The benefits trap.

This has the potential of turning into a multifaceted conversation about should and if so how do we improve the lot of those people in our society who are on the lowest pay.  

I recognise the problem SRB has raised but it is a complicated one.  SRB is on a lower income supplemented by the state and believes he is trapped with little incentive or opportunity to work his way to a better standard of living, if I understand him correctly.  There is perhaps a case for a substantial increase in the minimum wage to reduce or eliminate the need for the state to top up incomes via UC.  This is not an easy option though. That would, I imagine, substantially increase for example Zany's cost base in his business and the result surely is he would have to put up his prices to his customers (some of whom will  be the people we have just increased salary to) and would probably have to similarly raise other workers wages to maintain differentials further increasing cost pressures and hence price he has to charge.  As costs of employing people rises, there would be increased pressure on Zany to seek ways to automate or otherwise reduce his employment headcount. Doing this may not be the interests of those we have tried to help.

There is an argument perhaps to replace UC with a state funded universal basic income payable to everyone but it is hard to see how this would be funded. 

SRB will not like this but the purpose of benefits is to act as a safety net rather than as a right.  SRB complains that his incentives to work are reduced as his net income combination of benefit and work income only increases marginally when he works more so why bother. But it could be argued that he should as much as possible stand on his own two feet and if he is capable of working more, he should be expected even forced to do so rather than expect taxpayers to fund him via benefits.  In theory perhaps the withdrawal rate of UC should be 100% rather than 55% of income earned.

Its complicated hence why I suspect this issue falls mostly into the "too difficult" box and nothing happens.  

In terms of rent controls, this feels like a classic case of "I wouldn't have started from here". There is no golden rule that says people have to invest in the property market. They only do so if they believe they will get a good return on their investment. Lets say hypothetically that market rent on a suitable property is currently £10,000 per annum. An investor looking for a 5% return may buy that property for £200,000.  If we now introduce rent controls limiting that rent to £5000 per annum, the price an investor would be prepared to pay for that property would fall to £100,000.  That may be fine for some but for people currently owning property that fall in value would be catastrophic. That would then feed into severe financial difficulty for financial institutions who lend to the property market and from there into the economy full stop. Its a policy that would be fantastically difficult to introduce from where we are now even in a dictatorship. In a democracy it would almost certainly be impossible to do.  

As for  housebuilding and planning. Well local councils simply represent (at least in theory) their local community. That community should have protection surely from well financed developers trying to impose unwanted development on their community.  Again trying to find the right balance here is incredibly difficult.

Here we run straight into the concept of value. Work is not valuable because it is difficult / hard, it is valuable because somebody wants to pay for it to be performed. I wonder how you keen you would be for the BNP to be paid with public money to do their version of 'volunteer work'

Here you seem to be looking for a way to collect payment from people for doing something, without those people having the option to say 'no thanks'.

Then the problem becomes choosing uncontroversial work that everyone agrees needs to be done (is of value) and..
...what to do with those who refuse? Our Star Trek inspired 'liberal values' wont allow significant consequences / restrictions.

Sure - the whole thing is intrinsically dodgy and corruptible. Historically governments formed out of the common good of security and massive extensions to this have become unstable. Extending the deal, so armies of of citizens can make up their idea of 'useful work' and receive forced payments from everyone else to do it, sounds to me like a trip into totalitarian enforcement or a short cul-de-sac

Ridiculous isn't it that the poorest pay one of the highest marginal rates of tax.

But cutting that to a sensible level isn't the way to end the benefits trap, we have to change the much wider tax portfolio so businesses are incentivised to create decently paid jobs.  Right now we do 100% the opposite and guess what we have 1.5 million in the economic and social misery of unemployment. 

I do not agree with laying off workers so welfare claimants can do their jobs instead in return for benefits. You could end up with the ludicrous situation where a road sweeper loses his job so welfare claimants can do it instead, only for the now unemployed roadsweeper to still end up sweeping the roads for his benefits instead of for the living wage he was doing it for.

This would be tantamount to a form of slave labour. If people are going to be expected to work for their benefits, have them do stuff that people are not already being paid to do. Here in the southwest for example they could collect litter from our numerous beaches, which councils very seldom do.

In private industry people tend not to have their jobs replaced by welfare claimants doing the work for free instead. If that were to happen there would be outrage.

Your willingness to get welfare claimants to do the work that workers are currently paid to do, so that the workers end up on the dole, is frankly disgusting.