To be scared about how we will cope with more tax rises - council tax

[partytimed]

i really loathe this government. Usually with politics I feel like whoever is in charge I don’t notice much of a direct impact on my day to day life. Yes I’m aware of slow erosions in public services and I was no fan at all of the tories, I voted for this government im ashamed to say, and they lied and lied about their plans. I am so much worse off and if they double council tax bands virtually all of our disposable income is going to be gone. It feels like theft. I don’t trust them to spend the money I make properly it all feels corrupt and it’s just so depressing and upsetting.

The one thing I wouldn’t cut is bus passes. I don’t want to put any barriers in place of people driving less / giving up driving when they no longer feel confident or are no longer capable.

I’d look at free prescriptions. At the very least make free prescriptions aligned with state pension age, rather than a blanket 60.

I agree that prescriptions are too generous. Make it 67 and also no prescriptions for things you can buy off the shelf. The waste here is outrageous.

Yes, free prescriptions need to be looked at too. Also some people with some conditions get blanket free prescriptions (hypothyroidism etc) for everything when arguably this could be limited to medication associated with the specific condition.

I agree to be honest!!

I also would look at the Motability scheme and free school meals for all infant aged kids. I benefited from this with both my kids and I would much rather have paid and let that money be spent elsewhere in the school.

Agree on this but Govt that tried it would be instantly branded a Pensioner Hating Govt...
Also, a heck of lot of over 60s are not in work, on benefits, might not save what you 'd imagine.

School meals? i think the idea is to remove stigma, i used to get free school meals and it was embarrassing.

But all suggestions so far are tinkering, the country needs 10s of billions, if not 100s.... only way to raise that is by rising income tax.

Why aren't we looking at the rich then, instead of punching down at the poor and disabled.

So who are "the rich"? That's the problem isn't it? How do you define the rich? There are rumours this government want to class anyone earning over £46,000 as "the rich". We all know this isn't the case.

If it means people whose earnings are over x amount, then how do you prevent them leaving the country and finding somewhere where their drive and ambition are encouraged rather than punished. If you means the super rich, then they will have their wealth distributed carefully so as to prevent government demanding it as taxation.

You can only demand more and more money from people who have worked extremely hard in order to succeed before they make a choice about whether or not to pay it. No it's not fair but life isn't fair.

My own personal opinion is that the Welfare State was created with such laudable, idealistic aims. However this is the inevitable result. We have got large numbers of people whose families have not earned a living for several generations. It has become so very much more than a safety net.

My own personal opinion is that the Welfare State was created with such laudable, idealistic aims

It really was! Who wouldn’t want to eliminate Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness? I’m just not sure it’s worked too well for a couple of those.

Has it been great at eliminating idleness I wonder... ;)

Kids can't tell who gets free meals anymore. At the junior school my child goes to it is impossible to distinguish between the kids who pay and those on FSMs.

I agree this wouldn't save enough to make a massive difference but it is such a waste of money for so many families that can easily afford to feed their kids.

I would means test PIP and DLA and break the triple lock for pensions as well as raise income tax. I would also look at the measures around SEN placements, home to school transport etc I mentioned earlier. I would hope to have a surplus and start paying some debt so that we can reduce interest payments in the long term. It will be slow and painful but overtime we will have almost £100 billion an extra to spend due to no longer servicing debt.

Yes triple lock has to go, its done its job now.

Don't know if means testing PIP etc would save much? i suspect many on it don't have assets etc.

You can see how income tax increases go down here in the UK, so whilst required, it basically means any Govt that does this, wont get voted back in.

The response by Badenoch and others, show that we are a million miles away from any sort of cross party support on tackling spending, its urgently needed

Yes triple lock needs to go!!!

Don't know if means testing PIP etc would save much? i suspect many on it don't have assets etc.

Also PIP is a gateway benefit for a lot of things, so even if the payment was means tested there would still need to be some way of assessing whether someone would meet the underlying criteria, even if they don’t get the payment. So I’m not sure this would save much.

Reforming the system so there aren’t so many appeals, most of which are upheld, would probably save more than means testing.

You can receive PIP or your child can receive DLA and be a very high earner. 3.7 million people receive PIP alone so even if this saves a quarter of payments then this could be many billions. It could be means tested in the same way that Child Benefit is means tested and you can still claim it and repay the money back and keep all the associated entitlements. CB means tested has saved the government a lot of money, this would do the same.

The whole PIP application and appeal system needs to be reviewed and amended so that the system is more sustainable. This may mean a tightening and clarifying of criteria so that less people qualify but those people are more obviously eligible as the threshold is higher removing some of the grey areas.

Yes i admit i was wrong on this, 22 biilion spent on PIP 2024/25 & we have the highest number of claimants in Europe per capita.

With the youngest being the highest number of claimants.

BUT how on earth do you sort out the genuine from the fraudulent, the mildly anxious from the mentally ill?

It may have been better if we'd never had let this situation develop in the first place, i guess keeping our unemployment stats low was considered more important?
I aways doubted this claim.

I agree on the welfare state. My family has 3 generations of people not working, all who are more than able to work. It isn't helping people, but making them helpless. After years of sitting around, doing nothing, going to work I imagine does feel overwhelming/ unbearable. Our current system isn't working as it doesn't take into account that sitting around doing nothing is very attractive!

I think you have to do sweeping reforms. If your condition can be treated or assisted, you get PIP for a limited amount of time along with means testing.

& who decides that?

The PIP assessments are already widely discredited, staff on bonuses to refuse claims.
But 70% of refused claims on appeal over turned.

On your previous post... Ive a friend whose son was un employed for 2 years, clever lad too, stuck in his room, The Kings Fund took him on, got him work, where they paid the wage, so good he was to his employer, he was taken on.

Why is it left to a charity to fund this?

What about the YTS in some shape or form

That's because the eligibility criteria is too wide and we can't afford to pay PIP to everyone that is eligible. This is why the state basically incentivises assessors to reject claims and then lon and behold loads are accepted on appeal. I wish everyone could just be honest, work out an affordable, sustainable budget for disability benefits and then set the criteria accordingly. How it currently works isn't fair on anyone and will ultimately need to change whether people like it or not. Better to do this in a controlled manner

Tbh, I think they should reassess all houses; there are so many disparities. Our house wasn't even built in 1991. It's been rated as E, but according to the value calculator on MSE (which you apparently can't use as evidence for a review 🙄), it should be a D.

I know someone, who suffers from anxiety, he'd be a classic to take PIP away from....

However, his PIP payments pay for him to use a taxi to go to work, when public transport isn't available - he works in a pub.

He could walk but thats when the anxiety kicks in, he was beaten up, badly a while back.

So take them away & he wont work, so he'll claim unemployment benefits, which in his case is more than his PIP.

How many others would just claim other benefits instead?

You can literally make this argument for any benefit though. There will always be those that lose out and are disproportionately impacted. The reality is that at a population level we almost certainly will make savings by reducing the amount of people eligible for PIP and other disability benefits even if some end up claiming other benefits.

The same is true for any tax rises. There will be those that absorb the income tax rises no problem whilst for others it could be life changing. It could be the difference for a single mother to afford to stay in work and pay for childcare or be forced to stay at home.

None of this will be victimless

I get that but unless impact assessments done, cutting back on Welfare may not be the silver bullet it appears to be.

I would prefer more help and support to get people off PIP and into work, rather than ONLY a benefits clamp down.

My example could be helped by keeping the PIP but giving him counselling/seeing if his employer can offer/swap different shifts/give him training so he can get out of the pub industry... or any combination of the above.