Rayner Will Not Rule Out Abolishing Council Tax Single Occupier Discount

Jaxjacky

foxie48 not everyone has a spare bedroom.

Of course they don't but plenty of people do and it's a perfectly valid way of bumping up your income if you are struggling whilst giving someone else a home and it can make a huge difference to someone who is just above the income to qualify for PC. I have a friend who is in her 80's who has rented out a room to someone for 10 years now. He works but goes home at weekends, he'll do the odd bit of shopping for her and they also go to the cinema and theatre together. Absolutely no romance in their relationship but they have become good friends and he'll also do things like changing a light bulb etc. I know someone else who is elderly but likes to have a student living in her home as she enjoys the company of a young person. She's never married and is an only child, she's an interesting outgoing person and it works very well for her and the student.

sassenach512 Not suggesting people should have to but it's something I would do if I needed some extra cash. I've done it in the past and tbh it was easier in lots of ways than having teenage children in the house!

hoomee29- RedGuard/Mao?!
You couldn't be over reacting just a teensy weensy bit, could you ?

You couldn't be over reacting just a teensy weensy bit, could you ?

We'll see!

Well, people could always "rock on up" to a food bank.
They're very easy to use, from what I've learned on here.

Just drive up and get given bags of all the stuff you like.

keepingquiet

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.

There speaks someone who sounds likely to be unaffected.
Granted those who voted leave (not all pensioners) can be held to blame for BREXIT, but equally those lazy people who sat in their bums and didn’t vote must bear the blame.
If pensioners voted leave that must mean the lazy people who didn’t bother to vote at all were younger people.
So pensioners must suffer because of them too.

foxie48

I've no idea if the single person discount will disappear or not but when I was divorced and struggling financially I had a student lodger. It helped me and it helped him. My OH always had lodger when he was single to help with his mortgage and my daughter, who's a doctor, has always had a lodger, usually another doctor who is new to the area. We have a housing crisis, people need somewhere to live and you can get £7500 tax free to me it's a no brainer!

And if you live in a one bedroomed property?

HousePlantQueen

foxie48

I've no idea if the single person discount will disappear or not but when I was divorced and struggling financially I had a student lodger. It helped me and it helped him. My OH always had lodger when he was single to help with his mortgage and my daughter, who's a doctor, has always had a lodger, usually another doctor who is new to the area. We have a housing crisis, people need somewhere to live and you can get £7500 tax free to me it's a no brainer!

And if you live in a one bedroomed property?

foxie addressed this earlier HPQ.

Why not just wait and see? All this scaremongering about something which is quite possibly dreamt up by certain newspapers to stir everyone up. There is no 'war on pensioners', although I am disappointed that this limitation of the WFA is one of the first major policy announcements from the new government. I am hoping that there will be further details in the budget, perhaps taxation of the WFA for those in the higher tax bands. Anyway, I am prepared to wait and see.

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.

Wait and see what actually happens, Casdon? No, surely that’s way too sensible.

As my grandmother would have said, why meet trouble halfway?

Cross posted, HPQ.

I voted to remain and I would rather have my teeth extracted without an anaesthetic than vote conservative. Never have never will.
However if the 25% discount for single person households was removed this would just mean more people would be eligible for council tax support/benefit or whatever “they” are calling it now.
In the meanwhile more people would be accumulating debt and less funding going to local authorities. How would that help? I would definitely join a protest march if any of this came to pass- which it surely never will unless the Labour Party has a death wish!
But still don’t get the point of removing one sum of money from people only to then encourage them to claim it back.
Totally illogical captain 🫤

Cossy said "Let’s all not panic. All changes need to go through both the HoC and the HoL"

Can I point out that Starmer and Reeves wanted to push through the cancelling of the WFA without a HoC vote? They have been forced into having a debate and vote on it. Although, I think there is no doubt they will win due to their majority.

Stir, stir, stir. This might happen. That may happen. That person hasn’t ruled something out. Our beloved Telegraph who dishes out every scaremongering lying bit of dirt they can think up on a daily basis is counting on the lies turning into rumours which spread into accepted fact. Ignore the Telegraph. It is no longer an unbiased respectable newspaper. Lies are now its bread and butter. The right wing of the Tory Party is its boss.

