Don't cut my £32,000 benefits: Unemployed mother-of-seven says living on just £2,000 each month will leave her family homeless

Clare Bache, 38, says her life will be 'impossible' on £2,000 a month

Mother-of-seven lives in a six-bedroom home in Birmingham

She says £600 benefits cut will leave her and her children homeless



A jobless mother hit by the new benefits cap claimed yesterday she will not be able to get by on £2,000 a month.

Despite the amount being more than many working families receive, Clare Bache insists she should be able to hold on to the additional £600 in handouts she is picking up now.

That sum will be taken away from July 15 as the Government moves to ensure benefit claimants are no better off than the average family on £32,000 a year before tax.

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Clare Bache at her home and her children Katrina, Jasmine, Luke, Anthony, Hughey and Charlie

Mrs Bache, 38, says the reforms will mean she has to give up the six-bedroom rented house paid for the taxpayer and find somewhere cheaper.

‘It is incredibly stressful,’ she said. ‘I feel like there’s a dark cloud hovering over us and the future looks very bleak.’



She currently receives around £31,200 a year – £2,600 a month – through a combination of housing benefit, child benefit, child tax credits and income support.

All of it, she says, goes on her seven children: Charlotte 17, Katrina 15, Jasmine, 12, ten-year-old Luke, Anthony, eight, Huey, six, and Charlie Ali, two.



Hardship: Ms Bache, who lives in a six-bedroom privately rented home with her children, says her life will become 'impossible' on capped benefits

For a taxpayer to take home £31,200 a year, he or she would have to earn a salary of more than £42,000.

Mrs Bache’s home was repossessed five years ago and, having failed to secure a council house, she has been paying £725 a month to a landlord.

She says the benefit changes mean she may have to move home, ‘shop around’ for better deals on her bills, get rid of her car and stop buying all her food at the supermarket.

Two of her children have medical problems which, she says, means she needs her car to take them to doctor’s appointments.

Karina has arthritis and Charlie has been diagnosed with Guillain-Barre syndrome, which affects the body’s nervous system.

BENEFITS BREAKDOWN

Clare Bache's current benefits per month, ahead of the cap due this summer:

Housing benefit: £715 Child benefit: £377 Child tax credit: £1,252 Income support: £303 Total: £2,647

While she is still in touch with her estranged husband, Wayne Bache, father of her six eldest children, she claims he only gives her ‘the odd fiver, but that’s it’.Mrs Bache, who is in an ‘on and off relationship’ with the father of her youngest child, said the benefits cap will make her life impossible.

‘I’ve sought advice and been told that my only choice will be to declare myself homeless,’ she added. ‘It’s incredibly stressful. Gas and electricity bills already cripple me and I just don’t know how I will cope. I will have to shop around. I won’t be able to get all my groceries from a supermarket because it will cost too much.’

Mrs Bache said sending her children to school was a burden because she had to find £500 a year for uniforms.

‘I won’t be able to afford school trips for them any more, it’s going to be impossible,’ she added.

The single mother’s comments were met with fierce criticism from those who support changes to the benefit system.

Matthew Sinclair of the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: ‘Working families have to make decisions based on what they can afford.

‘There is no reason that should be different when taxpayers are picking up the bill.’

The Government’s benefit cap limits the amount a household can claim in welfare to £26,000 a year. It does not affect those on disability benefits or anyone working more than 16 hours a week and claiming working tax credits.

The cap limits will be set at £500 a week for couples, with or without children, and lone parent households and at £350 a week for households of a single adult with no children.

Labour has proposed a higher cap on benefits, adjusted regionally.