General Chat

I'd far rather my taxes went supporting those forced to flee their homelands in danger of their lives than it went to the feckless British-born who have never worked a day in their lives and know how to work the system.

Gwynne

But Teresa how do you 'prove' that someone got deliberately pregnant? I know when i had to go to the DSS to claim and was told that d's father disputed paternity , not only did I have to agree to go through the DNA test ( or the benefit was cut) , but also tell a complete stranger how many times we had sex, where, when,and what contraception we used...

I don't think that is the way forward to be honest.... giving incentive NOT to get pregnant in the first place would be better.....which brings us back to funding for youngsters to further their education, apprenticeships, work! an acheivable aim in life other than to 'be pregnant and have a house'....

Shazzlou, do you have a clue what "asylum seeker" means?

Asylum is what people who are persecuted in their own countries are entitled to in other countries, under international law that our countries all agreed to decades ago. People who are in danger because of their religious beliefs, for instance. Or women who were raped, who will be stoned to death by their community for adultery if they return.

You may not think your country has a responsibility to such people, but that's pretty much hard bananas for you.

Not all "asylum seekers" are genuine refugees. Very true. And making benefits available before a decision is an incentive for bogus refugees to enter a country. True. We have the very same problem in Canada. And the longer it takes to decide their cases, the more people will take advantage of the situation. True.

Those are problems that need to be addressed. Very true.

Saving a few pennies by kicking the genuine refugees in the crowd in the teeth when it comes to health care isn't the only way to do that, and isn't the decent way to do it.

Oh, and actual facts show that immigrants contribute more by way of taxes, once they are able to work, than they take out, and make other economic contributions to the country they adopt. Why else do you imagine that the "western" countries are competing for immigrants? Making them wait years before they are entitled to benefits isn't going to attract the "good" immigrants everybody is after.

TeresaW Agree this would be a much fairer system.
Carol

Janey i appreciate what you are saying about the rich brits but i still think the country has let in too many people who want to milk the benefit system who have not paid a penny in!

Maybe the child benefits system could be split in two, with those who have suffered bereavement, divorce, or relationship breakdown (who can prove they lived together as though the were married) should get one benefit, while a minimum benefit awarded to those teens who deliberately got themselves pregnant and still living at home. That may save a few bob.

Hi Carol here. It was only an obervation I heard about France. Have to admitt I have a daughter who at 17 got pregnant, I was devastated. She was with partner for 2 yrs. I did not know he beat her and was a drug addict, she admitted she had to learn by her own mistakes, She is now engaged to a super guy and has two further children and is a really good mum. But still feel we have to stop all these mums who have children for benefits, I know that is not what my daughter thought. Have to add that I have another daughter who perhaps chose the right road and has a BA with Distinction and has her own company in South Africa.
Carol

If you live on the Channel Islands you are not entitled to free NHS treatment on the mainland because the reciprocal agreement was withdrawn on 31 March 2009 You can get emergency treatment but if you need to spend overnight in hospital you shoulder the cost. It does not matter whether or not you were born on the mainland.

So maybe these rules apply and there is a massive misunderstanding of the way it works.

If they just stopped paying out to people that have not paid in we would all be better off & stopped more immigrants coming in. Enough is enough the country cant cope. I get £10 a week maintenance for my son off his father. I work part time, i cant get free school meals for my son but if he was a newly arrived asylum seeker he would get it! Unbelievable!
And no im not racist i have been bought up and went to school with many asian & west indian friends and you know what they were born here & they feel same way i do! Fed up of being british born and treated like a 2nd class citizen my mother is 82 and said if the soldiers in world war 2 realised the country was going to turn out like this they wouldnt have bothered!

I always scratch my head and wonder how it's asylum seekers who are stealing from good Brits and causing all the problems in the land.

I wonder why it isn't the rich Brits who avoid paying taxes by using tax havens. I know we have 'em here in Canada, and I'd be pretty certain you have 'em too. They cost the public treasury millions and billions. But they're proper people, I guess.

My mum got treated on the NHS when we visited England in '94. We had travel insurance. The doctor who finally saw her in the emergency room at the hospital waved it off -- too much red tape, it would cost more to process the bill than to just send us away with advice for her injury. ;) (In the US, our insurance company would have been billed hundreds ...)

if the councils stoped paying millions for ugly art statues to decorate our towns n citys too


middlesbrugh has just paid 3 million for what looks like a giant well, type of male contraception aid, its ridiculious!!!

