Rayner Will Not Rule Out Abolishing Council Tax Single Occupier Discount

Sensible post Cossy there's no point running around with our tails on fire till we know more.

We shouldn't have to resort to taking in lodgers to make ends meet foxie

Casdon

Shall we wait to see if this actually happens rather than raising anxiety by bigging up an urban myth?

We don’t know if it will happen, whether there will be any mitigating actions, when the implementation date might be if it does happen, whether it might apply to all age groups or exclude some - etc. etc. some people must be stressed with worry about things that may not happen, and Gransnet is fanning the flames, which is wrong.

Yet another speculative thread based on a scare story from the usual suspects (DT, DM), ahead of the actual budget. If you type the title of this thread GN comes up - yes, here we are stressing posters about something that may never happen, yet again. Whats the motivation for this?

The issue is really about a marginal band of pensioners who are not eligible for pension credit (those who are should claim it) and not about all pensioners above the eligibility cut off. All mass policies affect people who are marginally ineligible. In this case the disadvantage to the marginal band is offset to some degree by the future rise in the State pension and the PM might offer some further mitigation but it would be a gross political mistake to U-turn. The wage increases to train drivers, etc., are a red herring.

The wage increases to train drivers, etc., are a red herring. ???

The money has to come from somewhere, and there’s such a black big black hole . . .

The fact still remains, that Starmer condemned it under the previous government but finds it acceptable when he’s in power.

Single occupation discount probably needs to be limited to the lower value properties this would encourage more to down size sooner. It’s not going to be popular and just like WFA will affect pensioners a lot.

I can't help feel pensioners are paying for the cost of Brexit- let's face it most of them voted for it, thinking we would be going back to the 'good' old days.
Not me though, there were never any good old days.
Now we have to face up to the reality that Remainers warned about and no one listened to.
Someone has to pay and it may as well be us.

Until the budget, any question raised of this kind, like bus passes and prescriptions too, are speculative, yet pages and pages have been taken up on these "supposing if's"prompted by hostile MSM rumours.

David49

Single occupation discount probably needs to be limited to the lower value properties this would encourage more to down size sooner. It’s not going to be popular and just like WFA will affect pensioners a lot.

Build some suitable homes then!

Whats the motivation for this?

Some strange sort of " I told you so" I suppose?

Its horrible. I am really worried about winter.

Allira

David49

Single occupation discount probably needs to be limited to the lower value properties this would encourage more to down size sooner. It’s not going to be popular and just like WFA will affect pensioners a lot.

Build some suitable homes then!

Not you personally, David1949, unless you are a builder in our area!

But it's no good using sticks to punish older people to move, we need carrots in the form of decent, smaller properties.

Doodledog

Why do you think that pensioners should be exempt from the crippling costs that the last government has landed us with? Statistics suggest that pensioners voted them in,

Half of my friends who voted labour are now regretting it. Nothing in their manifesto to suggest all these cut backs. I agree HA should be means tested but pensioners may just be over the threshold for pension credit, now on about getting rid of the 25% council tax. If it’s not done this year, certainly will be done next year for sure 😩

Again very confusing , As a Baby boomer born 1953 reached SP age March 53 .
My first SP payment 8/04/16 ( a date indelibly printed in my mind ) .
I missed out on the NEW SP Payments by having a Birthday before 1/4/16 along with the changing SP age from 60 - 63 .
Double whammy double loss now to be treble whammy as a tiny private pension would push me over a PC claim if I was to claim .
That was always the way for PC & I have no need to claim personally, however thousands in the same situation would need to & would find that they were not eligible!
Like the family friend who now rents his own home out re a government scheme to home asylum seekers - he wanted to live area but didn’t want to sell his home & opted for this , anyway the rent he gets is not a financial gain but is used to rent elsewhere . Again he will not be able to claim PC as this is an ‘income’ he will loose the WFA because it is an income . Then there is talk of losing Single occupancy Council Tax . Beggars belief .

He has no Private Pension & exists on whatever his SP pays which as he was born pre 1950 is not a lot !!!
Bread line comes to mind . There are many people in this self same situation albeit different circumstances. Making the poorer, poorer !!!
Robin Hood in reverse!

