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Money Box: Sanction busting

25/02/2017

Sanction busting

BBC Radio 4 - Money Box, Sanction busting

Early warning demand before cutting benefits, not-so-free childcare and the new pound coin

What do a Parent Teachers Association, a branch of the Royal British Legion and a group of Methodist churches have in common? And the free childcare that is not so free.

More information on the stories featured in this week's edition of Money Box can be found in the Related Links section below.

David Clapson was 59 when he died alone in his flat with no food, no electricity, and the insulin he relied on warming in his fridge above its safe maximum of 8C. A week earlier the £71.70 a week jobseekers allowance he relied on had been stopped. He had missed a meeting at the JobCentre. His death was recorded as due to natural causes. His sister Gill Thomson says she is fighting for an inquest. Paul Lewis talks to Frank Field MP who has this week demanded a yellow card system to give claimants time to appeal before their money is stopped. 

What do a Parent Teachers Association, a branch of the Royal British Legion, and a group of Methodist churches have in common? HSBC has closed their bank accounts after sending them lengthy forms about their activities and personnel. Oh, and they have not been involved in money laundering or terrorism. Has HSBC gone over the top after being fined £1.2bn in 2012 for being the Mexican drug cartels' local bank?

It's not the children in daycare who will be spending their days jumping through hoops but their parents if they want to get the new 30 hours free daycare promised by the Government from September. Both need to work (just one if there is only one). They must earn at least £120 a week each but no more than £100,000 a year. They need to find care for the 14 weeks that schools are closed. Pay for extras like drinks, nappies, and snacks. And be prepared for higher fees for their 1 and 2 year-olds to help the nurseries break even.

The new £1 coin will be launched on 28 March. The old one has lasted 34 years and you can still find original 1983 examples in your change. Or can you? No coin has been forged more and some 45 million of the coins in circulation are in fact fake. So the new one has numerous security features to defeat the coiners. It is the first twelve sided coin since the old threepenny bit - last seen in 1971. And in many ways very similar. Not least in value. In terms of prices the old 3d was worth about 75p today. But someone paid a brass 3d in their wage packet in 1937 when it was introduced would expect two of the new £1 coins for the same work today.

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