
Nonsense. At the lower end of the market you have tax payers competing with councils with an open cheque book. Thats why rents are so high. Ignoring for now how outrageous it is for taxpayers to be outbid with their own damn money by the HB crowd for the same house it is blindingly obvious that if you hobble half the competition with a cap on what they can spend prices/rents will come down. Basic supply and demand.there has been hardly any council housing built in the past 20 years or so - councils were not allowed to use the receipts received from selling to build new homes and then a cap was put in place to prevent them from borrowing much money to fund new development.
nearly all new social housing is built by housing associations
Private rents are higher than social rents. Most new recipients of housing benefit since 2010 are low paid workers renting privately
Thus, building more social housing would reduce the HB bill.
nearly all new social housing is built by housing associations
Private rents are higher than social rents. Most new recipients of housing benefit since 2010 are low paid workers renting privately
Thus, building more social housing would reduce the HB bill.
rover 623gsi said:
Private rents are higher than social rents.
What does that mean? Private renters are in competition with councils for the same housing stock.rover 623gsi said:
Thus, building more social housing would reduce the HB bill.
Of course it would, I've got no problem with it but so would building more private housing, reducing immigration and capping HB/amount councils can spend on rent. Supply and demand, it's not difficult.fblm said:
rover 623gsi said:
Private rents are higher than social rents.
What does that mean? Private renters are in competition with councils for the same housing stock.rover 623gsi said:
Thus, building more social housing would reduce the HB bill.
Of course it would, I've got no problem with it but so would building more private housing, reducing immigration and capping HB/amount councils can spend on rent. Supply and demand, it's not difficult.Where I live, the average rent for a 3-bed social housing property is about £500 pcm. The average rent for a 3-bed private sector property is about £750 pcm.
Therefore someone renting in social housing is either a) more likely to be able to afford the rent with HB or b) require less HB than they would if renting privately.
fblm said:
Nonsense. At the lower end of the market you have tax payers competing with councils with an open cheque book. Thats why rents are so high. Ignoring for now how outrageous it is for taxpayers to be outbid with their own damn money by the HB crowd for the same house it is blindingly obvious that if you hobble half the competition with a cap on what they can spend prices/rents will come down. Basic supply and demand.
Why do you say that?Most councils have very strict controls on how much they will pay. Its normally just below the market rental as councils feel there good credit rating should allow lower rents.
The effect is only the landlords interested in HB tenants are those with lower quality properties.
rover 623gsi said:
Where I live, the average rent for a 3-bed social housing property is about £500 pcm. The average rent for a 3-bed private sector property is about £750 pcm
There's a rent floor for basic accommodation (the price of which is unsurprisingly linked to what HB will pay for), and there are better places which are a bit more expensive. Plenty of low-end rentals with private tenants.Mrr T said:
Why?
We have a finite amount of space, it is correct to prevent further urban sprawl, and destruction of the greenbelt. Once a "virgin" piece of land is built on, it will 99.9% of the time never go back to being open ground. 10million more people since 1964. Greater pressure on all infrastructure. Roads, Hospitals, Sewage, Water, Schools, Shops everything.
More people = more housing = more everything else. We cannot go to 80million people. Think how much better this country would be with a stable or slightly declining population.
See below.
Since 1964 the population of the UK has grown by over 10 million people (18.7%). About half of this growth has occurred since 2001.
Over the earlier part of this period population change was driven mainly by variation in the number of births. Population grew throughout the 1960s up until the early 1970s mainly as a result of the 1960s baby boom; while over the rest of the 1970s growth was subdued, reflecting falling fertility. The very large birth cohort of 1960s baby boomers beginning to have children saw births, and hence the population, grow again in the 1980s, but births declined again through the 1990s.
A time series of UK births and deaths data on a calendar year basis is available in the Population and Health Reference Tables published by ONS.
Since 2001 there have been high levels of net inward migration, adding to the population at younger working ages. In part this was driven by the expansion of the European Union in 2004 and 2007. This period has also seen an increasing number of births, driven by both the immigration of women of childbearing age (15-44) and rising fertility among UK-born women.
fblm said:
Unfortunately your finances need more.
+1 Haha!!! This is the point that none of these anti-immigrationists don't either get, or don't want to admit that the country has a population that is ageing faster than it is reproducing at some point in the near future (within the next 50 years according to estimates from NIESR) we will arrive at the point where there are more retired people than of working age..... Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff