Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Social housing cuts while large-landowner Benefit-payments are preserved

The Land is Ours! | 20.10.2010 15:56 | Analysis | Public sector cuts

There is no suggestion by the Chancellor or other Government spokespersons of cutting Common Agricultural Payment welfare payments as a contribution to the current austerity savings and there is no mention of such cuts in today’s Spending Review announced by Osborne. Currently, the taxpayer pay £10 billion a year to the EU for the CAP EU policy.

Social housing cuts while large-landowner & Big Ben benefit-payments are preserved

The social housing budget in England to be cut by more than 50% (taking us back the Annual Spending Review announced today by the Chancellor, George Osborne a spending review announced today by Conservative Chancellor George Osbourne which will disproportionately affect women and poorer families and entrench patterns of poverty and inequality, reducing social mobility and worsening health and social outcomes.

Meanwhile, 197,000 claimants, many of them already millionaires including some M.P.’s , are in receipt of annual payments through the Common Agricultural Policy.

There is no suggestion by the Chancellor or other Government spokespersons of cutting these CAP welfare payments as a contribution to the current austerity savings and there is no mention of such cuts in today’s Spending Review announced by Osborne. Currently, the taxpayer pay £10 billion a year to the EU - of which £3.4 billion comes back mainly to large landowners. The payments element of CAP in 2009 represented a 23 per cent increase over 2008 totals - a windfall increase from 2008 to 2009 of 23% in the size of payments occasioned by the fall in value of sterling against the Euro.

Richard Drax, M.P. for North Dorset as beneficiary of the Drax Estates received £417,846 as annual payment through CAP. George Osborne is the descendant of a wealthy aristocratic family and will inherit a knighthood from his father, Sir Peter, the 17th Baronet of Ballentaylor.

In the midst of this announcement made by a cabinet comprised of 23 out of its 29 members in possession of assets of more than £1 million, poor families at the margins are set to face up to the brunt of reductions in government spending announced by the Chancellor today. Head of housing at Price Waterhouse-Coopers commenting on the effect on the housing association sector has acknowledged that rent increases are likely for tenants in the social housing sector: “Rent increases for new tenants will increase the sums available to invest in new homes – but the Government needs to be alert to the fact that 65% of tenants in social housing are on benefits. So new tenants need to be better off than today’s - otherwise rent increases will simply add to the benefits bill”. 1 Cuts to welfare include further cuts to housing benefit of £490m (10%), which is on top of the housing benefit cut in the budget in June. It amounts to caps on housing benefit of £250 for a one-bed property and £400 for four or more bedrooms. The average monthly private rent in London was £900 in 2006/8 compared with an England average of £574.

Payments under the CAP scheme to UK claimants which amount to £3.4billion for the year 2009. Additionally, foreign residents, because they have bought farm land in Britain, are generously rewarded out of UK tax-payers’ pockets annually.

HM Queen received £1,183,508 in the years 2008/9 from Rural Payments Agency under the Common Agricultural Policy regime of the E.U. for privately owning Sandringham Estates. Prince Charles for the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall received £581,000.Significantly HM Treasury designates those receiving CAP payments as “benefits recipients”- so that’s official! HM the Queen is on benefit!

The Land is Ours campaign sent a letter to HM Queen drawing this to her attention and inviting her as an example to others to repay at least the unearned increment. TLIO recently discovered that the bank account at the Treasury to which benefits claimants can make refunds is titled the “General Funds and Accounts at the Treasury”. TLIO campaigner James Armstrong obtained this information in a reply to a Freedom of Information request, in a letter dated 4th October, after seven unanswered and unacknowledged letters.

James Armstrong from TLIO said: "I am confident HM will contribute. Only absolutely all the British people working together can get us out of the mess. A bankrupt Treasury would have no funds to pay the Civil List to Her Majesty nor to pay the £10billion annual fee for E.U. membership. Then there would be no more CAP payments for landowners to receive and no Britain to rule."


References:
1. “Spending Review: Social housing cuts not a huge surprise”, by Gary Howes, Director of Finance Online – Ref:  http://www.dofonline.co.uk/content/view/4935/152/


See also:
“Tory multimillionaire witch-hunts welfare claimants”, by Robert Stevens  http://wsws.org/articles/2010

If you are interested to do more on this issue, please email James Armstrong from TLIO at:  james@tlio.org.uk

The Land is Ours!
- Homepage: http://www.tlio.org.uk

Comments

Display the following comment

  1. Please Remove this version — james
Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech