how will the government raise the money?

[thereiscustardinthejamtart]

I’m curious as to how the government are going to raise the money for the “£22b black hole”.

Presumably they can either cut spending or raise more money (either through taxation or growth).

They have said they aren’t going to raise income tax, VAT or NI.

They don’t seem to be going for a growth plan.

So what are we expecting to be cut, and what are we expecting to be taxed.

I assume they are looking at pensions (get rid of tax free lump sum, reduce or eliminate relief on contributions), inheritance tax, some kind of additional tax on corporations. They are already doing VAT on private education.

Cuts - winter fuel allowance. I assume reduction in university funding, arts funding. What else?

FYI - I believe in God and don't even talk to aethists if I don't have to

Okkkk

<backs away slowly>

Reformation and independent body that assesses people so people with disabilities can be identified.
That should sort that issue out.

Yes I agree and also scrap testing for lifelong conditions. I have a relative with down syndrome with multiple complex disabilities who keeps being re-tested for work capacity... it's a waste of money IMO! I know some people with downs are highly functioning but he was assessed as having the cognitive age of 5 and that's never going to change so why keep testing??

But on the other hand I've heard of some families claiming massive amounts in disability benefits for multiple children with ADHD. I was surprised to hear you get it for even mild ADHD.

In terms of social care, they can increase the threshold so more people pay for it themselves. But the major issue is the cost. For example, we pay private companies a fortune to put children in care homes. This needs to be tackled.
The other major issue is the soaring cost of transport of pupils to schools. When children went to their local school and there was one or two SEN schools, local authorities paid for a minibus and driver to take children to the one school. With mainstreaming this is no longer possible for many pupils and so taxis are used. The costs are exorbitant. A solution needs to be found.

I meant limited to certain people.
Only responsible people with pet insurance etc.
Too many poor animals being abused and put in shelters or put down.
P*dphls can't own animals either.

IMO those who know how to complete forms and use the right words get it for less complex conditions. Many people with greater need do not.
I agree scarp testing where it is clear nothing is going to change.

Back away all you want.
Like I want to know you!

Got you & agree! I would be over the moon if we had to prove our worth in order to own animals.

I should add that I do not think people claiming PIP are not really disabled. Simply that the numbers of people getting PIP keep rising, so I think it is inevitable that eligibility will be reduced.

Don't even know where to start with this one but can't see how most of it help:

-Many immigrants come here for well paying jobs and pay huge amounts of tax. Not sure you were thinking of Australian lawyers or American bankers though when you made that comment...

-You ARE forced to work if you can and you're on benefits (they're cut if you don't apply for and accept jobs).

-no street lighting?? Wtf surely that will lead to higher rates or crime and accidents. Strange comment.

-Schools walking distance- so people have to relocate near to schools or the schools to people? How does this work in rural locations? Confused again how this works and what difference this makes.

-Banning pets, bonfires, fireworks and BBQs, high st shops - again how does that help??

You want to get tough on cars parked on the road?! I literally can't be bothered to respond to the rest tbf.

Just sounds like a random stream of unthoughtful consciousness. The kind of random nonsense I'd expect from Farage 🤮

This kind of comments is terrible. Total dehumanising of people.
Most unemployed people are temporarily unemployed. They are made redundant, or have been ill so not working, but soon get another job. A proportion will simply be unemployable or able to get jobs but not keep them. I have come across people like this. People with quite severe mental health problems without the ability to manage being registered as long term sick, people who are heavy drinkers and drug users, people with very poor social skills, homeless people, etc. And lastly a small number who are trying to avoid work. But benefit offices are very tough on this latter group.

The table below is taken from you gov site. You can see the vast majority are out of work less than a year. With the largest number out of work for less than 3 months.

Private kids care home is a huge cost. I don't think people realise it. There are huge cost savings to be made within the public service sector. The highest expenditure is health and social care, education and defence. These are the obvious areas to hit hard.

Perhaps they’ll limit child benefit to those in receipt of universal credit only - in theory it would still be going to the poorest in society. Bit like the removal of the winter fuel allowance….

It's already income assessed. Problem is if everything is limited to those on UC you either get everything or you get nothing and that means it puts people off working. The current tapering was part of the Conservative's 'make work pay' manifesto so working people weren't worse off than those on benefits (which was happening).

I'm very sceptical that this would work in practice. It would need a lot of will, as well as truly non-partisan, knowledgeable, experienced and trustworthy people and also complete lack of pressure from the government - bearing in mind that a great many people suffer from disabilities in silence, in ways that another person - however qualified - just cannot comprehend or recognise.

Even then, they would have to set a bar somewhere. Take blue badges, for example: there's a very widespread belief that you either are disabled and have a blue badge or otherwise you are not disabled. Any talk of measures to help 'disabled drivers' automatically excludes a lot of disabled and otherwise frail people, who otherwise struggle like the healthy, able-bodied folk (if they can) or simply have to treat certain places as no-go areas for them.

A bit in principle like they're doing with winter fuel allowance - where the justification is that, just because Paul McCartney doesn't need it, anybody else who isn't on pension credit also has no need at all for it.

I think another area that needs reforming is the system of paying private school enormous amounts of taxpayers money to educate some SEN children. You have children with dyslexia getting a taxpayer funded place in highly expensive dyslexia schools.

Benefits should not equal a full time salary NMW - should be at least £10k less.
Then you should live in housing that budget allows.
No benefits if you work.

Blokes that don't pay CMS go to prison - they find a job and pay - they can live in HMO's.

@TransformerZ sounds fine in theory. But if you have 2 children and you privately rent in an expensive city as a single parent, you simply can't survive on £11.800 a year. The average rent for a 2 bedroom property in London is £15,000 a year. You would be renting less than the average, but you simply could not manage.

Then that person needs to move to a cheaper city / town.
Government shouldn't have to help people live in expensive desirable areas.

I have a lot of friends and family who are teachers who are saying there is a real lack of places at special needs schools. As a result they're trying to manage the teaching within mainstream schools and they're finding this very disruptive to the rest of the class and disadvantaging other pupils, since the teachers spend all their time managing/helping a few. They said generally it's better for the pupil and school when the child goes to a school with better facilities and smaller ratios. Apparently it's got worse in recent years.

@TransformerZ In the scenario I painted of a lone mother with two children who received in your proposal about £11.800 a year, where do you think she should live?
I have just googled and in the cheapest cities in England it costs £600 a month to privately rent a 2 bedroom place. This mother would be left with £111 a week to heat, feed and clothe herself and her children. And there simply would not be enough houses available at that cheap rent for everyone who would need it.
We would end up taking kids into care so they were not sleeping on the streets. We used to do that in the past. It cost way more in taxpayers money than giving people enough money to live on.

Would it be cheaper for these kids to be tutored at home by a tutor?
Or, each school has one teacher that teaches the dyslexic children.
I'm sure when I was at school some sort of social worker woman used to teach the kids that had issues in a separate classroom.

I know. But the solution is not paying for incredibly expensive school places for those able to successfully fight for them.
Over 1.5 million pupils in England are identified as having SEND (an increase of 87,000 from 2022). We have to understand why there is such a large increase and how to reduce it. We simply can't keep on like this. We need research and preventative work.

How old are her kids?

The government can carve out towns that are for benefit claimants only. Lower rents in those areas.

She can go to work when her kids are at school and get off benefits. So once they are reception age she can get a jobs and make plans to move back to the desirable city.

If you carve out towns that are for benefit claimants only you will create ghettoes. These used to informally exist. I lived in one. No employer would give you a job if you lived in one. I moved away and my brother joined the army at 16. It was the only way out.
And once you live somewhere like that no landlord on a better off area wants to rent to you. You end up stuck unless you are lucky.
The issue is not unemployed people. Successive governments have cracked down. And those who can work the system always do so. It is other areas that need reforming.