The UK is a great place to live in..

[tommy.irene]

‘I can’t survive on £500 a week benefits!’: Single mother-of-eight says her children may end up on the streets after she had her benefits capped

• Marie Buchan, 31, lives with her children aged from two months to 12 years
• She claimed £582 a week in state handouts til the cap in September
• Now the single mother from Selly Oak, Birmingham, says she is struggling
• She also wants to be moved to a large house - but is £2,000 behind in rent
• Miss Buchan, who owes £600 in bus lane fines, says: 'I don't waste money'
  

A single mother with eight children who receives £2,000 a month in state handouts has complained she is struggling to make ends meet.

Marie Buchan, 31, whose children range in age from 12 to two months, lives in a three-bedroom housing association house in Selly Oak, Birmingham, but says it's not big enough and has applied for a bigger one.

And she says her benefits payments, which were reduced from £582 a week to £500 a week in September after the government introduced a cap on handouts, are not enough for her family to survive on.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2516745/I-survive-500-week-benefits-says-Birmingham-single-m... 

[guardpig]

Yep it's a great place to live.  Just some people don't appreciate it.  In my ignorance I thought the benefit cap included rent and Council tax and stuff but apparently it's the amount of cash she gets!.  Many a family is getting by on £500.00 a week and paying council tax and rent/mortgage as well.  Maybe, except in cases involving death or serious disability it is time we funded only the one child - after that it is your responsibility to provide, it is not the tax payer who chose to have her 12 children. Remember one friend losing her house(not in my opinion their fault alone), ending up in a Council Flat and deliberately becoming pregnant again so they would get priority for a house!.

[malacandran]

The UK is a great place for East European gypsies, who will soon be arriving en masse, and claiming benefits from us.

[bankhaunter]

Housing benefit is included in the benefit cap, it's that which can make it socially devisive, low paid families in some areas where rents are high may well be forced out, especially if the main earner becomes unemployed.

it is time we funded only the one child

Have a good job and a family with three children, lose that job and two of the children can starve?

[guardpig]

Lose your job and you will have paid into the system.  Decide to have multiple kids with multiple partners just to get benefits????  Maybe there should be more generous "family" benefits which are non-dependant on each child and are the same for each family unit?

Put it this way - my OH met a boy who had been at school with my son(23).  He was looking for handouts(from the local church) to buy nappies and milk before social worker visited because if they didn't have nappies & milk  the child was going to be taken into care just like his other 4 kids(by different various girlfriends).  Mind boggles  

So who is most deserving - the child of a family fallen on hard times or the child of feckless parents?.  Too many ramifications for right or wrong just different answers on different days.

If the artice is correct in the amounts she gets paid her housing benefit was on top of the benefit cap if you work the sums out. I was rather surprised!.

[bankhaunter]

Lose your job and you will have paid into the system

But you can still be capped.

So who is most deserving - the child of a family fallen on hard times or the child of feckless parents?

When you start talking about benefit only being paid to the deserving, you tread on dangerous ground, who will decide who is deserving?

Extreme examples are not representative of the average.

Housing benefit is included in the cap, there is a list of included benefits here.

https://www.gov.uk/benefit-cap

[saasher2012]

No child should have to suffer for their parents actions! Children are innocent they did not ask to be put in this position,

[guardpig]

That is what I understood Bank.  Love the bit at the bottom that asks "is anything wrong with this page?" - now where do I start.

Whilst I agree it is not the child's fault lines are going to be drawn that are going to be fair to nobody.  I am jusr grateful that I am not the one drawing them. Unfortunately I certainly do not trust any of those who will be doing the deciding either.

On a slightly different topic but relevant in effect to this - was talking to an LEA officer about exclusions for disruptive pupils, preferably permanently out of mainstream.  As he said if we remove your most disruptive pupils this year you'll expect me to remove the less disruptive ones next year because they are the most disruptive and so on. If you start excluding some children from benefits  where, when and with whom do you stop? 

[mustard-tree]

• She also wants to be moved to a large house - but is £2,000 behind in rent
• Miss Buchan, who owes £600 in bus lane fines, says: 'I don't waste money'

How is she behind with the rent.  It is housing association so housing benefit should go directly to them

Bus lane fines?  How does she afford to run a car, in or out of bus lanes

[bankhaunter]

If you start excluding some children from benefits  where, when and with whom do you stop?

That's exactly it, it's much like suggestions sometimes made that people who indulge in risky activities should have to pay for any medical care, where would you stop with that?

The biggest single problem with the amount of benefit paid out is the high cost of housing basically caused by the failure of successive governments to ensure supply keeps up with demand and the cap makes no allowance for the difference in housing cost in varying parts of the country.