to think Government should say how it will save £12billion on welfare?

www.pulsetoday.co.uk/news/political-news/gerada-i-refer-more-patients-to-food-banks-than-ae/20009598.article

this is why we need to get the tax gap closed to pay for the NHS.

The benefits cap is not the main issue with benefits, whitewave, although I agree it's important. People use food banks because they have been sanctioned, which is why GPs have to send them to food banks.

ana figures from ipsos- mori

Tax wouldn't have to rise so much as you might think.

If there was a general rise in taxation to pay for the 8bn needed by the NHS over the next 5 years then cuts elsewhere to pay for this wouldn't be needed.

The benefits cap is another issue, cuts are not just coming from benefits but all areas of government spending.

Who knows what the next government will do. Currently they are in the middle of destroying welfare and benefits for those who can least afford them. I have a less than full state pension and a small private pension but I would rather pay more in tax and retain the services that are left than destroy the fabric of our society. When the rich get richer and the poor poorer it's a recipe for social disaster.

I don't think the Tories will give us any idea where the cuts will come but I'm fairly sure there will be 'shock/horror' if and when they tell us about their plans.

It would have to rise by a lot. I don't know where you got your figures from, whitewave, but I've read that the £23,000 cap on benefits is the policy most popular with voters, second only to a cut in overseas aid budget which of course they won't get.

An interesting TED talk. I agree with him.

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2015/04/04/nick-hanauer-on-inequality/

Could always raise tax as some people seem to prefer rather than borrow.

Unless, of course, Ed Balls goes completely mad and decides to borrow a few trillion more to make everything look rosy on the surface...

Which none of them is, so welfare/benefits will be cut no matter how big the theoretical tax gap is. Let's be realistic.

Sorry, but they will not, roses. You have swallowed the doctrine hook, line and sinker if you think that.
There is a tax gap big enough to fund benefits and the NHS. It just takes a brave party to say so.

Interesting to read that 64% of the UK population would rather there be tax rises than any more cuts to the NHS. and that they have no stomach for further spending cuts to welfare.

Exactly.Welfare, benefits, whatever they are called will still have to be cut no matter which party get into power in May.If Labour do get in, it will be interesting to see what they DO cut.

Well I guess not being able to look at the books did become an eye watering issue when Labour left, Liam Byrne made his last, crass letter telling us 'Good luck there is no money left'. He wasn't wrong as we found out.

The point is there is a election so the government may be Labour in May so I am asking what the Labour Party will need to do as they have voted to cut £30 billion over the next 2 years.

The OP is a perfectly fair question but it could be hypothetical so it is also perfectly fair to ask what Labour will do given they have voted to cut £30 billion in the first 2 years if they are in government come May, unless of course the agenda for the OP was not to ask about how cuts would be made by government?

The question is about the Tories because the Tories are in government and have got the figures to do it.

I accept the points raised but I wonder where Labour will be making savings too. Why is the question only about the Tories?

After all Labour did go through the lobby and vote to cut £30 billion pounds off spending over the next 2 years alongside the coalition government.

I think no party will tell you where cuts will be made because it is potential suicide for loosing votes but again it is hypocrisy or naivety to think only one party will make cuts and let the others off.

These people think the Tories should say where their cuts are going to fall.

gu.com/p/478x2

Magpie, I lived in Peterborough in the 70s and 80s. It was London overspill, housing built by the development corporation, which Thatcher decided to sell off and then close down the corporation.
I know about people being moved away from their social support groups in order to be able to afford somewhere to live. I taught their children.
Many of them still wanted to move back to be close to family and friends, in the places they had grown up, and why shouldn't they?
Moving somewhere else because you want to is a different thing from enforced removal, or gerrymandering, as it used to be called.

Happening in London now.

https://opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/adam-ramsay/sweets-way-evictions-building-community-in-resistance

Like Eloethan says, all they want is somewhere to live that they can afford.

magpie There are areas in London that an estate agent, in a TV programme, described as being like "ghost towns" because the super wealthy from overseas have purchased properties as an investment. They do not live in them or even rent them out.

Many of the people in receipt of Housing Benefit are actually workers.

Some of the people who are being faced with having to move away have lived in their area all their lives, have their friends and families nearby and have their children attending local schools. Is London to be reserved only for those with huge amounts of money? As JessM says, who then is going to do all the average/low paid jobs that help to service the city and its population?

Or one of the many staff in the NHS who are not on high salaries. With registered nurses starting at £21k staff without professional qualifications are on a lot less.
Of course the other solution is for the public sector to build social housing in London. But the price of land is now eye watering. One of the BBC correspondents pointed out the other day that a piece of land the size of 6 paving stones is, in Westminster, now worth £30k

I am unclear how if you are a cleaner in one of the many offices starting at an ungodly early hour in the morning you actually get there if you live out in the sticks?

magpie123 there are many badly paid jobs in the capital. They are in the private sector and the public sector. The city would grind to a halt in a day without this workforce. If there was no housing benefit there would be nobody to do these jobs other than perhaps immigrant labour willing to live in squalid hostels. Is that a good idea?

It is interesting to read all your comments. My answer would certainly be "yes, of course we should know what they are intending" I will not hold my breath, however, as they know that many people believe governments should save money until they find out it affects them."

Iam64 said The old age pension isn't a benefit, it's something the majority of us have paid into throughout long working lives.

Whatever we believe concerning the pension we paid in for a pension not a specific amount or to receive it at a specific age. They have changed it before and they will change it again if they see fit.

Remember they are now using the word "welfare" rather than benefits. Is this because welfare infers something closer to charity rather than benefits which come from an insurance system we paid for? They first used this in the form they sent out to tax payers showing a very distorted view of "where your taxes go" and lumping pensions in the "welfare" section.

Be afraid pensioners; they have already taken 28% of the Pension Savings Credit over the last three years. If they can take from some of the poorest pensioners they can certainly take from everyone when they have five years of a parliament ahead.

durhamjen I can't afford to buy a house near my family I have to travel 30 miles to see them, but you think it's ok if you are on benefits to live in the capital even though you can't afford to live there just because you think you are entitled to housing benefit and expect a free ride, why can't people move to somewhere they can afford. It's probably against their human rights!

Or they do know the answer but think it inadvisable to give it.

I'm not a great fan of the EU but it does provide quite a lot of protection for workers, and consumer protection. If we leave, we are likely to link even more closely with the US and I certainly don't like their economic or social model. A report on the TV the other day showed the terrible levels of poverty in the big cities - in what is supposed to be the richest and most powerful country in the world.

There are rich young people, rich middle aged people and rich pensioners. But quite a lot of people from all these age groups are struggling. It suits this right wing government to have everyone bickering amongst themselves while those grabbing all the wealth observe with amusement.

whitewave I agree with the quote about "private wealth and public squalor" - what an outlook for the younger generation.

Unless you are one of the ones who can only claim £23000 and you have to pay your rent in London, magpie.