General Chat

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 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!

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on the Channel Islands you are not entitled to free NHS treatment on the mainland because the reciprocal agreement was withdrawn on 31 March 2009 You can get emergency treatment but if you need to spend overnight in hospital you shoulder the cost.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.

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

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.

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!

TeresaW Agree this would be a much fairer system.
Carol

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.

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'....

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

I agree with giving preventative incentives completely, but that's not going to be 100%, and we will still have to deal with those who still get pregnant. It's another case where one blanket benefit just doesn't do the job isn't it. Each case to be taken on it's own merit.

We do need to deter bogus asylum seekers. Years ago I went to work on the Isle Of Man for a couple of years. I needed a work permit and was not allowed medical treatment unless urgent unless I paid for it. If I became unemployed the would offer the boat ticket home but no benefits unless I had worked for 12months.

If I emigrate to America I need a green card to work. If I emigrate to Australia I need a visa yet the UK I am allowed benefits from the start

maybe stop giving people under a certain age with kids a house,

have a limit to say under 18 have to live with family member or go in like a shared residence sorta thing, i duno i dnt have the answers, but somthing defo needs doing about youngsters but what???

Again I agree with Stray under a certain age parents have to accept responsibility. I had my daughter.
Carol

For me, Gwynne that is the crux... the feckless born. We have our own home grown ones, and there will always be those from other countries trying to get here. The majority of Asylum seekers really are that... seeking asylum. We are only shown the ones the media wish us to see... the young men and boys waiting to stow away etc. which makes us feel that *they* are taking over.

But they have to be processed by the system to find out if they are genuine... and in that time we have a responsibility to provide them with at the very least the basics for human life. Warmth, Shelter, Healthcare, Food, Protection.

It is a fact of human life that there will always be those who buck the system... but the ones who are genuine are rarely highlighted. They don't want to be. Because they are fleeing traumatic events, and they are terrified of being found.

I don't know what the answer is... but I do know I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for the skills of immigrants to our country.

What I think is that the process of validation should be much quicker, too.

This is just a thought.... so I may be totally off track, but if an asylum seeker asks for asylum in, say Italy, and the claim is found to be valid... if that seeker then has their status acknowledged, can they then freely travel to other European countries?

Love

Daff xxxxxxxx

Immigrants from EU have a tendency to hit UK first in recent years,and there are large numbers in many many areas that have increased in recent years,,,,,most have settled down to live here,work here,bring their children up here,pay their taxes here..they are not the problem,,,,,,,,

Our Gov is too blame for their lack of not being able to handle money for the public interest.

Cuts came in the form of hospitals,and lots of the public sector years ago.,we are no better off for it...

yes Daffy,,as part of the EU,they have taken residencey in Italy then free to take it up here,,,,as they will have been processed and relevant qualifying paperwork.

Education is the only way to prevent pregnancy. 14 year
olds should have to look after a baby doll which cries. The ones used for parenting skills. 2 weeks of night and day will be enough for most to have second thought. A bit rough on parents.

Education to show that being proud parents is only one aspect of life, having a fulfilling career and being able to support oneself should be promoted.

Emphasis on vocational education should not be dumbed down and seen as an option for the not very bright. Everyone is talented in different ways. Academic subjects should also be promoted equally.

Both sexes should be given equal opportunities and take equal responsibility for any children.

Actually, TootyFruity: "If I emigrate to America I need a green card to work. If I emigrate to Australia I need a visa yet the UK I am allowed benefits from the start "

You'll find much of that isn't true.

The UK isn't some special hard-done-by case, you know. All western countries have problems with what's called irregular immigration.

The US has what's estimated to be well over 10 million undocumented immigrants. Generally speaking, the children are allowed to attend publicly operated schools, for example. (The US has no public health plan, so that doesn't come into it.)

Canada has had a problem with refugee claim backlogs for decades, people spending years here without a final determination of their cases and needing money to live on and services in the meantime. And yes, it encourages bogus claimants. As we speak, I am reading the case of yet another Mexican family claiming that somebody in Mexico is threatening to kill them, and that it's all tied up with drug wars and official corruption ... The majority of recent refugee claims in Canada were by Mexicans -- averaging 1000 a month. About 1 in 10 were being accepted. Last summer our government started requiring that Mexicans have a visa to come to Canada -- and of course our embassy won't issue a visa unless the person has a genuine reason to come here.

Mexico is a nasty and violent place right now for a lot of people there. That doesn't make everybody a refugee.

But anyway, you are making a menaingless distinction. All our countries, the UK, Canada, the US, Australia, require visas. The question is how to deal with people who enter the country without them, and especially refugee claimants.

The UK is not going to stop granting asylum, not if it wants to keep any friends on the world stage. (I'm meaning the other asylum-granting countries -- none of us want to pick up anybody else's slack.)

For anyone who's interested, the UK's specific problem at the moment is that the courts have held that parts of your new asylum legislation violate human rights, and this has backed up your system badly. Our Parliament is in the middle of debating changes to our refugee system, and we have to learn from that experience and not pass a law that will get thrown out just like yours did.

Striking a balance between a *speedy* process (to deter bogus claimants who just want the benefits) and a *fair* process is something that greater minds than ours have been trying to do for a long time.

TeresaW: "Education to show that being proud parents is only one aspect of life, having a fulfilling career and being able to support oneself should be promoted."

While I don't by any means disagree, and in fact I wholeheartedly agree, telling someone something and convincing them it is true are two different things.

Kids need to know not just that these things are important, and are the better way to live -- they need to know that it's possible for them to do it.

When they know there are not enough good jobs to go around, that's hard to convince them of. Having only failure for a model doesn't help either. They need models of success, and many of them are so marginalized and excluded that they have no such models.

Isn't that the real problem -- not that there are too many people who don't want jobs, but that there aren't jobs for people who want them?