Hopefully the Lords will keep out of it and add their rubber stamp without to much of a fuss!

Forget it! The Lords are too busy pigging out at our expense whether actually in the House of Lords or like Prescot 'fact finding' in the Maldives, Mexico, casinos worldwide etc.
Will 'Lady' Udin be helping herself or poor people, answers please to Cif.

Governments don’t seem to ‘get’ social security.

They seems to be a huge error in their thinking, where they seem to think paying people money because they are out of work or unable to work is the cause of societies problems. It’s not. The social security bill is a consequence of the government not getting it right in other areas.

They are slashing the housing benefit bill with no apparent recognition that the size of it is directly related to massive increases in housing costs that are completely out of whack with people’s incomes. The often site the miniscule amount of claimants that are getting huge amounts of housing benefit in central London. But, they never seem to mention that a large proportion of housing benefit claimants are in low(ish) paid work, and the huge amounts paid out in these cases do not go to ‘scrounging claimant’ but to the pockets of private sector landlords. Many of these properties are of a lower standard, and they would not be able to get those levels of rents on the non-benefit market, but they can because there is no link between housing benefit and property standards.

They also do not get the unintended consequences of doing this. Thoughtlessly slashing the housing benefits doesn’t save money – it just shifts the burden of the costs elsewhere. Local authorities, hostels, homeless charities, and the voluntary sector (whose budgets are being cut) will be left to deal with customers who can no longer live in their homes, which all costs money.

Instead of short-term knee-jerk reactions, why not think long term:

1. Build more social housing. As well as bring rents down and providing housing, it also creates more jobs and means more money going back to the state. At the moment too much housing benefit goes in to landlord’s pockets. Wouldn’t it be better to go back to the local authority or social housing provider, so more low-cost good quality housing can be built?

2. Introduce a living wage. At the moment housing benefit is effectively subsiding employers who do not pay enough in wages for people to pay their rent.

3. Change the way housing benefit amounts are decided, so they are more closely linked to property standards

They all may take a little more work and investment that a quick arbitrary slash of the housing benefit budget, but surely this is a much better alternative if we are thinking long-term?

What is not being discussed at all in parliament is the method of how the new benefits system will be delivered.

The government’s current plans seem to be around a centralised model of IT self-service, call centres, and processing factories. Their logic for doing this is again to save costs. But again they are only seeing things in the short-term. Their plans will cost more and give a much worse service (leaving vulnerable people without the money to pay their rent). And again, this will mean more work (and costs) for other public and third sector organisations to deal with it.

The reason why their project, which will cost £millions and fail, are explained much better than I could ever do here. A much better alternative is also presented.

http://www.systemsthinking.co.uk/docs/Open%20Letter%20to%20Duncan%20Smith%20and%20Freud.pdf

This article demonstrates why such independent moves like the #SpartacusReport are so necessary. The report's producers have even sacrificed their own health to get it done: I hope the Lords don't disappoint.

I though the lords was only supposed to be advisory?

As someone who has had a long term illness I'm not hoping for much. It doesn't a mastermind that the reform is backwards and poorly thought out. I'm meant to be moving into my own place later in the year, something that I was once looking too and now its fills me with dread.

Just put us out of our misery and stop messing around.

Cameron and his neo right rich peoples Conservative party have drained every ounce of life out of the poor and disabled, what else does he want to do? deport us all to some third world country?

So , then relying of the LibDem peers is what it boils down to...

Don't give up ... Remember Shirley Williams rallied them to oppose the NHS reforms.

Oh , sorry ... Disabled' are screwed then !

More point trusting a chocolate teapot in a heatwave than trusting a LibDem.

If Cameron was Wimbledon , Clegg and Co would be the ball 'boys'.
(probably on an empty court , wondering why the game was so slow and the support so lacking.)

what else does he want to do? deport us all to some third world country?

Greedy sod will only do that if he can get a good price , and probably for a private contractor.

So , then relying of the LibDem peers is what it boils down to...

The Lords is a dead exanguinated husk. They had a chance to redefine their value to the people during the NHS debate and the Vichy liberals sold our futures for silver. Even Williams rolled over.

You again!

Surely to god the church will use its newly discovered voice and start to practise what is's been preaching at us for 2000 years?

The Lords are the last hope to soften the blows aimed at the poor

Really? Last time I spoke up in this democracy the Lords called me part of a rent a mob and ignored me. I doubt they'll speak up for the oiks.

Paddy Ashdown will be visible again (for a change then). I'd all but forgotten that he hadn't died when he suddenly turned up at the Lords to bully his side in to supporting the Tories against Lord Owen's amendment on the NHS.

He'll be there to ensure the LibDems do the "right thing" and vote with the Tories. Cruel, uncaring people.

Last but not least are social fund crisis loans – the safety net below the safety net, to catch those who fall through the holes

If this works anything like the long running ACCESS funds in universities they will be worse than useless anyway. When I was involved in administering these a decade ago students had to stringently justify a sum they absolutely needed. The money available was such that 30% of this absolutely needed sum was the most that was ever given, often it was only around 10%.

The funds in no way assisted applicants in remaining in university but simply amounted to helping those who were having to leave with their obligations. At least students usually have the option to leave university and work. I am not sure what the disabled are expected to do: leave life?

Paddy Ashdown will be visible again (for a change then). I'd all but forgotten that he hadn't died when he suddenly turned up at the Lords to bully his side in to supporting the Tories against Lord Owen's amendment on the NHS.

He'll be there to ensure the LibDems do the "right thing" and vote with the Tories. Cruel, uncaring people.

sorry - computer glitch gave duplicate!

It strikes me odd that the government *ahem* David Cameron, feels that it is those who do not work that bring this country to it's needs. Sadly making the poor poorer by making the most vunerable suffer surely says alot about the man who 's interest in the country is mild at best.

Those who are disabled, unable to work who are deemed able to by the system who is hugely flawed with many errors, pray do tell who is going to employ them? I assume that the government will be offering completely free training to these individuals who have little to no work experience and quite often no skills. Even this takes time, what do they live on until then?

I'm not saying the benefit system isn't without it's flaws, but then who isn't Mr Cameron?

There are hundreds of families that want to work, that cannot find jobs, reducing their money isn't going to help create the jobs for them to fill is it? There will always be those who are lazy and 'work the system' but punishing the majority demeans the whole process and forces poverty upon many families who could have pulled through with the correct help.

Start with cutting the wages of the fat cats in parliament, if those who work in government are worth their salaries, prove it! Because David Cameron is single handedly bringing down Britain with his hatred for anyone lower class than himself. Why not stop the big name companies that avoid billions of pounds of tax being able to operate the way they do, such as Tesco and Boots. They have a duty of business to give back to their country, don't want to? Then ship out!

When did we fall foul of a dictatorship??

don't worry, they have a solution, they're going to round us all up and put us in nice places with lots of other nice people such as the poor, gypsies, religious minorities, gay people and they'll make us nice and safe behind barbed wire fences. then they'll give us lots of lovely free gas in a cozy warm airtight room. and the rest of the country will be happy for us and cheer because if they don't they might get taken to the nice places. i say this to the rest of the country, you think i'm kidding, you think it can't happen here. and where will the opposition parties be, well they all agree that its a good idea and that the nice people who are different should be treated to these nice places and never have to leave because a nice man who owns a lovely newspaper agree's that its a good idea and no one likes to argue with him, even though they're pretending too now.

So no one is going to sick or disabled after 12months

amazing when did cameron become jesus and cure all the sick

the westminister scroungers have robbed us, after paying taxes and NATIONAL INSURANCE you only get 12 months insurance
any chance for a NI and tax retrospective rebate from our theiving politicians

What next "means testing" for NHS treatment

NHS free at the point of delivery*
except if you have savings over £16000 and or a partner in work

spot on. professor Seddon imo has this absolutely nailed. i don't know why exactly the government doesn't take on board what he says, but suspect too many people in the civil service have fastened their positions to the inefficient practices he sees through. it will be a fiasco, and will waste billions.

