If you could vote on the future of benefits, how would you vote?

[Chun Li]

it's not rubbish at all.

 

Ok. It takes away their right to drink, gamble or spend it on anything other than the basics like food, heating, clothes and a roof over their head.

I dont see the problem:huh:

[ricgem2002]

vouchers are just like cash how many little corner shops have been known to accept milk tokens etc for fag/beer etc

[andygardener]

these would be for pounds though, at some point the retailer is going to have to recover the money from the DWP which would cripple a small shops cash flow.

 

I think the actual studies into how a voucher system might work have all concluded a DWP debit card onto which benefits were loaded and which could be used for approved purchases would be the most practical way of doing it.

[Fine line]

That's balls though isn't it? Why should the unemployed be denied the right to eat out occasionally, have a drink when they want one, or go to the pictures. Being unemployed isn't a crime, and it shouldn't entail such a massive curtailment of peoples freedoms.

 

You just dont get it do you? having a drink and going to the pictures etc should be paid for - with your own money!

[andyofborg]

Ok. It takes away their right to drink, gamble or spend it on anything other than the basics like food, heating, clothes and a roof over their head.

I dont see the problem:huh:

 

since you are intent on removal of the ability to travel, socialise, and have any form of social life why not complete the job and put the unemployed in camps?

 

think of all the money you would save in housing benefit.

[Chun Li]

You just dont get it do you? having a drink and going to the pictures etc should be paid for - with your own money!

 

Hes rude too.

[southcoast]

Maybe a good idea to reduce the welfare bill would be for employers to pay a living wage instead of £6 per hour.

Thats slave labour and I can see why no one would want to work for that kind of money,by the time they have paid full rent and council tax they would be no better off than if they were on JSA.So its employers who are to blame for wanting to pay slave wages,you can be sure they wouldnt work for that kind of money but they think its ok for the rest.

[andygardener]

vouchers are just like cash how many little corner shops have been known to accept milk tokens etc for fag/beer etc

 

You'd have to have a reasonable enforcement effort when it was introduced.

 

I was over in Eire a couple of weeks after their smoking ban got introduced and had assumed it would be completely ignored. Not at all, they put 500 undercover bods out to check compliance, not just in the towns but in the sticks, catch you breaking it once 5000 euro fine, twice, your pub is shut for 6 months.

 

Do the same for shops defrauding the system and the "advantage" of selling special brew and pretending it was nice fresh veg would not be worth the risk.

[ricgem2002]

You'd have to have a reasonable enforcement effort when it was introduced.

 

I was over in Eire a couple of weeks after their smoking ban got introduced and had assumed it would be completely ignored. Not at all, they put 500 undercover bods out to check compliance, not just in the towns but in the sticks, catch you breaking it once 5000 euro fine, twice, your pub is shut for 6 months.

 

Do the same for shops defrauding the system and the "advantage" of selling special brew and pretending it was nice fresh veg would not be worth the risk.

so employing these extra bods in the first place would cost how much :huh:plus corner shops would know the local people and wouldnt give them to a stranger

[fake]

I imagine voucher is just a term used for a debit type card that will be used as any debit card.

That way even the person stood behind you in the que wont be aware your on any benefits.

All this 'taking away peoples rights' is just rubbish.

 

When most talk of vouchers they are talking about a similar scheme to what asylum seekers get. The one that had to be abandoned in 2002 because it was deemed unfair and unworkable and yet was re introduced in 2007 by popular demand from MP's.

 

Introducing a system of vouchers would cost yet more money and the idea is to reduce benefits not increase the cost. Vouchers give the person no choice as to how they can be spent, not all shops will accept them and they could not be use in markets where food may be cheaper. The shops that accept them also do not give change for unspent credit. What happens if money is need for transport, bus fares etc or should we give all unemployed a free bus pass?

 

Introducing vouchers for benefits serves no real purpose at all except make some benefit basher's happy.

 

To add, as far as I'm aware no debit card system has ever been put forward as workable as it would cost too much to implement.