Which taxes should Burnham put up?

Less than 5% of UC claimants work more than 30 hours a week. So no, we do not have masses of benefit claimants on a “pittance” from bigger employers where they need benefits to survive.

Maybe because a lot of the bigger employers pay their staff a pittance, so they need benefits to survive, while the CEO gets a massive bonus for loading the company up with debt that it will never be able to pay off.

Yes, and they were/are a particularly big cohort who were young in the 70s and this cohort will sadly start diminishing at the end of the decade as the late silent generation approach their mid-late 80s and 90s.

We didn’t have so many people either and those needing benefits

Pensioners are living longer with more complex needs. There aren’t enough workers to pay for the massive pension bill.

Who said the person living in the house is on benefits and not working hard?

Many countries have controlled rent and secure tenancies.

Germany - Open-ended tenancies, controlled rent increases.

Austria - Strong tenant security, regulated rents in many properties.

Sweden - Secure tenancies, rents negotiated collectively.

Denmark - Strong tenant protections, rent regulation for many homes.

Netherlands - Indefinite tenancies, rent controls for many properties.

France - Rent controls in some cities, good tenant protections.

Switzerland - Rent increases regulated, strong legal protections.

Belgium - Rent increases linked to inflation, secure tenancies.

Finland - Good security of tenure, fewer rent controls.

So why then do we now have so many more people taking more than they put in than we did in the 1970s? The percentage of net takers is predicted to reach 60% by 2028/29. Do you think that is sustainable?

It does matter that people keep misrepresenting the UK's problem's as having been caused by "the spiralling welfare bill" when this isn't the case at all because they then go on to conclude that they can be solved by cutting the welfare budget which would be disastrous and totally ineffective.

And does any developed country have a cohesive plan for growth? Very hard to make one when we have no idea which jobs AI will destroy and which new ones it will create. And yet we are growing at a comparable rate to other OECD countries. Very few economies at our stage of development see high growth rates.

My son has just got a job no problem. In fact he was offered 2.

Yes, that's what I said - UK debt shot up after the GFC and also during COVID.

Why is it better to look at the total Government budget and borrowing data and what is it better for? The simple point I was making stands with the figures I used. The points you're making may be better made with your extra data but I can't see that you've used it to support your assertion that welfare spending needs to go down. One of your graphs makes it look like welfare spending has vastly increased but when you look at the units it's actually barely increased at all and the increase is within the realms of normal minor fluctuations.

Cutting welfare would be disastrous and would just force up spending on health and social care. Individual welfare recipients are already receiving less and less in order to hold welfare spending unchanged so people are in the position where money paid out to help with the extra costs of their disability has to go on food and bills, meaning they can't look after themselves properly and get progressively more ill and disabled as a result. Welfare is an investment in the health of the nation.

We are growing at a comparable rate to other European countries but yes there are fewer net contributors. Productivity is much higher than in decades past though so this has helped a little. It would have helped a lot more if the people at the top hadn't taken vastly more than their fair share of the productivity gains.

Let’s also remember that China has huge interests in putting military bases in that area, has huge influence in Mauritius and also sits on the ICJ (which has no power to impose its rulings).

According to AI

AI Overview

The UK is transferring sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius to resolve a long-standing geopolitical dispute and guarantee the long-term operation of the critical joint UK-US military base on Diego Garcia. Al Jazeera +1

The primary drivers for the decision include:
International Pressure and Law: The International Court of Justice and the United Nations ruled that the UK's detachment of the islands from Mauritius prior to Mauritian independence in 1968 was illegal and a violation of decolonization laws. By agreeing to transfer sovereignty, the UK avoids further costly and damaging legal defeats in international courts. The Guardian +1

Securing the Military Base: The UK and the US required long-term, legally secure access to the Diego Garcia airbase, which is vital for operations in the Middle East and Asia
. Under the agreement, the UK retains a 99-year lease to operate the base without the threat of global tribunals challenging its legitimacy.
House of Lords Library +3

They are on a tightrope.
Trying to balance the environment with the economy.
They should get off the fecking fence and go with the economy.
Heathrow 3rd runway, HS2 to, and across, the north, more nuclear, etc etc.

It's the "if the tax is reasonable" that's the issue...people are already finding work arounds even with the current rate of APD on some tickets on some Long Haul routes

HMG do seem to be determined to squeeze the life out of UK aviation plc....now I know many find that idea an attractive one but if it continues then it means job losses and less income tax for HMG..

If they want to spend the time and money getting to Charles De Gaulle via Eurostar to save £100 a head, let them.
They won’t, if the tax is reasonable.

NHS would need to send out appointment letters to arrive before the appointment for that to be the case

Problem is if you start making flights ex-UK more expensive (e.g. by increasing long-haul ADP) travellers start to find imaginative work arounds, often involving connecting in Europe onto foreign airlines.

Great for foreign operators such as the likes of Air France, Lufthansa and Emirates, pants for those operators such as BA and Virgin who actually pay some tax in the UK and employ lots of UK taxpayers

Also, id make sure none of our subsidies go to people who don’t deserve it. We give between 2-11 billion in subsidies to oil companies. I’d crack down on companies that pay ludicrously low taxes, like Amazon, working internationally to do this if at all possible.

In addition, by making flights more expensive (could increase for international and decrease for national) you’d encourage more people to take additional holidays in the U.K., which would boost the economy.

Yep, some of the services to/around the remote areas of the UK are considered so essential that they are tied a Public Service Obligation (PSO) and are at least in part governement funded..

Can't see any logic in slapping a potential £100 tax per capita on those routes,.but "aviation bad" etc

www.gov.uk/government/news/government-boosts-regional-air-connectivity-with-43-million-to-fund-flights-to-london-from-dundee-and-newquay

The hit on the regions is one I’d live with. We should be reducing flights anyway. It wouldn’t be a 15 billion hit to Edinburgh, would it? There’s a trade off for everything. Green, money raising, hits the rich, slight penalty to regions.

This is very true

some domestic flights are also very short - for example Westray to Papa Westray has a flight time of about one and a half minutes.

Thanks for digging those numbers out, saved me the bother.

Agree with your point about the hit on the regions.

About 10-11% of commercial flights and about 6% of passenger journeys. But more importantly, a £200 tax a return journey would disproportionately hit Scotland, NI and the regions.