What Government expenditure would you cut do you think?

[Wafflefudge]

Having seen quite a few posts recently which seem to be focused on disability spending being unaffordable and needing to be cut it has prompted me to think about what could actually be cut without causing issues/ knock ons that would be more costly long term.
I think perhaps for people who aren't disabled or with disabled children they see this as an easy cut. But we can of course all think of cuts that wouldn't directly or immediately affect us.
I personally dont think any cuts are particularly easy or straightforward though.
Off the top of my head I'd maybe cut libraries as they've put such short hours in place that they are barely useable anyway. Or perhaps maximise making money from them. But recognise this would be a drop in the ocean of public expenditure.
Id be interested in others opinions on where cuts might work. I'm sure answers will vary considerably depending on personal circumstances

@drinkelephants The question was referring to any and all public expenditure.

Procurement- I’ve worked for NHS and local government, the waste spent on using this is criminal. I understand the need for it in a sense but paying £88 for a £6 train ticket just to do it the “right” way is maddening (this was one small one that springs to mind for me.

House of Lords
Expenses for MP’s
correct taxation for businesses
force non paying parents to cough up, and means test benefits when this is happening.
Foreign Aide, I’m sorry but we are on our arses so something has to give
Royal family

Sometimes appointments are missed because the letter for the appointment arrives after the appointment was supposed to have happened.

Many places now text people the day before to remind them of their appointment and that apparently brings the amount of misses appointments down hugely.

Sounds like a plan.

Add to this the utilities (gas, electric, other heating) allowance of £3,400 per MP. They already get £91000 per annum in salary. I'm sure they can pay their own bills as they now expect pensioners to afford it on far less income.

Radically cut down the house of lords. It's mainly stuffed with cronies & donors of previous prime ministers. The government is already proposing to remove the last remaining 90 odd hereditary peers. Unfortunately they will be replaced with yet more cronies.
Cut the tax loopholes for huge global companies who get out of paying the large amounts of tax that should be due to the UK.
Cut down on the the civil service jobs. For once start at the top & then remove the unnecessary middle managers. Stop contracting out to nonsense "consultants" in both government & the NHS.

No council or NHS CEO should earn more than the Prime Minister.

Shut libraries... so your view is to take from the poorest of society?

They exist so people with no other options like the homeless and extremely poor can have access to computers, internet, books, printing, pens and other things needed to research and print form/apply for things.

What needs to be done is to make the obscenely rich pay more and have actual consequences. Goverment's should NOT bail out millionaire/billionaire business, politicians should be held accountable for bad spending choices (like the BILLIONS lost during COVID on dodgy contracts) and we need to stop paying Liz Trusses £125,000 a year pension for the ridiculous 49 days she worked the job.

Get the money back FROM the people that are the problem.

from my experience, very few of them are done on the NHS. but yes, those not essential to health (although I never knew any of those approved when i was working there and involved peripherally in the approvals process) I would stop. The only breast reductions I recall being approved where where the breasts were so big compare to the size of the woman that they were causing issues with her spine and back generally.

Literally no competion I think last time. The conservatives were incredibly unpopular and about to be smashed in a GE so they put up a car loving right winger.
But I agree. No-one needs the lines renamed and no-one uses the new names!

Not sure that any cuts are more than a sticking plaster. The whole capitalist system needs a total overhaul so that the taxpayer stops subsidising the wealth of large global corporations.

I agree with you on Procurement. I had to waste at least 12 peoples time and get forms completed on why I couldn't use procurement for a special lightbulb that cost about £10 that could only be found on one particular website. Procurement just shouldn't be needed for items under £100 as long as you can show that you went for the cheapest option.

yes to addressing procurement. I have seen this in the NHS too. used to drive me mad paying 4 times the price to get the identical kettle through procurement.

The EU payment are a contractual obligation though, no? The other ones are voluntary (I believe?)

right to buy money should be ringfenced and used to build more social housing not sent to central government.

I would be looking to tax or fine train companies every single time a service is delayed, cancelled or stupidly overcrowded for no reason at all.

End housing benefit payments to private landlords, no more snouts in the trough for them.

Problem with this is it would leave millions of vulnerable people homeless. No it shouldn't fund the landlord but removing housing payment from most of the country so they have no housing wont help. People will then just have to be homeless or go without other basics necessities to pay the landlord (who will still stay rich).

I would join up systems, so if a child gets funding related to their mobility which funds a mobility car, this should be used to take them to school, not LA funded transport. Sorry but this seems like crazy double funding to me.

I would also limit foreign travel for those on benefits, sorry controversial but surely if you are on state benefits you should not be able to afford foreign holidays.

Military private school allowances ( most are stationed at super garrisons and the travel is no where near the same as it used to be for families.

Echoing a previous poster bring work back in house to reduce the huge profits made by private companies on government contract ( would need to start small on this)

My DSs taxi route costed the LA £50k pa to transport him 35 miles to the closest suitable school.

Making more SEN schools and not outsourcing transport would save a lot of money.

and bar

NHS missed appts - definitely should be charged and really strict discharge policy if missed 2 appts. I work for NHS and despite huge waiting lists we still have families not turning up for an ND diagnosis appointment meaning 4 highly skilled and well paid clinicians are left not seeing someone for 90 mins!
We have to tackle illegal immigration and the costs entailed - my brain can't get around the costs of policing the shoreline versus the cost of housing illegal immigrants.
MPs should have student type Halls of Residence when they stay in when in London - why do they need a tax payer subsidised second home? Do they pay the equity gained on the property back to the government if they sell the house?
There are far, far too many managers in the NHS and there are far too many clinicians bogged down in admin work instead of seeing patients because they don't employ enough admin staff.

I'd remove second homes allowance for MP's and put them all in halls of residence type accommodation in London. Any MP who has a constituency within 90 mins of London (by train) should have no entitlement to accommodation in London.

I think most people dont even know the new names. I couldnt name one without looking them up haha!

I’d do the opposite. Pay MPs well and you get talented ppl, pay them poorly and you get people with few options or people with family money who don’t need to earn well. Posh people and shit people.

This