A major survey showed that only 8% of UK employers would even consider interviewing anyone who had been on IB or ESA for a job. Given that outside the S. East there are 20 applicants for every job and that immigrants get 90% of all new jobs then almost everyone who is knocked of IB or ESA will have to be found a job. Cameron has said that this will be what they'll do But where are you going to find half a million jobs Mr Cameron ?

I think the best sick and disabled people can hope for is a longer period before cut off. Most likely 24 months rather than 12.

The fact that it's people who've paid into the system who will be cut off cold is absolutely dispicable.

I am ill with a chronic long term condition. Yet I worked from the age of 18 full time apart from the time I was studying. I paid in tax and NI and for a period higher rate contributions.

Yet under the changes if my partner earned more than £7, 500 I would be eligible for nothing. This is evil. It means that only the very, most desperately poorest will get support in sickness - or those who live alone.

It will plunge hundreds of thousands of sick people - and their families - into poverty.

Worse, it will take away the last shreds of independence from those people.

Me harping on about me paying in isn't, by the way, trying to scapegoat those on income related benefits - it's trying to make a point that for many sick people - the £90 a week they get is something they feel they've contributed to the family coffers by their work in the past. After all they worked, they paid into a National Insurance fund that they were told was there for them if they got sick and when god forbid the worst happened and that fund paid out, they were able to contribute to family expenses.

Now many of those people will become totally reliant on charity of friends and family to keep them going. For those in already poverty hit households it might be the very last straw for family relations. It wouldn't surprise me at all if we hear horror stories of families breaking up due to the economic strain and sick and disabled people finding themselves homeless.

This really is the most desparately cynical move by this government and it will save a paltry amount. I can't really express in words how sad, depressed, angry and hopeless this whole thing makes me. The worst of it is along with a deep undercurrent of fear for my own situation I keep thinking about those less fortunate than me. Those with worse medical conditions, those who are already living in grinding poverty. The whole thing just fills me with despair - and I don't use that word lightly.

not a chance. but the extension of means-testing to sick workers, through this removal of social insurance is the death of the national insurance scheme, and henceforth national insurance is a government scam.

will the Lord's stop this theft? doubtful.

there will be a heavy price to pay for this.

From the British Medical Journal

The assault on universalism: how to destroy the welfare state

Excerpt:

So for those who wish to destroy the European model of welfare state, the structural weaknesses of social welfare in the United States offer an attractive model. First, create an identifiable group of undeserving poor. Second, create a system in which the rich see little benefit flowing back to them from their taxes. Third, diminish the role of trade unions, portraying them as pursuing the narrow interests of their members rather than, as is actually the case, recognising that high rates of trade union membership have historically benefited the general population. Finally, as Reagan did when cutting welfare in the 1980s, do so in a way that attracts as little attention as possible, putting in place policies whose implications are unclear and whose effects will only be seen in the future. All these strategies can be seen in the UK today.

The tabloid press, much of it owned by multi-millionaires, is at the forefront of the first approach. Each day they fill their pages with accounts of people “milking the system.” By constant repetition they create new forms of word association, constructing a cultural underclass. “Welfare” is invariably associated with “scroungers.” “Bogus” invariably describes “asylum seekers.” They accept that there is a group of deserving poor, whose situation has arisen from “genuine misfortune” (which seemingly excludes refugees caught up in wars), but when these groups appear in their pages it is because they have been let down by the state, which is devoting its efforts to the undeserving. And as a growing body of research shows, this continuous diet of hate does make a difference.

