Thread: Lose Weight or Lose Benefits

Obese people could face cuts to their benefits if they do not attend exercise sessions, under new plans being outlined by a local council.
Westminster City council has published a report looking at how councils can link benefit payments to claimants' lifestyles.
It describes how some local authorities have begun allowing GPs to prescribe leisure activities like swimming and fitness classes.
It is hoped that by using technology such as smart cards, the use of leisure facilities can be monitored leading to housing and council benefit payouts being cut for those not attempting to lose weight.

Obesity: Fat People Could Face Benefit Cuts

Anyone else getting sick of these benefit cuts?

I also found out yesterday that when they bring in Universal Credits this year, part time workers who are on a low wage will be forced to job seek a higher paid job (ie. full time hours) and people on job seekers who claim housing benefit will only have 2 years until their housing benefit is cut completely - no regards to if you have children. The obese thing is in the news, but this isn't, but its a definate, its in all the DWP documents.

Makes me feel a bit sick

Some of them I agree with others I don't.

Making apart time working parents seeking longer hours is wrong in my opinion. I do 18 hours now. I earn £110 a week roughly. I'm. £50 better off than on benefits but out of that I have to pay £10 for a friend to look after and drop my son to school for me. And I have to pay £5 a week in after school club. Plus petrol to get there and my lunch at work. I don't really end up any better off except I have less time to do housework and everything.

The more money they make you earn the more they take so if I took on more hours I would be worse off anyway.

That said any household where there are 2 parents have no excuse but to work. I know of a couple who both don't work, have 3 kids under the age of 3 and have a lovely little lifestyle. They are always out drinking leaving kids with other people they are even getting married. Paid £7000 off already out of benefits now booking their honeymoon. That is wrong!!

Benefits are too high and wages are too low. End of story. At the end of the day it will always be the low/middle earners who suffer.

The day the reduce any tax credits or anything there is no way I would be able to afford to go to work so they really need to be careful here.

Yeah I see both sides of the argument too. I know people on benefits who have the life of larry, holidays abroad, cars ect. But I also know of people on Job seekers allowance, and there is no way on earth you could live a nice lifestyle on job seekers allowance, its only £100 odd every fortnight. The people that we see who live brilliant lives on benefits are on sickness benefits or extra benefits for having children.

The part time thing effects me too, I am part time. They will expect you to sign on whenever they want (time wise) - if you have a part time permanent job and a full time job comes up thats temp, they will expect you to take that, basically its all money money money. I have decided to go full time (ask if i can go full time) because I reckon when it gets to later in the year and they bring this in. Everyone who works part time will be looking to go full time, therefore less full time jobs for me. Infact will be requesting this on Monday. Might add too - if you dont turn up for interviews or dont accept the jobs they offer, then you will get sanctioned (all money cut) and people with children will not be spared.

The bit that sickens me the most is that they are not making it clear what they are doing, and basically no one knows this is coming in. I had an argument with my friend the other day when she said this isn't happening because it hadn't been on the news, well yes, it has benefits reform and the poverty it will cause is all over the news and has been for months. Its just that no one can be arsed to read the small print, and think about how it will effect them.

Any ladies reading this - dont take my word for it, read the info - its alot to take in, but its all here...

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/ucpbn-11-...-threshold.pdf

Yes its the people on benefits that continue having children that gets me. i don't know why you need that much extra money per child. They won't ever go to work coz they earn a hell of a lot more sitting at home.

It is ridiculous because you know the people making the rules don't have to worry about child care- they have nannies.
I already miss taking my son to and from school 2 days a week. I don't want to miss anymore. And if I'm working full time ie 40+ hours my child is in school 24 hours who is looking after him for the rest of the time!??

Oh I know, its a right carry on isn't it. I'm not sure of the ins and outs of if you have children and work part time. I know they will hammer on at you to earn more so they pay less, but I think they would only hammer on at you to get jobs within school time. If your earnings from your work are under 11k odd, you will be in the category for people who need help earning more, hense the interviews/signing on ect. I have no time for this and my job doesn't allow for me to "pop out" for a couple of hours to sign on.

My heads all over the place with this nonsense!

