So the various benefits cuts are starting to take shape and it's announced that there's going to be a total benefit cap of £26,000. It's suggested that this most affects people in London, who are going to be forced to move out of places like ours to far distant suburbs.
Does anyone know anyone who thinks they would be affected by this?
I'm genuinely curious about how this works in practice, both in terms of housing demand, people moving and so on. I'm not interested in people making party political points, I'm just interested in people's practical experience of how the system works.
Comments
Surely the point of benefits is to make sure people are safe, secure, healthy and warm until they are more able to support themselves - ie. not having a veto over which postcode you live in - but if someone's been employed all their life and then becomes genuinely unable to work long term it seems a bit harsh to turf them out of the area!
I like the sound of the system in Germany (?) where (this may be an oversimplification) the more you work, the more credits you rack up so if something bad happens you'll be better supported by the state - this seems a clever way of making it worth people's while to get a job without removing the welfare state altogether.
And spare me the people who are complaining because one partner earns more than £48k so they've lost their child benefit - I don't pay tax so that they can afford two holidays a year.
Very interesting inversion of normal party political standpoints at the moment...
Whilst I am wholeheartedly in favour of both simplifying the benefit system and enabling people to work by ending the current system where you are, in fact, penalised for working, I also feel uneasy about the cap for London. It feels a lot like social engineering as I cannot believe that the disparity in costs has not been considered.
Equally, I am not against the loss of child benefit for those in the upper tax bracket (of which I am one..just) however I am incensed at the idea that this will be ofset for MARRIED COUPLES through a transferable tax allowance. I am a single mum, no one supports me and my kid but me, I have always worked, I saved for 15 years to raise the deposit for a flat and apparently I am to subsidise middle class families who have the luxury of a stay at home partner??!!
As for the housing market some £5billion was given to London's mayor by the last govt. for him to rebalance the private rented sector with new housing and I doubt if BJ will even come close to spending this during his reign.
I fear that what we're seeing is a ministerial p***ing contest for the biggest cuts and accompanying headlines. Hence the announcements seem to run ahead of full research into cost, impact and implementation.
Sure, it's a blunt approach, but benefits are supposed to be there to help the poorest, rather than to provide the middle classes with a bit of extra pocket money.
I agree that it's unfortunate that this budget cut will disproportionately affect women (I'm female) but on balance I think it's most important that less well-off people of both sexes will still receive the benefit (after all it's supposed to be for their kids). I'd be very uncomfortable indeed if wealthier women were getting it at the expense of poorer men.
And I'm not making a party political point - in fact I'm the quintessential floating voter.
Anyway, that's my twopenneth for the evening.