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19 Dec 12
12:18
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Date Joined:
05 Jan 10
Bookies having heart attacks as we speak 
Tory MP calls for law change to prohibit state welfare being spent on non-essentials.
MP Alec Shelbrooke wants to introduce restricted cash card for benefits.
Card would only allow benefits to be spent on essential items such as food and clothes
By Sara Malm
PUBLISHED:19 December 2012
Benefits claimants should be banned from spending welfare handouts on alcohol and cigarettes, a Conservative MP has said.
Alec Shelbrooke wants to prohibit benefits being spent on luxury items by introducing electronic cash cards which could only be used for essential items such as food and clothing.
The cards would be similar to a chip and pin debit card but with a blocking function for non-essential items, the MP for Elmet and Rothwell told the House of Commons.
If people on benefits were to be prohibited from buying non-essential, desirable and damaging (NEDD) items, Mr Shelbrooke believes the public's perception of welfare claimants would improve.
Mr Shelbrooke, a parliamentary private secretary at the Northern Ireland Office, said the plan would end the 'damaging perception' that those who claimed benefits were scroungers who sponge off the state.
'When hard-working families up and down the country are forced to cut back on such non-essential, desirable items it is right that taxpayer benefits be only used for essential purposes,' Mr Shelbrooke told the House of Commons.
Although the Bill drafted by Mr Shelbrooke has no realistic prospect of becoming law, the idea of benefits cash cards was raised by Work and Pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith during the Tory party conference earlier this year.
Australia already uses a dedicated spending system where the 'Basics cards' scheme was launched nationwide in October.
The cards can only be used to purchase 'priority' items such as food, housing, clothing, education and health care.
The government puts the money electronically on the card once a fortnight, when people receive their benefit payments.
Mr Shelbrooke said: 'If taxpayers are safe in the knowledge that claimants can no longer buy NEDD at the taxpayers' expense then the concept of welfare will be viewed once again as a responsible way of getting back on your feet.'
'That was what the welfare state was intended to be: a safety net in times of need, a hand-up, not simply a handout.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk
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Replies: 192
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Excellent idea I think.
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agree, good idea.
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i can see that working to a point, but it's easy to buy 20 quids worth of food for a neighbour and get the cash to buy beer and cigs
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Thats exactly how it should be. Make sure money is not spent on anything else! Also must provide photo identification when exchanging for goods!
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its about time someone did something about it
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Half the asian shop keepers will be rubbing their hands with glee.
The other half will be threatened to include the banned items. Tesco and the rest will suffer. Stupid Idea that won't work in practice. |
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Good idea but doubt anything will come of it. The Tories don't have a backbone.
Once the Human Rights brigade and the Guardianista's start ripping it apart, it'll be another U-turn. |
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elise
elise 19 Dec 12 12:27 Joined: 04 Jan 03 | Topic/replies: 9,686 | Blogger: elise's blog i can see that working to a point, but it's easy to buy 20 quids worth of food for a neighbour and get the cash to buy beer and cigs ^ spot on idea unworkable,sadly  |
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Well if I were spending my dole money on smack and got given food vouchers instead of cash then I don't see how I could possibly get around it. Fortunately for the government anyone on benefits loses the ability to engage in basic barter, and as such would be unable to exchange the vouchers for money with other members of the public.
Next up, Frankel or Black Caviar, who would win? |
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good idea most on here will be fkd though
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Remember the Food Tokens............I was in Margate immigrants selling em outside Supermarkets for cash.........as theve got there own black market ?
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No money for heating then
Another well thought out Tory idea ( stretching a point ). |
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corner shop owners like me will make lots of money if they bring this in, we will swipe the card for say £30 and give them £20 in cash
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tally ho ...
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hope Y loose the cricket............
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Will RUK be included in essential goods ?? Hope so
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You would have to prove you were an out of work Toff imo.