Such vilification of the undeserving poor is not new. What is changing in the United Kingdom is the progressive exclusion of the middle classes from the welfare state through incremental erosion of universal benefits. The logic is appealing, but highly divisive: Why should the state pay for those who can afford to pay for themselves? Why should “ordinary working people” pay for “middle class benefits”? The economic crisis has given the government a once in a lifetime opportunity. As Naomi Klein has described in many different situations, those opposed to the welfare state never waste a good crisis. The deficit must be reduced, and so, one by one, benefits are removed and groups are pitted against each other, as the interests of the middle class in the welfare state wither away.

http://www.bmj.com/content/343/bmj.d7973

A century after reactionary Lords vowed to die in the ditch to stop the people's budget, let us hope that their successors prove just as dogged in protecting poor people from attack.

Given that they allowed the WRB to be moved out of the main hall into side rooms despite disabled members complaining this would limit access, I don't think there's much chance of that, do you?

This is what outrages me the most! And the one thing that hardly anyone is saying in the media. National Insurance is now a fraud. Yet workers still have to pay it. They have to pay it and get nothing for it - or nothing worth anything.

They could put that money into a private insurance policy that would pay out longer than 12 months but they can't - because the government keeps taking it from their pay packets despite having no intentions to honour the original commitments of the scheme.

Why aren't people screaming about this? Even those cut mad right wingers should be livid that they're paying NI that won't ever give them a return. It's outright government theft - on every working person. Pay in and yet get bugger all if you're sick or out of work.

It's theft pure and simple!

A majority of employers admitted they'd rather hire an ex-convict than hire a person who is sick or disabled.

This is going to be an absolute disaster. Socially and economically, as other public services have to pick up the slack as the welfare state turns its back on some of the most vulnerable members of society.

Could you please inform us of what you do for a living and why you thinks cuts to the disabled is a good thing?

We in return will show you how to take you head out of your arse.

And they want it both ways. Get sick or disabled before 25 and we've scrapped your automatic entitlement (under current ESA in Youth rules) because you didn't pay enough NI. Get sick after 25 and we're time limiting your automatic entitlement because you've paid NI.

I got sick when was 14. I've spent the last 20 years coping with serious ill health. I've got two long term physical conditions that I've had that whole time and since the age of 25, my mental health has been a car crash for other unrelated reasons. Being ill has made everything harder. My education and employment has suffered. My relationships have been put under such stress that in fact my dad and i no longer speak at all after he walked away. I've missed out on all the things my healthy friends take for granted. My career is irreparably damaged. My pension is fucked. I'll never be able to have kids. Even having a pet is too much to cope with. I've been homeless because my health. I'm dosed to the eyeballs on medication everyday. I've never been able to pay for a holiday. I've lost count of the birthday parties and social occasions I've missed out on and the friends I've lost and the people who didn't want to date me when they realised there wasn't going to be a honeymoon period where my illness abated. I've spent most of the last two decades either sleep or distracted by pain and drugs.

But I had my dignity. And I had the NHS and I had the welfare state. All three gave me the chance to make the most of my life, not suffer more than i have to because I was unlucky enough to get ill and allow me to take risks like start a job or study knowing that I had a safety net to catch me and make sure I never went without a roof or food. My illness was recognised by the in youth rules and although I've lived my entire adult life on less than £100 a week, I've had security and safety that I am immensely grateful for. This government wants to strip it all away from people like me and then punish us if we do happen to rally long enough to work and qualify for contribution based ESA or find someone who loves us and wants to be with us after all those long lonely years with only illness as a constant companion.

The fear paralyses me. I feel so bleak and hopeless. I feel like a burden, a failure, a waste of space. I feel punished for being ill and for having the audacity to not have been ashamed of myself for it. I feel like any attempt I make to recover and start my life over again will be snatched away from me and that there's no point even trying. I should just write myself off and give in. People like me can't have nice things. I cannot imagine how much worse it'll be if this gets through...

work camps will work well.

So what about the feckless, lazy, cocaine-fuelled, violent kids of the rich? The same rich who steal from taxpayers, pay nothing in return and the bugger off to Monaco at the first sign of a single penny of taxation?

In effect, the country is subsidising the uber-wealthy scions of the rich and there isn't one word of protest from the assembled journalists.

But, if you're a child from a poor family or have cancer you are scrounging scum who should be stripped of all dignity and forced to live in a slum.

