"My name is Kelly... I am 24 years old. I have been with my partner for four years and we have a mortgage (it’s interest-only, but in 50 years it’ll be worth it!!).
I work 48 hours a week on minimum wage, which brings in roughly £200 a week, give or take £2, and my partner earns £1,000 a month. We had life OK until exactly nine weeks ago when my son was born.
The baby has a few second-hand things because, as you can see, we don’t have much cash to spare. But we scrimped and saved and got an overdraft to cover the cost of everything else. We thought we were doing well.
Until, of course, I was eight months pregnant and my work made me go on maternity leave!!
Everybody told me I’d be fine: “You’ll get maternity money”, “he’ll get paternity pay”, “you’ll get child tax credits”, “you’ll get a maternity grant”, “you’ll get child tax credits”.
So still I thought, yeah, we’ll manage.
Well, fast-forward nine weeks and we are £1,400 into our overdraft with no way out and my son dresses head to toe in George.
I get £113 maternity pay. My partner had to take two weeks’ holiday because we couldn’t afford paternity pay. I get £20 child tax credit and am not entitled to working tax credit because I am under 25!!
I’m not entitled to a maternity grant because, believe it or not, I’m still classed as being in full-time employment. For the same reason, I can’t ask for help with milk or the council tax.
I have nine months off (including the month before the baby was born) then I’m expected to go back to work and leave my eight-month-old baby in a nursery.
All of this would be fine, I would grumble and get on with it. Babies are expensive, that’s life.
BUT . . . I’m in this position because I have a partner. Because my baby has a daddy. Because I have a job.
If I was single or on benefits, my rent would be paid, ditto my council tax. I would have been given £500 to buy the baby a pram and cot, etc.
I would still receive £113 maternity pay, but I would also get an extra £100 each week in child and tax credits, regardless of my age. My son, instead of receiving the £250 child trust fund from the Government, would get £500.
And to top it all off, I would be paid to be with my son and would not be expected to go back to work until he is seven!!
I’m absolutely gutted! I’m so sick and tired of this country. HOW IS THIS FAIR??? Why is my family being punished for being exactly that, A FAMILY!!!!?
Why is it suddenly better to be single? Or a layabout content to live off benefits? Why is the Government ONLY helping single parent families and rewarding the idiots of the land who refuse to work and contribute like everybody else?
I feel cheated by so-called Great Britain. From where I’m sitting, it’s not so great.
All I can say is that in 50 years, when I’ve paid off my overdraft and my mortgage, my grandkids will be visiting me in Australia because as soon as I can, I’m turning my back on the country that has already turned its back on me and my family.
Thank you for your time and sorry to have dragged on so much.
Kelly and family xxx
Kelly, you haven’t dragged on so much, but I would love to drag Brown to your kitchen table to live a few days in your world rather than in his Downing Street bunker. Good luck."
Apart from saying that if she couldn't afford the baby then she shouldn't have got pregnant, I am in agreement with this letter writer.
I would ask why the benefits system is so skewed in favour of the unemployed, the feckless and those who breed for benefits, but the answer is pretty clear - our Labour masters have created an underclass who will vote Labour in return for their benefit subsidised lifestyle.
The obvious question is, what can we do about this state of affairs? My honest answer is that I think it is probably too late for this Country to do anything much at all to rectify this situation. The sheer size of the UK underclass and the number of jobs depending upon the existence of this underclass and them staying in that position means that changing the status quo might be somewhat beyond an incoming Conservative government. Depressing thought isn't it?
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