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in order to make any claim the claiment has to jump through a number of hoops, many of which are made increasing difficult and overly complex and stressful by indifferent civil servants and council officials who are actually indiffrent, officious and increasingly ignorant of the actual rules and requirments. it can be a very stressful and frustrating ordeal and given the number of times the bureacrats screw up and then demands are made on the claiment to repay large amounts.
whilst there are many career and serial claiments, most are unfortunate, or inadequate, or suffering some form of mental,or physical disability.
the individual sums involved are petty in comparason to those blatently and often corruptly extracted from the public purse by opportunist politicos.
perhaps we could start any cost cutting measures at the top, as an example of whats good for the goose, is certainly even better for the gander.

- M.O'Brien, london.uk, 28/08/2009 16:49
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Maybe if they never put up all the benefits ever, the many malingers would get off their backsides to earn some money rather than just collect it. Am sick of reading how much they actually do get, while I an OAP have worked all my life and paid my dues in fact still am paying tax. If put nothing into country should receive nothing back. G.Brown saying he will get all children out of poverty How? Mothers collect the allowances do they all spend it on their children? I wonder?

- Joanna Waters, Southend on Sea Essex, 28/08/2009 14:47
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Absolutly no benifits for anybody whatsoever, that will sort out the wheat from the chaff and may reduce the current UK popullation explosion.

- James, London, England, 28/08/2009 14:33
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Meanwhile. Gordons other pals, the cabinet, and the rest of the MP's, are all flipping houses, using taxpayers money, in an unregulated market, [http://which is the reason why it rose. Complete lack of regulation|http://which is the reason why it rose. Complete lack of regulation] making hundreds of thousands of pounds in profits.

But that was never their intention! Perish the thought!

How dare you besmirch my honorable name?!

It was just the result.

Oh! Well, Thats ok then. Isnt it?

- Joe., London, 28/08/2009 14:27
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First Labour allow house prices to rise to astronomically unsustainable levels, pricing hardworking Joe out for ten years.

Destroying hardworking Joes ability to get onto the housing ladder and get ahead in life.

Joe is Forced to spend tens of thousands in rent to a BTL landlord, who took out a 'liar loan' from Gordons banker pals, to buy a few houses.

Then the economy crashes, and normal hardworking Joe who has been priced out for ten years loses his job.

Gordon bails out the banks, expecting Joes taxes to pay for this toxic housing debt, [which Labour allowed to inflate] even if Joe does not own property.

So Joe has lost tens of thousands, is now having his Interest Rates stolen, his meagre savings devalued by QE, and faces huge tax increases, to pay for Gordons bankers pals stupidity, whom lent joes BTL landlord, the money for the house Joe lives in.

Now, Joe has worked hard, and been sytematically robbed of his nest egg, and chances to get onto the ladder.
He is out of work, and needs some of his rent paid.

But Brown says, Yes, weve punished Joe. But we could do more!

Lets steal some of Joes rent as well. That way their will be less food for Joe.

And all the while the bankers, who lent Joes Landlord the money are in work, getting richer with Joes taxes,

Meanwhile, Joes landlord who lied on his BTL application to buy the house Joe lives in, does not have to work. He doesnt have to. Joes paid for his lifestyle.

Joes in indentured slavery.

- Joe., London, 28/08/2009 14:24
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Wake up people! Housing benefit should be used to pay for housing only. This move is a step in the right direction. What Brown should be doing is slashing the housing benfit paid to landlords. This would have the added benefit of reducing rents for working tenants and helping make housing more affordable for those not too lazy to work.

- Dave, London, 28/08/2009 14:17
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All part of the UK's decline - you can't afford to generously finance a lazy underclass - time they sent their children out to beg.

- Mr Pastry, Brisbane Australia, 28/08/2009 14:14
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A better idea would be to cut cash rewards and child benefits for breeding. Clearly families are the best off seeing as there's been a baby boom in a "recession".

- Rosie, Devon, 28/08/2009 14:12
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I really don't see the problem with this, why should they get to keep the extra if the benefit more than covers the rent? Isn't that just money for nothing?

I forget, that's what benefits are.

- Claire, Stone,Uk, 28/08/2009 13:53
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This sounds entirely reasonable. Housing benefit pays for the house, you can claim up to them maximum of your weekly rent or a defined limit. Allowing people to claim housing benefit towards housing costs they haven't incurred is ridiculous. Certainly the taxman takes a very dim view of anyone with a job expensing expenses they haven't incurred and I don't see why people on housing benefit, or MPs should be held to a lower standard than normal taxpayers.

- Peter Stevens, Cambridge, UK, 28/08/2009 13:34
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Free Food, Free Housing, Free Education, Free everything. Why can't we all enjoy this privilege? It seems to me that alot of people in this country that the world owes them a living and working is optional. If you want to be rich work for it. If you don't want to work ..don't expect to be rich! Benefits are just one big con.