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never gonna happen
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Should bring it in ASAP
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A good idea and more workable now given that most shops use barcoding so fairly easy to code out "luxury" items. However, have to agree that it would still be fairly easy to convert credit to cash.
Do people remember luncheon vouchers? They were supposed to be for "bona fide" meals but seem to remember using them in shops for almost anything. |
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"A safety net "
The effects of double dip recessions caused by the greed of banks and the uselessness of govermaents to recover the economy or jobsmarket mean in some parts of the uk its a 300 to 1000 jobless people for every job vanancy. Another round of poor bashing is equivelant to the situation in germany 1938 when jewish shops were targeted by facism campaigners and if this govermaent has already forgot the cause of the recent riots in the UK then it had better drag itself out of its far right mentality before it causes futher damage to an already rocking boat. "They should never of been allowed back in power" may well be the near future documented footnote. |
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complete bunch of ****s are running the country, NAP
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The cards must be used at places run by members of Camoron's panel of economic advisors e.g. inc British Gas, BT, Sainsburys, etc. (Nap)
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There are all sorts of ways round it most of which have been mentioned. But also it's not just food and clothes that could reasonably be considered essentials. Fuses,lightbulbs ? How do you pay a plumber if you have a flooded kitchen ?
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Widening the difference between the have and have nots will only casue socail unrest and do absotuley
nothing for the economy, it may please the far right and its advocates but it begs the question in the 21st century where the hell is the uk heading?????????????? |
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Offers of consultancies for Camoron and Gideon are flooding in from banks, desperate to run the scheme (Nap).
This week’s credit check: A record 43.6 million Americans are using food stamps. JPMorgan’s segment that makes food stamp debit cards made $5.47 billion in net revenue in 2010. You might think that if you’re on food stamps, big banks won’t be very interested in you. What could they possibly want with someone who’s struggling just to put food on the table? But it turns out that you’re actually part of a profitable business for big bank JPMorgan. While the money to pay for the stamps comes from the government, the technology to access it lies in private hands. Food stamps used to be literally stamps — that is, pieces of paper — but in this day and age paper is so old fashioned. Now you get your food stamps with a debit card, and JPMorgan knows all about creating plastic credit products. http://www.rooseveltinstitute.org/new-roosevelt/food-stamps-jpmorgan-banking-industry-profit-misery |
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2012 and some are clamouring for the return of the workhouse, no surprise in this regressive society.
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I remember the good old days bf_fanatic. Days when Labour governments used to fck up the economy every time they were in power. Also those good old days when a good education was important especially use of English.
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you can see it now at paadys we accept bananas and potatoes you get 10 free spins on roulette
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Anybody desperate enough would sell their electronic chip and pin for cash probably to one half of its value.The rich would get richer and the dope heads less dope.
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How does this reduce the amount of handouts being given?
As far as I can see, same benefits paid regardless of what they're spent on. If someone wants to go hungry, but keep on boozing, that's their business. |
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whilst the benefits equal or exceed a low paid job there will never be a proper incentive to work for many of the long term lazy @rse i want it on a plate types
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We should stop pretending this is America as we do not build our socail and economic fortunes
on the "earn and burn" philosphy generated by being the worlds greatest arms exporter and nor do we beleive in arming our citezens to the teeth to protect us from the problems caused at home by having the greatest divide between the rich and the poor. American capitalistic greed caused the great depression which seeded the reat of the worlds unrest and the lessons and scars of that are all still around europe to this day. HAVE YOU ALL FORGOTTEN YOUR HISTORY IN FAVOUR OF GREED? |
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Surely once they cant buy booze or cigs they might want to get a job.
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What jobs, squeezing 300 or so onto one wage slip is the stuff of dreams!
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maybe employers could do payments in rothmans and vodka shots
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IT is one thing to know you are walking to the edge of a cliff and its another to do it wearing a blindfold!
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Surely once they cant buy booze or cigs they might want to get a job.
No. They'll just nick stuff. |