Researchers at Durham University have found many homeowners are remortgaging their homes for cash to supplement their day-to-day expenditure. The researchers looked at the spending patterns of more than 8,000 families from 2001 to 2005 and found a third of people used the cash released by equity in their homes for ‘other specified reasons’, ie
THOSE NICE Nu Tories couldn’t possibly do anything nasty if they get power, right? That nice Mr Cameron even mentioned housing in his conference speech. Wrong, says Polly Toynbee this morning. Public spending cuts are inevitable. ‘What might the Tories do to shrink the state? At first expect no headline cuts in services used by
HE WAS 24 YEARS OLD and he hadn’t even seen Cathy Come Home. In 1966 Des Wilson was working on a campaign called Shelter from a dingy London office. In an interview to be published next week he tells ROOF (go here to subscribe) what happened next: ‘I’d been planning the campaign for nearly a
A package of measures to help unemployed people who are experiencing depression or anxiety to get back to work were announced on the weekend by health secretary Alan Johnson and Work and Pensions secretary James Purnell. There will be a faster roll out of talking therapy services around the country, with services will be available
The government is entitled to take legal action to recover social security benefits it pays by mistake a judge has ruled. In a test case at the High Court the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) argued that government has no power to seek to claw back overpayments where the recipient had done nothing wrong. However
Treasury figures show that welfare payments will exceed income tax receipts by almost £25 billion in 2009/10. Treasury is expecting to take in £140.5 billion on gross income tax receipts, and pay out £164.7 billion in social security benefits, growing to £170.9 billion in 2010/11, equal to government spend on the NHS, schools and universities
A new code of practice laying down how young people should be treated during detention or while being transferred into local authority care came into force yesterday. The code will ensure that children have their asylum applications dealt with quickly. The UK Border Agency will introduce a duty of care regarding the welfare of children
GET READY to leave the country. Apparently, the government is planning a council tax revaluation. Shockingly, valuers will find out how much a home is really worth and tax it accordingly. According to the Mail on Sunday yesterday: ‘Ministers have purchased sophisticated ‘Big Brother’ computer systems which calculate the desirability of an area based on
More than one million children in Britain live in poverty despite having at least one parent in work, says a new report by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR). The IPPR argues a raft of measures are required to lift the ‘forgotten million’ out of poverty, including: introducing a personal tax credit allowance (PTCA)
Public attitudes to the welfare state have hardened during Labour’s decade in power, and even more so among Labour voters, a study by the London School of Economics has found. The study pre-dates the current recession, starting in 1996, just before Tony Blair took power. At the time 48 per cent of voters and 62