Totally agree, Teresa... if companies had to reduce their expenditure on the silly things right across the board, then loads could be saved... and starting with fuel efficiency in government departments! Reduce the number of senior posts to the bare minimum... no need for as many meetings then, as they would be responsible for more anyway, so should know it all, lol....

A number of years ago, I was a student with a work placement in a specific area.

With regards one individual client, there were 9 meetings in one single week... and the same core of about 6 people attended almost all of them. I was at them all as an observer. I was flabbergasted at the sheer waste of time. One meeting would have sufficed, to get all the information across, it was ridiculous. Everyone full of their own importance and spouting a whole load of pseudobabble just to justify their importance in the hierarchy. It sickened me, and shortly afterwards I decided to leave the course as it wasn't for me and go rejoin my hubby... and get a proper job back at the sharp end, lol

Love

Daff xxxxx

Rose, in the majority of cases, single parenthood is through no fault of the parent with the child/children. It's through marital/relationship breakdown, death or simply the other parent not wanting to take responsibility. And it happens to dads too, my OH raised his three kids alone, because, he gained custody of the first two after his marriage broke up, and his ex's new boyfriend was abusing them, and the third was from a second relationship, who found it too difficult to look after the baby and dumped him on my OH, not coming back for another 5 years.

There are absent mums too, it's not always the dad.

Thank goodness you had the strength and support to be able to ignore the father's family's advice to terminate.

TW, I know there are "culture" problems ... premature parenthood, benefits dependency, drug and alcohol abuse ... we all have them.

I think we agree, though, that across-the-board "sticks" aren't a real solution. Carrots are more likely to work, with human beings.

The best carrot for preventing kids from getting mired in "cultures" like those is the knowledge, from a young age, that there really is a future for them if they make the effort to achieve it. That's something that too many kids know just isn't true. As you said, for one thing: if there are no jobs, you can't just go "find" one somewhere.

speaking as a 'decent woman' ;) and one who if it were down to the father ( and his parents) would have been 'persuaded' into abortion or adoption if they had their way..i can assure anyone who thinks the social services fall over themselves to help that it just isn't like that.

i was lucky! i had already given up my well paid job in order to look after my disabled mum full time... the 'extra' i got was around £13 'responsibility for a child ( or words to that effect) ' plus the child benefit. I was very grateful for that since the father has paid nothing in 14 years...

there is ( except in cases of one parent dying, or sperm donor) no such thing as a 'single parent' , there are always two...

yeah i know TW lol i was refering to carols post xxxx

As the rules will not allow for claimants to do voluntary work then maybe this needs to change.

Janey was being faceteous Stray, not serious hun xx

But yes I agree that you cannot make blanket cuts on any benefit. Benefits are given on blanket terms but each case should also be taken on merit, including single parents.

The cuts really need to be made in 'waste' not benefits. I don't see benefits as 'waste', and before anyone says, I never have seen them that way, nothing to do with the fact that I am having to exist onthem now. By waste, I mean top-heavy industry and public services, cut the number of managers and quangos, and there you have in the region of £6bn saved straight away.

We may all have to take cuts in pay while paying more VAT, and other taxes, we may have to put up with even more expensive dental care, eye tests, and so on. We may have to cut subsidies to some, such as agriculture, which will then be reflected in food prices, we may have to make our own cuts at home to be able to survive, but we don't have a choice.

TW I received nothing else, fortunately I had paid approx £250 per month on insurance premiums so had that money coming in long after JSA finished. That was OK for me but what about people who didn't have that opportunity?

Now I am on ESA and heard two weeks ago from my DA that they wouldn't contact me again for 3 years. I was free to pop in and ask for any help they might be able to offer in finding me a position which would suit my disabilities...lol

Janey, there IS a culture of children having babies in order to receive housing and benefits. Certainly in our nearest town. One 17 year old becoming pregnant, closely folowed by her 16 year old sister. Both appeared in the local newspaper demanding, yes demanding housing. They were told you are living with your mother - stay there!

That is not an isolated case, the local town only has 4,000 residents so we either know personally or have crossed paths with many people. As for in the villages we all know what colour wallpaper everyone has!

Sue

what if she was pregnant or just had the baby and her partner died, should she then give the baby away for adoption,after goign thro the absolute trama of loosing her partner!!