I think they should concentrate on people who are not working at all rather than keep bugging people who are actually doing their bit. If we all have to go full time surely that's taking more jobs away?
There's millions of unemployed get them to get a job!! x

This is the Tory government for ya!! Split a load of full time positions to part time/unpaid in order to get people off the unemployment statistics...now they are looking a bit better they will start cutting back on people who took these jobs while using a media smokescreen like the royal pregnancy rubbish to hide the truth!!

Wages are too low, cost if living is spiralling up, less protection and security in your rental or council homes, roads, schools and jobs yet they expect us to plod along on minimum wage. Disgraceful. They will murder the NHS soon too Cameron is the spawn if satan and has come to finish off thatchers work.

If we were in a third world country the government would be more truthful in their intentions and just come out with it - sterilisation of the poor, disabled, ethnic, religious and any other different groups to themselves. It is an absolute disgrace that someone who works hard can be denied benefits while scroungers can make a living of high profits out of the system that should be there for us when we need it, not when we want it.

/steps off soapbox!! But it makes me so angry. Why are we (as in, hard working honest people) bring punished for our labour ??

Just seen in the news about the free gym exercised or obese benefit claimants and think that is a good idea.

My ex had to have an operation on his spine a few years ago and was bed bound for over a year and put on quite a bit of weight.
He went to his doctor and asked for help and said he had heard you can get free gym sessions from your gp. The neighbouring borough give you free gym off peak for a year. His doctor said he could fund him for 1 session!! He couldn't afford a gym membership on the money he was on. Just too add he only wanted to do swimming as he still suffers with his spine so most other exercise is an absolute no go. So he had to turn it down. One session wasn't going to do anything for him.

But get this what they would do is refer him for weight loss surgery!!!!

Just doesn't make sense instead of letting someone help themselves and costing £30 a month they want him to have an operation that must cost them at least £20,000.

They really do make things up as they go along.

Originally Posted by Mandlegrot

This is the Tory government for ya!! Split a load of full time positions to part time/unpaid in order to get people off the unemployment statistics...now they are looking a bit better they will start cutting back on people who took these jobs while using a media smokescreen like the royal pregnancy rubbish to hide the truth!!

Wages are too low, cost if living is spiralling up, less protection and security in your rental or council homes, roads, schools and jobs yet they expect us to plod along on minimum wage. Disgraceful. They will murder the NHS soon too Cameron is the spawn if satan and has come to finish off thatchers work.

If we were in a third world country the government would be more truthful in their intentions and just come out with it - sterilisation of the poor, disabled, ethnic, religious and any other different groups to themselves. It is an absolute disgrace that someone who works hard can be denied benefits while scroungers can make a living of high profits out of the system that should be there for us when we need it, not when we want it.

/steps off soapbox!! But it makes me so angry. Why are we (as in, hard working honest people) bring punished for our labour ??

I agree with this 100% Wages are way to low and thats the problem, I dont think anyone would mind paying tax for benefits ect, so long as they get a good decent wage. Look at these poor nurses and care workers. They're on such a low wage, long hours, looking after kids at home.

My OH is starting to get a bit down about what the future holds for our LO's. We've been seriously talking about moving to another country, but I see they're bringing in a new thing where if you move to another country you pay that countries tax and also UK tax. lol - you couldn't make it up.

I think they (the govt) love the fact that we all fight amoungst each other about benefits - ones on benefits think the rich should pay more, rich think people on benefits get too much. Its deliberately set up like that. Its not the people on benefits that are to blame, its the govt.




Oh and yes, you can get gym membership on prescription in Scotland. My Grandpa has diabetes and got a free gym membership to help lose weight, but it was in 6 month installments. I've actually been considering asking my GP, but dont want to sound cheeky, because I could afford it myself, but at this time of the year it would be difficult. But yeah, they should be offering things like that for the people they are talking about - its quite expensive some of the gyms...what is it about £4 a time or something?

In my local gym just a school sports centre so by no means a posh gym. It's £4.50 for the gym and £3.90 to go swimming. So of you going 3 times a week it really adds up x

Hahaha! Pay UK tax if you move abroad?? No chance. I'll be living off the grid in my van in Portugal in a few years, growing all my own food and working for cash...!

I would pay higher taxes if I could dictate where it could go...and all of mine would go to the NHS and to organizations that look after the sick and needy. I do not agree with MY money being wasted on trident, wars, hunting for oil and government bureaucracy.

