Tag Archives: joseph rowntree foundation

Frank Soodeen

The Independent View: The case for ‘bedroom tax’ reform is clear – the test is for Lib Dems to take it up

By Frank Soodeen | Thu 10th April 2014 - 3:27 pm

Screen Shot 2014-04-10 at 15.25.47In physics the conservation principle dictates that in closed systems, energy can neither be created or destroyed, but only turned from one form to another. New research from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation examining recent welfare reforms suggest that a similar law applies to housing support costs.

Applying size limits to social tenants – better known as the spare room subsidy or ‘bedroom tax’ – aimed to do three things. Reduce costs; ease overcrowding and introduce greater fairness into the system. Specifically, if you were a social tenant with extra space that you didn’t strictly need you should pay for the advantage like all other people with housing costs.

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Posted in Op-eds and The Independent View | Also tagged | 44 Comments
Caron Lindsay

A trio of damning reports on impact of Government’s welfare reforms

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 9th April 2014 - 10:32 am

Joseph Rowntree FoundationThree reports published today on the impacts of the Coalition Government’s welfare reforms should concern anyone who is interested in creating a fairer society.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation publishes two reports on wider welfare reform in general and the Bedroom Tax in particular which should inform those who are responsible for the Liberal Democrat manifesto as well as our ministers.

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Stephen Tall

Lib Dem attitudes to poverty and welfare: 3 interesting findings from today’s Joseph Rowntree Foundation report

By Stephen Tall | Tue 14th May 2013 - 6:05 pm

Three interesting findings from today’s report for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) — Public attitudes to poverty and welfare 1983-2011 — carried out by NatCen Social Research, exploring public attitudes to poverty and welfare over the past three decades.

1) Interestingly… Lib Dem supporters are less likely than Labour supporters to believe that people live in need because of laziness or a lack of willpower.

nat cen jrf laziness

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Don Foster MP

Don Foster MP writes… The Integration Strategy: one year on

By Don Foster MP | Thu 21st February 2013 - 10:25 am

The Government’s Integration Strategy, Creating the Conditions for Integration was published a year ago on 21 February 2012. Since becoming a minister a few months ago, this is one of the areas about which I’ve had some of the strongest feedback from party members.

The views I’ve heard range from “the strategy is welcome, but not enough” to “it isn’t a serious substitute for a strategy to tackle racism and racial injustice”. Some have said that the document skates over the fact that integration is a two way process of mutual accommodation. Those with this view argue that there’s …

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Andrew Stunell MP

Andrew Stunell MP writes: Buildings are the key to reducing carbon emissions

By Andrew Stunell MP | Wed 15th June 2011 - 1:53 pm

We risk losing our battle against climate change unless we make the built environment more sustainable. That was the message I gave the audience at a Greening our Homes seminar arranged by the Policy Exchange Think Tank yesterday. It’s a stark message, but is backed up by the facts. Around half of all the carbon emissions the UK produces each year come from buildings, with our homes contributing 27% on their own. By contrast, only 15% come from our cars, so we could reduce our carbon emissions by a greater amount with a two-thirds cut in emissions from the residential sector than by taking all our cars off the road.

Yet, when compared to sustainable transport, like electric cars, or renewable forms of energy, the built environment gets scant mention. But if we’re committed to being the greenest government ever, we need to do it in the most practical and cost-effective way we can. That means buildings.

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Sean McHale

Opinion: the Liberal Democrats should support a Living Wage

By Sean McHale | Mon 28th February 2011 - 12:40 pm

The Living Wage is a term which has gained ground in mainstream politics over the past year or so. Ed Miliband has used it in attempts to forge his political identity. Boris Johnson has spokenof his support for the concept and would like to see it introduced in London and David Cameron has said it is an idea whose time has come.

According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, a salary of £14,400 is the minimum a single person needs for an acceptable standard of living. This figure includes not only the basics in life, but covers what …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 31 Comments
Malcolm Wood

Opinion: Making VAT fair

By Malcolm Wood | Sun 27th June 2010 - 12:20 pm

It has become fashionable in the last few days to describe VAT as a “regressive”, and by implication unfair, tax. This is usually followed by complaint about how hypocritical it is of the Liberal Democrats to agree to an increase in its rate.

But VAT is not, by the simplest definition, a regressive tax. A regressive tax is one where the rate of taxation decreases as the value of the thing being taxed increases. A progressive tax is the other way round. Income tax is progressive, because those on higher incomes pay a higher rate of tax on it. Council tax …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 55 Comments
Philip Young

What the papers say…

By Philip Young | Fri 11th December 2009 - 1:40 pm

A look back at the last few days of news and comment in the National newspapers, by former Fleet Street News Editor (and former Editor of Liberal News), Philip Young… including a few clippings you may have missed.

Sunday Times, 6.12.09:

“A Tory peer has been caught using someone else’s home address to claim tens of thousands of pounds in expenses. Lord Taylor of Warwick, a 57-year-old former barrister, told the House of Lords that his main home was a terrace house in Oxford, which he neither owned nor lived in. Taylor has lived in his family home …

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