Lovetopaint037

Stir, stir, stir. This might happen. That may happen. That person hasn’t ruled something out. Our beloved Telegraph who dishes out every scaremongering lying bit of dirt they can think up on a daily basis is counting on the lies turning into rumours which spread into accepted fact. Ignore the Telegraph. It is no longer an unbiased respectable newspaper. Lies are now its bread and butter. The right wing of the Tory Party is its boss.

The other newspapers are no better, only interested in selling sensation and scandal, why do you buy them, I DONT.

A little while ago I thought that the next thing might be a Euthanasia Bill but it was a cynical thought. It would save the Government billions.

However, I wasn't far wrong:

news.sky.com/story/labour-mp-could-bring-forward-assisted-dying-bill-to-parliament-13210058

Hypothermia? euthanasia? The choice might be yours, or perhaps not.

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,

So pensioners have to pay because they voted Conservative. There are young people who also vote for them.
That is despicable. The"black hole" hasn't stopped this awful Government from throwing billions at vanity projects.
Sickening argument and not unexpected from a Labour supporter.

Which "vanity" projects?

Freya5

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,

So pensioners have to pay because they voted Conservative. There are young people who also vote for them.
That is despicable. The"black hole" hasn't stopped this awful Government from throwing billions at vanity projects.
Sickening argument and not unexpected from a Labour supporter.

Freya5, this situation grieves Labour voters more, because we could see for 14 years that the last government was digging huge holes all over the place, and services were being run down hugely, which ultimately Labour would be left to dig the country out of. Reinstating WFP isn’t the answer to anything, but alternative measures to make sure the poorest pensioners don’t suffer have to be taken.

Freya, what do you mean by vanity projects ?i haven't noticed any .

Freya5

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,

So pensioners have to pay because they voted Conservative. There are young people who also vote for them.
That is despicable. The"black hole" hasn't stopped this awful Government from throwing billions at vanity projects.
Sickening argument and not unexpected from a Labour supporter.

Sickening? Despicable? Not unexpected from a Labour supporter?

Sheesh! Is that in the spirit of Gransnet? I have as much right to an opinion as you do, and I never resort to personal insults when giving it.

The country is in a mess, after fourteen years of Tory ineptitude. Money has to be raised to make things better. Young people are already burdened with crippling housing and childcare costs, and they never got WFP. Why shouldn't the burden be spread across the generations? I am very conscious of the fact that there is a demographic who will lose out, as they don't get pension credit but are not much better off than those who do. That demographic also suffers from not getting the numerous benefits that PC brings. My feelings about means-tests are well-known, and I would have found a different way to cut off the WFP, but there is no reason why pensioners with high incomes should be given money that younger people are not.

What is 'despicable' or 'sickening' about that?

there is no reason why pensioners with high incomes should be given money that younger people are not.

Exactly!

By the same reasoning;

There is no reason why MPs on £91k should be given subsidised meals when other workers are not.

Fact check
catering services on the parliamentary estate are effectively subsidised by the taxpayers at a cost of millions of pounds each year.
(However, the yearly total is significantly lower than £17 million claimed on X)

There is no reason why MPs should get hefty travel/living expenses, when it costs other people a large chunk of their earnings to get to and from work.

We’ve already learned which unfairness will be addressed.

How do you know that Mollygo, I didn’t realise we were party to decisions made about parliamentary expenses until after the event?

Young people are already burdened with crippling housing and childcare costs

Working parents can get:
15 hours free childcare a week for two-year-olds from April 2024
15 hours free childcare for nine month olds from September 2024

30 hours free childcare for three and four-year-olds, external was already available
30 hours free childcare for all under-fives from September 2025

To qualify for the new hours, the majority of parents must earn more than £9,518,, external but less than £100,000 per year.

That is not joint income, it is based on each income of less than £100,000 so in effect up to £198,000 pa as I understood it.

It has to be funded somehow, they are the future.

We are the past.

BBC News

It has to be paid fof somehow.

Goodness knows where that superfluous external came from, we need an edit button like MN.