I am a support worker, and my company, although a not-for-profit organisation, has had to pass down severe cuts to our wages and conditions...this has all come from the government. They say they need us to work longer hours and that the people we support need consistency (that bit is spot on - where I work in a challanging behaviour unit you can't just run on agency or run short! you need same staff and familar faces else all hell breaks loose) yet they cut our overtime rate from time and a third to 10%. Then they gave us all a 'pay rise' which was actually a pay rise for some (me included, as a relatively untrained person compared to some with NVQ3-4 etc) but a steep decrease for others...many were fooled and agreed with it...but I did the maths and although I'm better off if I work contract hours, in reality you can't just work contract hours where I work, else they would all get sectioned and I have no hours haha!

Slightly off tangent there but all of these seemingly minor changes are being bought in, but when you zoom out and look at the bigger picture...everyone around you is taking a bite. Nurses, doctors, support workers, retail, council workers, the ill and sick, unemployed...the net is being taken from under us!

My mum was right - one of my first memories is being taught to throw a rubber brick at the telly and BOOOOO every time thatcher or John Major came on telly...some people thought it was harsh indoctinating your children with political ideas but she was spot on!

Originally Posted by BikiniBody2013

In my local gym just a school sports centre so by no means a posh gym. It's £4.50 for the gym and £3.90 to go swimming. So of you going 3 times a week it really adds up x

I'm quite lucky where I live...there is a massive Uni a few miles away just by where I work, and their prices seem a bit cheaper than other gyms, and the contract is great. Its a rolling contract, so you can join for a month, leave, join for another few months etc. Great for me as I spend a good few months out of the country each year. Its £27 a month but thats UNLIMITED gym and swim...a great deal IMO. Fitness First down the road, I was with for a year - was a set contract and I didn't get full use out of it at the time, was £25 a month with gym and classes included...but I probs use my current gym more as its flexable and got a pool. I really feel for people who want to come to the gym or go swimming but can't commit to a montly payment - as in the long run, they lose out...

Mandlegrot, thanks for that.

I agree totally - especially about the money being spent on Trident. The very sad fact is that basically all our tax money is being spent on things other than benefits, things like Trident, Queen's Jubille, Royal Wedding, ect, its ALOT more than the benefits money. Thats what gets to me, is people really think this is helping but its not even making a dent, the govt need to stop spending on all this. We're actually expecting an influx of Romanian Refugees soon, where's that money coming from. arrghh I get so worked up about it all. Its gonna be a huge loss of life all this, all the poverty, people starving ect, and yet its the least of the govt's priorities. De-population anyone?

Oh and guess what - Sky news today, the price of food in our supermarkets is expected to rise this year, specifically things like bread, cheese, vegetables & fruits, but the deals on junk will remain! C'mon everyone wake up and see whats going on here! They are taking people's money telling them they need to lose weight to get money for food and the only food available will be junk - is anyone else thinking theres something else going on here!?

xxxxxxx

I know!!

To eat healthy is so expensive. Even just the mince meat I buy has gone up from £1.98 to 2.74 and that's the cheap meat. for lean mince its over £5 for a portion half the size.

I struggle to go in the shop and spend less than £50 for the week.

I just think immigration laws here are absolutely ridiculous, let alone the ones that come over get pregnant, straight on benefits, council hose without putting anything into the system.
But, even the ones who come over and work here we just haven't got the resources, our schools are overfilled, there are no council houses left, there are not enough hospital beds, doctors, or dentists to go around. Yet they still have the borders open to anyone and everyone.

They seriously need to sort it out.

As a vegan, you can imagine the money I spend on food!! Keeping a supply of fresh veg and fruit in is so expensive...no cheap convenience meals...i easily spend £60 a week, and that's for me!! I ended up getting an allotment last year and its one of the best things I ever did - lots of exercise, outdoor space and FREE FOOD. I can't wait for spring so I can get out there and get planting, nowt better than harvesting a bucket of food and knowing it cost you about £1 in seeds and about 10lb in fat to produce!!

