To think being single should be recognised in law as an unreasonable basis for discrimination?

[OneLovelyDay]

I've just discovered (learning to drive later than others) that apparently it's unreasonable to charge women less for car insurance, but apparently fine to charge single people more than married people.

There's loads of things like this that discriminate against single people, although some not as directly. I'm thinking things like council tax discount, which should be 50% for living alone, not the 25% it is.

More broadly, it's interesting how society has accepted (to some degree) alternative family arrangements but not singleness/childlessness. I could marry and start a family with another woman and it would fit with societies' expectations (and financial incentives) more than being single, or having children alone by sperm donation.

I find being single totally an acceptable thing, don't feel the need for a partner in a day to day sense. But hoping for a family and a ticking biological clock reminds me that it's not my choice to be single. So I don't think it's acceptable for society to discriminate like this. (But also even if someone chooses to be childfree and single that should be respected and treated as legitimate and fulfilled life!)

I was reminded of it particularly harshly in the first lockdown in 2020, when people not living with a family were not supposed to go within two meters of another human, and there was no outcry. It was a real jolt in terms of realising how society views us as different/weird/not normal (thus not entitled to the same basic humane conditions, in that instance).

Fortunately most of my friends are either single or not the joined-at-the-hip with partner type. But sometimes these things crop up and I'm suddenly reminded that my life and needs are not considered as legitimate as those in couples or with children. At the moment this is happening a lot as I'm about to take a drop in income and so going through bills working out where to save money.

I just think it should be illegal to discriminate for things like car insurance based on single status, and more broadly that people should consider this issue and not treat single people differently, in the same way people have started to consider racism, homophobia etc.
AIBU?

Someone does make the rules though. Life isn’t a person.

@excuseforfights

Yes but a single person also uses less services and produces less rubbish.

Not necessarily. People's lifestyles differ. You might be eating takeaways every night and not recycling the cartons. You might need carers because you don't have a spouse to take up the burden. You might be down the library every day. You might be having loud parties every night. You might be a hoarder or creating a public health hazard by feeding rats in your garden. You might have dangerous dogs.

I'm saying 25% isn't a fair discount. Single people are paying 50% more than people in a couple.

But aside from what we've already discussed that the house itself incurs half of the cost before any occupants are considered for their share of the charge, if council tax precepts are set with the expectation of an average of two adults in each house (of which there are a finite number), every house that earns the council less than that already 'loses' them a quarter of their potential income.

It's back to the hotel discussion again: single people are aggrieved at having to pay £150 for single occupancy of a £200 double room, but the hotel is losing £50 of their potential income for each room, ergo those who are in a position to want/be able to share a room (and the hotel themselves) are effectively subsidising the singletons, not the other way around.

It's the same with theatres: people expect tickets for young children to be free or half-price, but every seat bought at a discount for a child (unless a baby in arms) is a seat for which the theatre can't earn its full potential income by selling it to an adult. Fair enough if it's The Sooty Show or Peppa Pig Live or whatever, but if it's a genuine all-age-interest production, it's a valid point.

All suppositions, versus against one fact - that multi people use more resources.

(ignore the 'against' )

But aside from what we've already discussed that the house itself incurs half of the cost before any occupants are considered for their share of the charge, if council tax precepts are set with the expectation of an average of two adults in each house (of which there are a finite number), every house that earns the council less than that already 'loses' them a quarter of their potential income.

Yes, it was already discussed, but it came up again. The system is biased towards single people. The single person discount should be 40% at least.

@Fluffyowl00 'I was denied NHS funding for IVF as a single woman because only heterosexual or same sex couples were worthy of the funding.'

IVF is a postcode lottery, but I don't now ANY same sex couple who successfully applied for and got IVF funding on the NHS. Mainly because they were asked to 'prove' infertility by having tried to have a kid but if you don't have sex with men how on earth can you prove you've been 'regularly trying for 2 years or more to get pregnant?

'Yes but a single person also uses less services and produces less rubbish.'

As a family of 4 we use more and PAY for more gas, electric and water charges. We need a faster broadband with 2 adults WFH. We also pay more tax as a household than a single earner. We use more NHS resources as a family than a healthy, single person but less than a single person with a chronic disease, or with health issues.

Swings and roundabouts.

@excuseforfights given that the bulk of council tax provision goes to social care I think the system is unfair anyway...

Having to pay, on pain of fines, court appearances and ultimately prison sentences, 50% more tax - not bills, not optional extras, but tax - than the bloke next door just because the bloke next door is married, is not justifiable under any circumstance. Second homes, empty properties, blah yes, find a solution for that. But don't charge one citizen 50% more tax than the next.

@SuziQuatrosFatNan

Having to pay, on pain of fines, court appearances and ultimately prison sentences, 50% more tax - not bills, not optional extras, but tax - than the bloke next door just because the bloke next door is married, is not justifiable under any circumstance. Second homes, empty properties, blah yes, find a solution for that. But don't charge one citizen 50% more tax than the next.

I agree

In terms of council tax, being a single person doesn’t mean you use 50% less of council provided services than a couple does. The houses of single people aren’t generally half the size of those of couples, your bin isn’t emptied half as often

This isn't necessarily true: as a single adult household, I tend to only have to have my bin emptied once a month, ditto for recycling. I have no children, so I'm not using up any council resources on schooling, etc.

Single adults in work pretty much subsidise everyone else's families. Which is fine! As long as in our turn, we receive the support we are likely to need when elderly.

Single people out of work are at the bottom of the pile, however. IT's very tough for them.

