Clear the bar!

Good post eleothan, I read that too in the Guardian, very sobering read it was too. It makes a complete lie of Cameron's claim that everyone claiming working tax credits is going to be £20 a week better off from next April due to the increase of 50p per hour in the minimum wage or whatever they call it now. These examples in The Guardian are all paid more than the minimum hourly rate anyway, so will not get the additional £20 per week. Also, as I have said before, a lot of people receiving working/child tax credits are getting them due to working less than 40 hours a week for reasons of child care. Learning support assistants in schools are only paid, as I understand it, for the hours spent in school, in the classroom, not paid for lunch hours, so work a maximum of 25 hours per week. This is a full time job with no possibility of extra hours, so what are they supposed to do? I am delighted that the HoL has thrown this back, I am not a big fan of the principle of a house filled up with inherited titles and people who have served their political party well, but I do think we need a second chamber and this action has proved their validity. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when the new started coming through, I would imagine the language was rather like a scene in The Thick of It

'As I said on one or other of these similar threads, those I know who would have been affected by the tax credit cuts were too busy getting on with their lives to worry in advance - I'm sure they'll be relieved that the axe isn't going to fall just yet though!'

Ana, if everybody had acted like this, yesterday would not have happened. It's because lots of others shouted about the unfairness of it that Osborne was stopped from taking money away from 3 million of the poorest families.

Yes, durhamjen, whatever you say. I was speaking for those families I know who are far to busy to be lobbying their MPs or even worrying about the state of the nation. I didn't suggest that everyone should 'act like this...'

Or those families who won't be affected and so don't care?
I won't be directly affected but managed to spare a minute or two to email my mp.

Trisher, there is nothing wrong with calling him Gideon. I make every effort to refer to him by that name as he hates it.

I don't think he's likely to be reading Gransnet...

True Ana, but a great many politicos on sites he does read also indulge in this guilty pleasure simply to wind him up.

I doubt he'd take any notice even in the unlikely event that he might read GN!!. Gideon is not his name anymore any more than anyone else who changes their name by deed poll, so why anyone uses this as a useless goad is pretty idiotic, unless it makes the goader feel better, in which case is just sad.

Are there really people who learning they will receive a cut of £100 a month too busy to care

You may be surprised to learn that not everyone knew, Anniebach - or at least hadn't worked out what difference there would have been to their income.

You can believe me or not...shrug.

Can you imagine what the reaction would have been if pensioners were told that they were going to lose say £500 from their pension next April?

Probably the same as this unfair tax credit bill, however we are not, so it doesn't matter. the welfare bill has to be tackled ( Corbyn would do nothing btw, just carry on racking up more debt for the country with massive welfare spending) This Government are right to get tax credits down and make employers pay more, but it was the unfairness of the way it was being brought in, before the wages had gone up that was the trouble ( for some people.)The Lords did the right thing.

"This Government are right to get tax credits down and make employers pay more".....unfortunately this could lead to small businesses failing.

This government wants people to be out at work, so targeting people who are working to lose benefit seems barmy.

Unfortunately I am a pensioner in receipt of tax credits because I am a kinship carer as well as a pensioner so allthough it may not affect you roses it affects me and those in the same situation.

that's the point, isn't it downtoearth, that so many decent, hard working families will be so negatively affected.

Someone I know is extremely worried. She has just started a job as a TA in Durham, working full time. She is a single parent with two primary school children, and gets tax credits.
From next September she will have a pay cut of over £1500. If she had had a tax credit cut of over £1000, she would have to give up working, as she would not be able to afford to work in that job. It has taken her over two years to get a job, just as the government wanted people whose children were old enough to do.
The highest pay for a TA in Durham at the moment is £22212. From next September, it will be £19,990. That's for someone who has already been doing the job for over 5 years.
The reason that Durham has to do this is because the government has cut the amount of money that they are giving councils.
Obviously the Northern Powerhouse does not include those who teach.

In the end, companies must pay the proper living wage, it just needs to be brought in slowly that's all.

djen re your post about the TA with two children on tax credits, my point (on the other thread I know) about allowances to be set against income tax would mean that, if she was on say £18,000 pa salary and had an allowance to set against her income tax for each child of an amount which would give her £1,500 pa more of her salary that would be a far simpler system.

She would still get £1,500 pa more in her pay packet because she wouldn't have paid that in tax; she would not have to go through the process of claiming tax credits and we wouldn't have to pay so many people to administer the cumbersome system.

However, that is far too simple.....

Except that having only just started, she's probably only on about £13,000.
As said before, everyone with children gets child benefit, which is £1788 for two children, paid into a bank account, tax free. That system is there already.
I agree that doubling that and not having tax credits would be simpler. Try telling the government that. It could not be set against income tax, as someone earning £13000 would only be liable to pay £600 tax.

Roses, many of the people who would have had their tax credits cut are working for central or local government. So how could they pay people enough to make up for the tax credit cuts without putting the wage bill up?
As far as these people are concerned, does it matter whether they are given money through the pay packet or tax credits; it still comes out of the tax payers money.
The government is being disingenuous by pretending otherwise, by pretending that it's just a matter of employers putting up pay.
I haven't noticed any government departments being accredited with Living Wage status.

As far as these people are concerned, does it matter whether they are given money through the pay packet or tax credits; it still comes out of the tax payers money.

Well, I think DH and I would have been 'these people' if that system had been in when we were bringing up our family. However, by the time they were introduced by Gordon Brown our children had flown the nest.

I think I would prefer to receive the money through the pay packet rather than think I was receiving welfare benefits. But that's just me.

I seem to remember that Tax credits were brought in to make sure that those on low pay were better off that those out of work and claiming benefits. If the Tax credits go will there once again be a group who would be better not working? If so the welfare bill will simply shoot up again.

They should never have got rid of FIS, which was a much simpler and easier to implement system.

Gordon Brown has a lot to answer for.

But it was a system that left some better off out of work, Something had to be done.

At huge expense and no better outcome.

What's new, Ana? Did Gordon Brown ever do anything right as far as you are concerned?