The royal family are a scam - they put nothing in (I don't agree with the tourism argument, if you took them out of the equation people wouldn't suddenly stop visiting London would they!) the wedding alone cost millions in policing, security, bank holidays (which I don't get off anyway, so I ended up being paid £10 an hour for 15 hours EACH bank holiday - you do the maths !)...they are vultures, and when people moan about immigrants and scroungers I say 'who can blame them, when one of the most recognizable faces (the queen) on the planet is also one of the biggest tax swindling scroungers ever?'

With regards to immigrants, I think more can be done, but I don't blame people for coming over here and doing it. Same as I don't blame people like Jimmy Carr for using offshore tax accounts. I blame the government, and its consistent failings to recognize that it is them that create these laws and loopholes for their OWN benefit, while passing the blame onto innocent people who are doing EXACTLY the same thing as a lot of the rich do in this country. If you lived in a country with no NHS, no jobs, substandard living arrangements, and had the opportunity to get a bus somewhere down the road in europe and have a pop at living a better life, you would! Sounds familiar? The English are leaving this country for Europe and further afield at a rate of knots as we, too, have found better places to live our lives in line with our own standards and aspirations. I have numerous friends relocating to Asia, particularly China, these people are young, work in business and are career driven. Opportunities for people like this do not exist in the UK any more, so they are doing exactly the same ! Yes you get immigrants come over and not declare things, have people take advantage of the NHS...but so do the English. And until we put a stop to it, ie but shutting loopholes, being more stringent, following up people on jobseekers, independent inquiry etc, then people will continue to do it, because it is very, very easy to do so.

This is the problem with being in the EU - we too are entitled to move where we want and seek out new places to live, just as Romanians are welcome to come here...problem is the things that make our country great are the things that keep us here - I for one would love to live abroad but I couldn't live without the NHS. I once looked into medical insurance in the USA and how it worked, and if I was to relocate there, I couldn't get medical insurance at all! The things that keep us here are the things that other people in europe might not have - a NHS, good quality of life, decent schools...and while I agree everyone should have free access to these, it means that the burden on our system to provide people with it is too much, and it means we ALL suffer as a consequence. What I think can be done - stop chasing imaginary oil in other countries, stop wars, trident...stop giving 'aid' to India and corrupt African nations (instead give money DIRECT to the people who need it, and cut out the corrupt middlemen - if this had been done years ago a whole load of African countries would have been lifted above the breadline already), and maybe put more into helping our neighbors in Europe to improve their own conditions so things are not so desperate that people feel the need to migrate across many borders into an unknown country and risk imprisonment, beatings and worse along the way.

Basically to cut a long story short I think the UK government, past and present, has a lot to do with this!

Another thing while I'm on the soapbox!! Is some laws being passed...such as repealing section 6 which is basically squatting laws...while squatters get a lot of bad press from the sensationalist media who love a good story about the middle classes being done over by the bad working classes, the majority of squatters are homeless, desperate and conscious in their choice of building to live in - 99% of squatters do not break into 'lived-in' houses but stake out buildings for weeks, or even months, do research as to who owns it, why it is empty etc and chose buildings that are derelict, unloved and unused. i bet a lot of people have lived on roads with squatters without even knowing, as 'good' squatters look after their environment and buildings, some even making home improvements, cleaning, sorting out the garden/gutters etc which is to everyones benefit. Now there are enough empty buildings in the UK to house all of the homeless, and countless more, as well as providing a free roof for those that need it, including immigrants.This would cost us NOTHING yes nothing, to just open a door. Yet the government chooses to cover buildings like this, brick in the windows and doors so access is denied, repeal section 6...then discourage people from sleeping rough by practicing washdowns on the streets of london (basically, they hose down people sleeping rough in the early hours if they are 'visible' enough - imagine someone hosing you down midwinter, all of your bedding and personal possessions wet!). It stinks of hipocracy and a lot of the 'answers' to the things on this thread are already in our hands - housing, food, tax, money, benefits, NHS...it just needs shaking up, and for someone to come in and stop brushing over and spending money on new things to look and see that everything we need is pretty much here.

Cut beurocracy. Cut red tape. tighten up on benefits claimants EQUALLY (new benefits forms - makes it harder to make a genuine claim and easier to scam!! what is that about!). Create jobs by renovating existing buildings and lands to provide a shelter for the homeless and needy and to provide low cost housing. And get rid of the tories and the royal family