What gets me is the carping on about single people as "selfish" and "not contributing" to the community. That's total rubbish, but is very widely accepted. The discrimination against single people is everywhere - it starts with the basic assumption that "normal" adult life is as half of a couple, and goes on from there.

Yes, it was already discussed, but it came up again. The system is biased towards single people. The single person discount should be 40% at least.

Do you mean 40% off the occupant half or off the whole cost? If the former, that's less than they currently get. If the latter, that means that a couple pay five times as much as the single person who gets the whole house to themselves (whether through choice or not, excluding any children, of course). I think that's skating back towards poll tax territory, which was tried and was universally hated and rejected. How else can local taxes be raised, if not based on individual adults or on housing stock?

Maybe we should scrap all local taxes altogether and increase income tax to compensate, but then that takes us to the position of giving second, third, fourth home owners a big, big subsidy, which is (rightly) extremely unpopular.

Although a lot of people without spouses/partners will of course fall through the cracks through little choice of their own, I do think we need something that discourages deliberate under-occupancy of a finite housing stock.

@excuseforfights

In terms of council tax, being a single person doesn’t mean you use 50% less of council provided services than a couple does. The houses of single people aren’t generally half the size of those of couples, your bin isn’t emptied half as often, your car doesn’t do half as much damage to roads etc.

I disagree. Single people are more likely to live in 1 bed flats and they will produce rubbish for 1 person not 2 or more and they will have less people to ferry around.

yes - but they still have their bins emptied at the same rate as bigger households, maybe nor as much rubbish, which is why they get the discount

Tbh the whole system of local taxation is full of anomalies anyway. Tenants - 33% of households - paying tax based on the notional 1998 value of an asset they don't own, Londoners paying naff all compared to the rest of the country etc. But as well as all of those arbitrary differences, a 50

I believe the council tax to be a fair discount. Otherwise we would all be in some "that's unfair" position. I produce less waste than family of 4. Should I have discount compared to them? Not really.

I still use all services whether I was single or in a couple. The fact that I have bit less rubbish isn't making overall difference.

The hotel room thing is pretty annoying rhough

Oops hit post accidentally ... a 50% hike in liability with all other things being equal is ludicrous. For a single person on nmw in our borough in a band b property, already liable for central taxation ie income tax etc, council tax reduces take home by a further 15%.

@SchrodingersImmigrant but taxation isn't based on what you "use", otherwise the bulk of it would be paid by elderly and disabled people. It's supposed to be a mechanism of pooling resources to cover costs of either centrally or locally provided services with contributions set at a rate appropriate to means.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

we need to do something that discourages deliberate under occupancy of finite housing stock

so what do you suggest?

Couples with no children can have a one bedroom property
Couples with onenchild are allowed a 2 bed
Couples with more than one child a 3 bed
Singles live in a cupboard

The housing market and stock doesnt work like that. My 3 bed terrace is cheaper than most of the flats round here. But I don’t want a flat anyway, I want a house with a garden. Or shouldnt I want a garden because I am single.
You are also forgetting that most people’s lives move in cycles
When I bought my home I was single and childless, I now have a child. In a few years he will leave home. Should I then have to leave my home of 30 years plus?
You can’t expect people to move every time there is a change in their circumstances

there was a bit of an assumption that childless people like myself would pick up the slack and work really late into the night and exhaust ourselves and compromise our mental and physical health, as if we had nothing better to be doing..purely because others have had children (blaming the work structure, not parents!)

I wouldn't 'blame' parents, but in my experience, I've never seen a parent volunteering to stay late to cut child-free work colleagues some slack. They dash off as fast as they can!

@Fluffyowl00

I was denied NHS funding for IVF as a single woman because only heterosexual or same sex couples were worthy of the funding.

But hey, at least I get my wheelie bin all to myself.

Yes, this. It's really unfair and a real barrier to many single women. I have had to fund privately in order to start my fertility journey (and I also have fertility issues along with being single).

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

Yes, it was already discussed, but it came up again. The system is biased towards single people. The single person discount should be 40% at least.

Do you mean 40% off the occupant half or off the whole cost? If the former, that's less than they currently get. If the latter, that means that a couple pay five times as much as the single person who gets the whole house to themselves (whether through choice or not, excluding any children, of course). I think that's skating back towards poll tax territory, which was tried and was universally hated and rejected. How else can local taxes be raised, if not based on individual adults or on housing stock?

Maybe we should scrap all local taxes altogether and increase income tax to compensate, but then that takes us to the position of giving second, third, fourth home owners a big, big subsidy, which is (rightly) extremely unpopular.

Although a lot of people without spouses/partners will of course fall through the cracks through little choice of their own, I do think we need something that discourages deliberate under-occupancy of a finite housing stock.

Off the occupant half. Ok, how about a 37.5% discount?

I am married and we pay £2,100 CT. I feel bad for single people paying nearly as much as that.

taxation isn't based on what you "use", otherwise the bulk of it would be paid by elderly and disabled people

Many elderly people have contributed massively when they were younger also.

It wasn't a thing pre-90s was it?

[quote SuziQuatrosFatNan]@SchrodingersImmigrant but taxation isn't based on what you "use", otherwise the bulk of it would be paid by elderly and disabled people. It's supposed to be a mechanism of pooling resources to cover costs of either centrally or locally provided services with contributions set at a rate appropriate to means.[/quote]
It's based on what you use and what you will use and support to people who paid before. Everyone pays in. I now don't use adult care. I may in a future. However, I still have to participate to support cmunity now and to have support when I need it.
I do use police and other local services same way like others. I probably enjoy more of my money actually than some others because I like to go to the events around, which are funded by it.

There are things which are unfair, but I don't think council tax is one of them.