The quote facility on my phone isn’t working, so I will reply to Mt61 above. There are many people just above any threshold for means-testing. Single parents, divorcees, widows and widowers etc. This may not come to pass, but if it does, it is not an attack on pensioners.

As to the accusation of being a Telegraph reader 😂🙄. Good sleuthing to that poster, but (apart from the bad manners of dragging ‘information’ from one thread to another) you are wrong. I was gifted a year’s subscription to the Telegraph last year, and criticised it often on here for its bias and sensationalism. Try harder if you want to insult me- that’s amateur level snidery.

foxie48 not everyone has a spare bedroom.

Doodledog

The quote facility on my phone isn’t working, so I will reply to Mt61 above. There are many people just above any threshold for means-testing. Single parents, divorcees, widows and widowers etc. This may not come to pass, but if it does, it is not an attack on pensioners.

As to the accusation of being a Telegraph reader 😂🙄. Good sleuthing to that poster, but (apart from the bad manners of dragging ‘information’ from one thread to another) you are wrong. I was gifted a year’s subscription to the Telegraph last year, and criticised it often on here for its bias and sensationalism. Try harder if you want to insult me- that’s amateur level snidery.

Well said, DD!

Blinko

Doodledog

The quote facility on my phone isn’t working, so I will reply to Mt61 above. There are many people just above any threshold for means-testing. Single parents, divorcees, widows and widowers etc. This may not come to pass, but if it does, it is not an attack on pensioners.

As to the accusation of being a Telegraph reader 😂🙄. Good sleuthing to that poster, but (apart from the bad manners of dragging ‘information’ from one thread to another) you are wrong. I was gifted a year’s subscription to the Telegraph last year, and criticised it often on here for its bias and sensationalism. Try harder if you want to insult me- that’s amateur level snidery.

Well said, DD!

I said upthread that if the discount for single occupancy were to be implemented it will penalise far more than those of pensionable age.

It will in no way contribute to Labour’s more equal society in fact it will hasten and widen the divide.

Maybe they wouldn't have voted them in if they'd been honest about what they were going to do Doodledog, and scrapping the council tax single occupancy discount will affect everyone who lives alone, not just pensioners.

The Telegraph has a lot to answer for. If you just read the headlines and see the relentless intent to frighten and worry those who bother to read their horror comic which they still deign to call a newspaper you will have unnecessary nightmares. Wait and see. This country has been let down by the previous governments and I believe Starmer is determined to do his best to rectify and improve what he can. He warned of unpopular decisions but this was inevitable if we are to be dug out of a hole.

These policies seem to be continuing Jeremy Corbyn's crusade against the elderly - "selfish old people not moving out of their big houses"; " baby boomers who had the best of everything - unfair" etc. Seeing him lapping up the adulation at Glastonbury put me in mind of the youthful Red Guard and Mao.

Smileless2012

Maybe they wouldn't have voted them in if they'd been honest about what they were going to do Doodledog, and scrapping the council tax single occupancy discount will affect everyone who lives alone, not just pensioners.

But they couldn’t risk that could they?
Although seriously I think they would have got in whatever they did. People were just as fed up of the CP this time as they were of the LP last time.
It might have been better to be honest about their plans though instead of doing things they disapproved of before.

Wouldn’t it be sensible to wait and see rather than respond to a Tory paper headline designed to upset people.
It’s what they do!

silverlining48

Wouldn’t it be sensible to wait and see rather than respond to a Tory paper headline designed to upset people.
It’s what they do!

It's succeeded.

I haven’t even seen the headline but think the Telegraph is almost worse than the Mail for scaremongering. I quoted from it when I had the subscription as I could c&p and circumnavigate the paywall, but I was relieved when it expired. I’m with the ‘I’ now, which is no better than ok. I was a Guardian reader for decades but they are now so anti-feminist that I stopped subscribing to that, too.

Yes I think they would have got into power anyway Mollygo but I suspect a lot of the anger that's being expressed isn't because of what they're doing, but the fact it wasn't mentioned before hand together with the claim that the black hole is far bigger than they realised.