What is labour coming for next?

[MikeRafone]

I reckon after 12 years of dozen fuel duty that drivers will be next

what tax will the collect next to fill the black hole

What happened to the days when a business took on a young trainee and invested in them?

My dad did his apprenticeship with an engineering firm and stayed with the company for life. He started at 14 although these days that would need to be 16.

Why does your company expect to find people that already have all the skills they need? Why can we no longer invest in British people, particularly youth? Yes there are still graduate schemes with big firms but loads of small firms and tradespeople used to take on a young trainee.

Another disincentive to work.

People won't earn too much as they will avoid promotions or go part time to stay eligible for their house.

@WestSussexMomFriend ·
Would more tax on takeaways, processed foods, tobacco, alcohol and sugary drinks decrease the benefits bill?

There are a lot of people employed in catering and hospitality and we know many pubs and chip shops are already struggling as they grapple with rising costs and people cutting back.

It's reasonable to assume that other takeaways such as Chinese or Pizza/Kebab are struggling with the same pressures although I haven't heard them represented as a group in the media like I have chip shops.

We've certainly gone from having a weekly chippy tea a couple of years ago to buying just for the kids, or sharing a portion of fish and chips with bread and butter to bulk it out every few weeks/ or putting supermarket fish in the oven and only buying chips at the chippy. We won't be the only ones.

My business does take graduate trainees - this is very expensive and ultra competitive scheme and most of them progress to have high flying international careers. However, it takes very significant amount of senior management time and competition for a place can be 50 to 1 and some still don't make it till the end of the program. For lower level roles it's not justified. Again, this has to be beneficial for the business.

And why would any business limit itself to British if intellect and skills are internationally mobile?

Edited to add re your dad - there are no jobs for life anymore. Not at all. Or maybe there are jobs, but definitely not careers. To progress one needs to learn and upskill constantly and this does include moving roles and employers.

I think if a single parent wants to claim means tested benefits then the non resident parent should be compelled to pay their child maintenance into a state account offsetting some of the cost. No issue if the single parent doesn't want to claim means tested benefits they can make their own private arrangements or use the service to collect the money as it is now.

I can't understand how single parents can be subsidised by thousands each month by the tax payer and then child maintenance "doesn't count as income".

Paying the maintenance into a state account would make sure that the resident parent and children were not disadvantaged if the non resident parent didn't pay as they would receive their benefit anyway but the non paying parent could face sanctions. The parents should be paying for their children when they can afford to not the general public.

Then the non resident parent can pay the state when the state is paying the resident parent.

The cost of administration has never been given as a reason not to collect taxes - for example through self assessment so I can't see why it should be a reason to not collect maintenance.

Those days are gone for a lot of reasons.

Totally agree with this and just don't understand what is so difficult about implementing something like this. Why is the tax payer paying hundreds per month to support children when many non residents parents pay CM often hundreds a months and reliably for years on end. An ex colleague of mine got hundreds from her rich ex partner and still claimed benefit and worked just 2 days a week. There needs to be a system which deducts child maintainence directly for non resident parents earnings whilst the so the government recuperates the benefits that the resident parents are paid.

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"And why would any business limit itself to British if intellect and skills are internationally mobile?"

Otherwise put - "Why would our business spend lots of money training Britsh people when we can poach people from abroad that other people have trained?".

Can you try to answer this question? about any business?

Bigger firms still take on trainees/apprentices and train them up.

Trouble is that in the modern economy, there are a lot of small firms, lots of firms that are little more than "one man bands" or just a handful of staff.

A very small business will not have the resources (time nor money) to train youngsters from scratch as they're very labour intensive to teach, supervise, check, correct etc.

I was trained in a small accountancy practice straight after getting A levels. I was a pure "rookie" with no accountancy knowledge/experience. The firm had 20 staff and took on 1 trainee every year. So at any time, out of those 20 staff, 5 were trainees as it typically takes 5 years to do the exams and get the requisite experience etc for a school leaver. So a quarter of the staff were being trained in some form or another by the other 15 staff.

It was hard. Especially in the first couple of years, it was almost 1-2-1 training from other staff, who were also trying to do their own work as well as training us trainees, checking our work, finding our mistakes, etc.

I started my own "one man band" practice back in 2000. It grew very fast. I took on a school leaver trainee. It was a nightmare. I was busy myself doing my own work, and ended up working longer as I was losing so much of my daytime working in trying to train her, supervise her, keep her busy, check her work, organise her courses, etc. I really regretted it after a few months and my work was harder rather than easier. It took a good 2/3 years before she was fully competent and confident and I could start relying on her to work without constant supervision and checking. Then she upped and left, just as soon as she was actually becoming an asset! Never again.