And people then scratch their heads wondering about the causes of the riots.

Dear oh dear.

The big disgrace in all this is also BBC TV's failure as with other welfare benefits and legal aid cuts to give any coverage to the story.

They are slashing the housing benefit bill with no apparent recognition that the size of it is directly related to massive increases in housing costs that are completely out of whack with people’s incomes.

The trouble is that housing benefit has directly led to the massive increases in housing costs as too much demand in expensive areas compared to limited supply has driven up rents and house prices. What this has meant is that eveyone apart from buy to let landlords, everyone has become worse off. I don't think the basic premise of that state subsidised housing should be at the cheaper end of the market is a bad one. There should be an incentive for people to to work hard, earn more money and afford a better property that would be automatically be provided by the state. Instead we are in the absurd situation that the state is providing properties to people on welfare which is way beyond the reach of middle earners in the area who are forced to move far away.

It would be far better for society if less money was spent subsidising rents in expensive areas and more was spent building affordable homes in affordable areas. If some people have to move locations and commute further then they are just in the same boat as the rest of us.

We appear to be living in the final days of the post WW2 ideaology of fairness. My understanding is that following WW1 where sacrifices made led only to the depression and the elite still in power there was a sentiment after such sacrifices in WW2 that EVERYONE had rights. That everyone had a right to a minimum standard of life not through position, who's womb they emerged from or who they knew but from the simple premice of living in a country that could afford to maintain these standards. A dutch PM 20 years ago summed it up for me - he said he was proud that Holland had the poorest rich in Europe and the richest poor!

The recent generation of influence - political, media, cultural, has decided that minimum standards eats into their accumulating wealth so as a nation we have sold out on minimum standards. For my father - the community supported him during times of hardship because all invested in the same community. For my son - he has to know his place and be grateful for any scraps passed down.

I am guessing that if my son was born into millions and an Eton education he might also question why poor people choose to be poor, and see it as his role to remove the support that allows poor people to stay poor. I've already booked my park bench for accomodation since I guess that is where politicians expect me to live.

The managers and editors at the BBC (largely drawn from exactly the same social class of the privately/Oxbridge educated as Dave Scam's lot and half the Labour front bench) have their snouts so far into the trough they ain't going to start siding with the poor.

Funny how the MPs and the BBC can draw £100s of £1000s of taxpayers cash, even going as far as paying for private photographers and luxury suites at 5star hotels, but if you've got cancer and are poor, tough.

I am not sure what the disabled are expected to do: leave life?

It'd be the decent thing for us disabled to do, don't you know?

Burden on the state and all that?

You know it makes sense!

I thought 80's style conservatism was nasty.... what the hell is this version? Evil?

I mean this in the nicest possible way, obviously, but as someone who has worked all my life who unexpectedly became disabled (yes... unexpectedly... doubt any of us 'expected' to be in this situation).. I almost hope you come to find out what the reality of being in our position is like.

I've only been disabled a couple of years too. Chose a good time to decide to be feckless and sponge off the rich... er I mean state... didn't I?

There... I've said it.

I doubt you're real anyway.

Only the conservative cabinet themselves really think like you appear to.

Most people add to these comments because of life's experience, or because they have something eloquent to say. You, sir, are obviously not among them.

I'm disabled and I've said quite enough about that for now, but I'm not hopeful to say the least.

What I'm in shock about after reading the article is that the benefits cap will apply to those already in temporary accommodation, and of course this applies to any future family or individual. I had only thought that the cap related to those in permenant homes.

For an individual dependent on age in my area, the most you can receive each week is £77; there is no bed and breakfast accommodation for that in the area. Families receive more and so may be ok, but anyone else won't.

In London and other expensive areas this will hit very hard indeed. If families cannot have a home, and not even temporary accommodation, where are they supposed to go? In the U.S. they remove the children in those circumstances, which are now widespread, so presumably that will be the case.

The positive thing is that the government intend to relax the adoption proceedures...

