yes but the threshold should be joint income not on 1 persons income. Say £50'000 in a household.

How much would it cost to means test it though ?
Would it be worth it if we're doing this to SAVE money ?

The whole cutting child benefit = money saved is laughable anyway. We have increased foreign aid so any savings made are now going abroard anyway.

Codswallop. Firstly, the increase is foreign aid is about 4bn. Secondly, it's a gross over simplification to say that savings are somehow eradicated because money is being directed elsewhere.

The child benefit $44k single, £80k family child benefit thing has been soooooooooooooooooooooooooo misreported by the press. if you read the statement properly (unlike the media) there is a mis-match but the levels are far closer.

Means testing and the cost of it is the heart of the problem. There was a very good Dispatches programme on during the election with some discussion about the cuts (at a level of the specifics, which wasn't what we were getting in the election campaign from the parties involved), it had Portillo, Lord Falconer and Shirley Williams on it and a few retired senior Civil Servants. The ex Civil Service bosses were basically groaning at all these types of arguments coming up (which were the same as have been on this thread), because they said that pretty much every government had said the same things "we will stop the state being a free ride, work must pay, hand up not a hand out" and it had always died in the detail because the more 'rigorous' you make the system the more complicated it is to enforce and the more expensive it is to administer. The reason universal benefits like winter fuel payments were never touched was because the means testing involved is a bureaucratic expense that eats away at the savings.

Back in the early 1990s Peter Lilley was Secretary of State for the Department of Social Security and he announced his plans to the Conservative Conference with a 'song':



It's a good song but despite this tough talk neither him nor any of the other Tories got to grips with the problem of sponging off the state, in fact the largest rise in welfare came under that Tory administration. Then Tony Blair got Frank Field in to "think the unthinkable" on welfare reform, and then he sacked him because he suggested the "unthinkable", so basically Labour just tinkered with the system although they did provide some decent incentives with the tax credits to make it more worthwhile taking work.

My prediction as of 2010 is that by midway through this Parliament, we won't be looking at a cut in welfare, we will have more welfare claimants than at any time during the Labour government of 1997-2010. Watch for that statistic coming out, it's a dead cert.

To Matty Wire 75 -my point was more that learning difficulties is a lazy label attached to all children that seem to be difficult to teach (i.e. poorly behaved, not academic etc.) rather than having genuine learning difficulties as in the case of your son. My point was a broader one about the state education system and a one size fits all approach it wasn't referring to autistic children or the situation with your son. Apologies if that wasn't clear.

The comment made me wretch because it harked back to an attitude previously adopted by the Tories i.e. people on benefits are just being lazy.

It's divisive garbage to suggest people getting on buses will address the issues many unemployed currently face.

I thought my post was very clear on that.

13/ Abolish the Royal family and all its' hangers'on.

Sorry im quite quick to react sometimes so i apologise for flying off the handle.

So you'd happily put hundreds of butlers, cooks, gardeners and corgis on the dole?

Quite gladly. Imagine the saving to the country.

How much would it save? Net.

Thats a sensible idea!! It was used after WWII and some of my teachers at school in the 1970s had qualified through that programme. They were good solid teachers.

On the benefits issue, it seems very difficult to get on and off benefits. My daughter signed on last year for a week, but then found a job. However her dole money took 6 weeks to come through. If you are unemployed you may also have to wait four weeks+ for your first wage packet. Few families can go from benefits with no income for a month or the risk that if the job proves to be short term it will take months to get your benefits coming in. The system is slow and unresponsive and aimed at people going onto benefit and staying there.
Its also expensive to the tax payer. I worked a lot of extra time last month and nearly half of the pay went on tax and NI....wheres the incentive in being a tax cash cow for the state?

Langer7 - the much (mis)quoted Norman Tebbit get on your bike statement was not what he actually said. He was talking about his unemployed father in the 1930s and how he got on his bike and cycled to find work. He never once said get on yer bike.

But I understand where you are coming from now - you are right it's too easy to label everyone without work as lazy scroungers etc. in the same way not all public sector workers are Lesbian Diversity Outreach assistants on 50k per year (TM Daily Mail).
However, it goes without saying that there are people like that and they should be rooted out of the system. The welfare system needs to be a safety net not a way of life. There's something seriously wrong when we spend more on housing benefit than the Army and Royal Navy combined.

Having said that most people have to travel a fair distance to work - my girlfriend gets 3 trains, over an hour and a half journey sometimes to get to work. I still don't see what is wrong with having to travel to get work - it's common sense surely?

MattyWire 75 - no problem and I can quite understand why you may have read / reacted to my comment given your son. Out of interest which school does he go to?

he goes to our local primary school, but next september goes upto high school. He needs to go to a high school that has a specialist ASD provision facility and warrington has 2 of these (st greggs and bridgewater.) We have had meetings with the school, LEA, educational psychologist, parent patnership etc to make the transition to high school alot easier. Unfortunatly in warrington there are only about 6-8 provision places over both schools available for an authority with around 60 primary schools. So we just have to wait till 15th feb and see what happens next.

Will whether or not you are Catholics come into it vis a vis st. Gregory's?

If you go to Bridgewater you have to play union at school and not league. You don't want that!!

No, that has no bearing on children with statements of special educational needs.





small price to pay.

How about if child benefit was restricted to the first two or even three children....?

The reason why i have problems with the child benefit cut's is because it creates something. To start with it's people on £44000 +, then what happens. There would be no reason for the govt to slash it again at say £35000, then again at £30000 etc etc. Also whats to stop them to then look at universal healthcare? People earning over X amount have to have private health for example. Then you could in theeory end up in the ridiculous situation where the workers are funding the shirkers for everything. I like most pay my taxes and NI and expect to see some benefits back for my contributions. Maybe im wrong on this and being a little bit over reactive on this but i care about what the govt has planned.

I totally agree...

When I was a student I believed that anyone on over £10k should be taxed to the hilt (it was a long time ago)
Then when I was earning £10k I believed anyone earning over £15k should be taxed to the hilt...
Then when I was earning £20k I believed anyone earning over £30k should be taxed to the hilt...
etc etc...
I've now realised that step changes are bad things...step changes from 20% to 40% tax...step changes from child benefit to no child benefit...step changes from work to benefit.... they disincentivise.

I earn enough to be losing the child benefit...and the quirk of the system is that there is a point at which someone on £43999 will be better off that someone on £44001...which is bizarre. However I am very much the dominant wage earner in my family and have a full time and a part time job. As a result of higher tax rates and the loss of child benefit (and family tax credit) my part time job pays about as much as a paper round....its not a great reward for working hard.

Fundamentally as the years go on I (and most other folk) are paying more and more for less and less. It is annoying to have paid tax for thirty years (assuming £10k per year thats £300k!!) and not have taken a penny from the system while there are those who only take money out of the system.

You could create something similar to a tax code.
firstly if you're single
S
then if you earn more than 44k you get
N (no benefit)
less than 44k you get
CB.

When you are married you must supply both P60's to a post office (make it compulsory or fine them).
For couples getting married that are not already, make it part of the process.

then your tax code will be
M

and again if your joint income is more than 44k
N
less
CB

for people who live together but are not married treat them the same as married couples but they have to provide a council tax form too (to show they live together)
they could have a tax code of
D

It could be paid 2 ways through work, the benefit is paid into businesses and they know how their employees are paid so they pay it or not depending on codes.
For the unemployed it is paid the same way as it is now.

Now i'm far from an expert in anything so i expect to get ripped to shreads on this by the business/more financially savvy, but, it's an idea of kind.

TBF, that would happen wherever they decided to draw the line.