The economy has changed. We have fewer larger employers, and the smallest employers don't have the support/resources to take on rookies.

A typical 1/2 person web design firm simply can't take on a raw recruit as it would spread the existing owners too thinly not only in time to train them but also the huge costs of training.

At least you're honest about it then. 50 people going for your trainee positions. None of the usual British people don't want the jobs....
I hope the government restrict work visas so you would have to invest in British people rather than poach cheap labour.

Not sure why to bother responding but still -

I mentioned a number of times that graduate trainees we're talking about start in London but end up with international high flying careers. They are not cheap labour by any means, starting salary is 55k now and very strong chance of them being on six digits by late twenties. There is nothing to do with visas - we run similar programs in a lot of markets, however, we select the very best and if these best need visa than we'll arrange it.

But you're either choosing to or unable to understand.

as to "None of the usual British people don't want the jobs...." - dare to explain?

Edited to add - simply being British doesn't give you golden pass, you need to be brilliant at something to compete at a global level. Multiple threads on similar topics in the last few weeks makes me really concerned that this Little Britain mindset of significant proportion of population will really move UK from G7 to a very limited peripheral place

I could live with losing child benefit (currently close to the threshold,) if I knew I could access NHS dental services for my child. There has to be a trade-off here.

Why is IHT only applicable to some? Why didn’t the Duke of Westminster pay IHT on his 10 billion inheritance? Why do we tolerate this?

"Why should inheritance tax be raised why punish people that have worked hard and want to help out their children. The hate on successful hardworking people makes me sick"

Because inheritance is unearned income. So should be taxed.

Yes i wonder how Labour are going to address the lack of Dental Care???

Atm i can see Labour last 1 term, as everything they promised wont happen and all we'll get is more taxes & increased water charges to pay twice to stop our rivers and lakes being filled with shit, no one is going to prosecute water industry bosses.

Remember, this "black hole" isn't money spent to improve services, its primarily to fund a 4% cut in NI and some pay rises to people who have already seen real terms pay cuts.

Very rich people are able to pass wealth down the generations by having their money in companies. It safeguards it from many types of tax.

Companies who pollute the watercourses and beaches are rightly going to be fined.

There is also a problem with run-off from building projects where nutrients pollute the watercourses and destroy the wildlife and habitats in them. There is a way of managing this but it adds cost to the development and in some areas it can’t be done at all as the habitat is too fragile.

This is a massive problem for a government that wants to build 1.5 million new homes.

So developers are encouraged to purchase credits to offset the environmental impact. The money from these credits is then given to local landowners to encourage them to create wetlands or plant woodland.

The original pollution remains, but because somewhere else - not necessarily anywhere near the problem development - they’ve created a new habitat that’s apparently ok.

The nutrient neutrality mitigation scheme was introduced by the Tories but its being continued and promoted by Labour.

All colours of government create and bend rules to suit themselves.

@VickyPollard25 the Duke of Westminster doesn’t pay inheritance tax because most of his land and holdings are owned within a trust. This doesn’t mean he pays no tax, the trust pays 6% tax every 10 years. In addition, farms and business are zero rated for IHT, these make up a decent amount of their land holdings.

It was "earned" by the previous owner so has already been taxed.

I'm sure they are quaking in their boots! Not!

Any fines will just be passed back onto our bills or the prices we pay and the industry has already told the regulator that if they cant increase bills, they will block house building.

Labour have announced nothing that the law didn't already allow and will do nothing about sewage discharges, its all too expensive.

More likely to be in Trusts. The Duke of Westminster won't "own" the properties, he'll be the temporary beneficiary under a Trust (or several trusts). They're not "his" to do what he wants with. That's the difference. It's similar to limited companies in that the "wrapper" passes to the next generation. Whilst it sounds good the The Duke is a billionaire, he can't sell the properties and buy a fleet of yachts with the money. At best he can use the income generated (subject to the Trust deed) as spending money - obviously considerable, but not billions! There are also various taxes on trusts, again depending on the type of trust. So whilst there may not be inheritance tax, there'll be other taxes being paid.

I understood he has sold plenty on 99yr leases, ensuring his descendants end up with the properties.

It was "earned" by the previous owner so has already been taxed.

But that isn't the way the world works. My net salary has already been taxed, when I pay my hairdresser I pay VAT so it's taxed again, she pays tax....

Why should inheritance be exempt? The beneficiaries have done nothing to earn that windfall apart from be born