- Helen Parker, Chelmsford, 28/08/2009 13:11
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As always when times are bad, it's the poorest people who suffer first and the most. If the country is so badly off then why not dump the Olympics, after all if you're poor, the last thing you do is throw a lavish party!

- Greg, Torquay, 28/08/2009 12:34
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"slash the benefits of poor families"
Hold on now, rich families don't get benefits, so surely this should read "slash benefits" shouldn't it? If they're long term unemployed then reduce their benefits unless they start doing voluntary work for 40 hours per week, that should make the feckless get off their fat posteriors.

- Bob, Cheam, 28/08/2009 12:25
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As long as this benefit nonesense doesnt affect scotland i shall sleep easy in my bed at night as am on full housing and council tax benefit as iam on a low income and yes i do work on an as and when required basis.
Someone i know who works in the jobcentre told me that claiming jsa was more hassle than it was worth and would be better off doing jobs for people for cash in hand and his advise was correct yesterday i checked over someones bike for them and removed rubbish from their shed and got £35 for doing that which took up two hours of my time yet if i had been at work for four hours on min wage rate i would have only got £21.49 for the four hours work enough said!

- Allan Johnston, CUPAR FIFE SCOTLAND, 28/08/2009 12:13
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if the UK Govt need money so much they are wanting to slash housing benefits why are they giving it so freely to immigrants who have never worked, never paid taxes and have basically moved to the UK to rip off the benefits system? Stop giving these people benefits (housing, cash etc) and use that money for actual UK citizens who can prove they are ill or prove they are actually searching for a job but honestly cannot find one.

- Live In Uk, Not Anymore, Rome, 28/08/2009 11:08
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i live in an area with huge unemployment, much of it voluntary, even much of my family are living on benifits. me and my partner both work full time as nurses and yet they seem to have a better quality of life then us, for example my uncle has never worked,hes 36 has 4 kids and eats take away evetry night, wears designer clothes and has every games console on the market and no rent to pay. its disgusting.and that is all our hard earned money to pay for that lifestyle. housing benifit should pay for rent. simple, why should they be able to spend the extra?. i may sound harsh. andc i do believe that people deserve help if its needed, but to many people in this country are unemployed by choice. and yet the people that deserve the help dont get it. the system is wrong and in favour of the lazy.

- Louise, reading uk, 28/08/2009 11:02
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Am I alone in smelling the nauseating stench of hypocrisy, when politicians of whatever party, who have spent years and in some cases decades, milking the tax-payer through their expenses system, start complaining about benefit scrounging?

- H.Jones, Monmouth., 28/08/2009 10:36
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Are these cuts in order that Broon can fund MPs expenses and other civil servanst their lucrative pensions. I thought Labour was a champion of the poor not the enemy. So now some poor people will have to choose between heat or eat this winter while the rich will continue to enjoy a glass of champagne or move to warmer climates if it gets too cold

- Strongbow Sullivan, Paris,France., 28/08/2009 09:08
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Another swipe at the poorest in our communities, by this Marxist,Left Wing, Socialist Government,masquerading as New Labour.
The best Tory Government for years.

- Colin, Bristol, 28/08/2009 08:55
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It is basically simple economics for Prime Minister Gordon Brown; to get back the billions he has given away to the wealthy; he has to strangle someone to get it all back; so he and his short hand typist Mandy, a great friend of the wealthy classes, plus also aided by his able cabinet conspirators in deception, they know that strangling the poor is the easy option, after all; the poor can’t fight back, or even threaten to leave the country taking their poverty with them etc.

We have no room for Robin Hood socialists in the UK today, we need to get rid of the poor in anyway possible, and strangling them to death is as good as any other method of starvation.

If our wealthy have to pay taxes, or even pay back taxpayers money; they will only threaten to go abroad, taking our money with them.

We need more money grabbing New Labour Carpet Baggers, and a lot less socialists in the Labour Government, the country can’t afford to look after the rich and the poor at the same time, so it is better to delete the poor from the UK, and only care for the wealthy.

You will all know Gordon Brown and his office typist Mandy are right; when we are once again a Nation of wealthy people, without all those poor people dragging our Great Nation down-hill.

If we need more poor in the future to do menial jobs for poor pay; we can import them from the third world, there are billions of them just waiting to catch the next lorry.

God bless you Gordon and Mandy, you should both be Lords.

- Mickinlondon, london, 28/08/2009 08:10
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The back-benchers are revolting? I don't think so, they know which side their bread is extremely well buttered, and might huff and puff, but it's all just bluster, they wouldn't dare to really rock the boat.

Although saying that, these proposed changes are pretty nasty. So nasty, as to provoke the thought that they are just hot air to get some column inches in the paper and make it look like the back-benchers actually have something to do. Which they don't.

So. all-in-all another silly season non-story.

- Threaded, Roskilde, Denmark, 28/08/2009 07:58
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Not another Back Bench revolt? All I ever read about is the Labour Party is "revolting." I will agree with that.

- Albert Hall, hove england, 28/08/2009 07:27
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