"Hopefully the Lords will keep out of it and add their rubber stamp without to much of a fuss"

And then you can go back to your rubber room?

In London and other expensive areas this will hit very hard indeed. If families cannot have a home, and not even temporary accommodation, where are they supposed to go?

Move to more affordable areas. I need a bigger flat as I am going to have a child. Can't afford it where I currently live so will be moving somewhere cheaper. It is was ordinary people who work for a living and don't live with a silver welfare spoon stuck up their arses do.

wow....

Bitter much?

Cameron and his neo right rich peoples Conservative party have drained every ounce of life out of the poor and disabled, what else does he want to do? deport us all to some third world country?

He won't need to deport us, in a few years we'll be already there.

Tom Clark says in this piece "ministers have chosen more or less to exempt pensioners from the pain,". That's a widely held, and government trumpeted, view; but one that's completely wrong.

Among changes that will hit older people will be a cut of about £5,400 a year in benefits for pensioners with younger partners, proposals to reclaim support paid to help with mortgage interest, with added interest and charges, on death or sale of the home from pensioners (and disabled people) and introducing a capital cut-off for Pension Credit.

My paper on 'Welfare Reform and Older People' lists almost as many impacts as are in my 'Benefits after the Bill' which looks at the general impact and models the effects. ( That can be found at http://bitly.com/gmTkEy ).

In some ways the changes may be more perilous for older people because, without publicity and awareness, the need to plan and the opportunity to decide between options, particularly on approaching retirement, will be missed with potentially dire consequences.

This governments attack on the sick and disabled is a national disgrace yet there is so much public support for it. Ive detailed many times before that my sister is disabled. She has DLA because she needs 24/7 care and supervision. She had to fight to get that DLA as originally when she applied she was told she didnt qualify, an ATOS doctor came to her home and (this doctor was described by the tribunal as the toughest on their circuit) said he could not understand why she had been refused. Even after the report by ATOS totally supporting her application, the DWP still refused to grant it as explained in their letter, she was in too much pain so therefore she did not qualify for DLA (yes, we were confused by that too). The tribunal granted her an indefinite award as she will never improve she will only get worse over time. Now she is waiting for the new assault on the disabled to come her way, she knows its coming because this government has already proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that they loathe and detest the sick and disabled. Lets not forget that the DLA we are talking about is the same DLA that Cameron himself (with all his millions) claimed for his child, yet this is the same DLA he is now trying to steal from disabled people.

I think the main reason Cameron has targeted the sick and disabled is because they are the easy target, they cant stand up for themselves so by just putting out propaganda that shows cases of benefit fraud so disabled people in general are alienated by the public, the government can cut loose from any responsibility to care for those sick and disabled and save cash. The government wont hit the pensioners hard because the grey vote traditionally goes to the tories.

The sick and disabled have been victimised and villified by this government yet any appeal for justice has fallen on deaf ears. Thatchers ideology of 'no such thing as society, there is only individuals' has come to fruition, im sure Cameron, self professed Son of Thatcher is sooooo very proud of himself.

I dont hold out much hope in the Lords. Since Cameron has been in he has stuffed the HoL with over 100 of his cronies, between the coalition they have the house sewn up. We have already seen the LibDems lack any backbone so i think people like my sister are stuffed in reality. She already thinks this government would rather she hurried up and died, ive always said thats not true, unfortunately i think now im the one who is delusional, my sister is right, this government would much rather sick and disabled people hurried up and died, that would certainly save the taxpayers some cash eh!

The tories abley abetted by the libdems are hooked on cuts and caps. Would'nt it be logical to extend this phylosophy to other areas aswell. Cut and cap rents, the price drugs, bank charges, electricity, council tax, immigration, fuel,number of mps,lords, train &bus fares, trident,and not least the cost of dying. Now this is the type cutting and capping policy I would gladly support.

So a group of unelected, titled toffs are the only people who might stand up for the poor (but probably won't).

Shows up Dave for the bar steward he is when the Lord's is more in tune with public opinion than he is.