Every household?????

[Trainfromredhill]

So, the chancellor is going to give every household £400 for heating. Surely there should be a cut off of household income? The Beckhams, Elton John, james Dyson, Harry styles…….they all get the money too? . I say this as someone in the fortunate position of not needing the £400- I’d much rather it went to someone who does need it.Just seems a huge waste of public money to give it to everyone

@fromdownwest

Exactly.

UK politics are fucking god awful

@Cornettoninja

The able bodied person can go up the stairs. Thats the point.

They might not be able to get to the top but they're still a flight up.

What would you do?

I may have missed it

Imo we face huge shocks to economy and I worry about runaway inflation (Turkey a good example) but also see that people struggling need help

Do you think they need help? How would you do it

That was to Topgub too

How do you stop people going under with targeted help at the same time as not causing hyper inflation?

do you think they should get any extra help

@MarshaBradyo

Linked wages

Reduce tax evasion/avoidance

Reintroduce previous energy cap

Introduce rent caps

Do something about house prices but not sure what

@MarshaBradyo - I can see why it seems a tempting idea to tax the huge energy companies whoever suggests it (Tories have just made Labour's idea much bigger after saying they wouldn't consider it). If anyone is to be targeted it should be those in real trouble not the whole population including very wealthy households.
There are significant down sides to their plan as above. The key is that we really need investment in energy. However, we should not be throwing more and money after projects which continue to need tax payer subsidies (there has been a lot of this already). They need competent people to look at a long term plan not knee jerk responses which buy them another 6 months. The UK is in a really bad situation as we import so much that is essential and the economy is built on service provision (non essential) and foreign money which is very worrying as this is likely to start being withdrawn. Frankly, we should not be encouraging fights with Russia at this precipitous time but I doubt others will agree with me on that.

Better than this windfall tax and give-away would have been if the government had not allowed Ofgem to double the price cap on energy when the energy companies are making record profits. This fuel poverty is the result of government policy.

The administrative cost of means testing benefits often outweighs the cost of just giving everyone the same thing, or comes very close. The effort and cost of setting up means testing for a one-off £400 benefit would not eventually pay for itself the way doing the same for an ongoing benefit would, and would add massively to the timeline of actually getting the money to the recipients.

@MarshaBradyo Turkey has v high inflation because it refuses point blank to raise interest rates.
Totally different economy.

But if you really care about inflation, don't go stimulating the economy by giving millions of people who don't need it £550!

We should be using the benefits system to help the poorest, as we have always done.

These billions could be used to raise wages in the NHS, fund more training places and build at least one of these 40 hospitals BJ promised but which we all seem to have forgotten about.

fwiw i didn't support the Labour proposals either because it also gave money to the well off, its the politics of madness (though it wasn't as much) Topsy Turvey world.

But the point is lost because they both still have the same problem - neither can get to the top. They have different needs to enable equality but neither has a more pressing need than the other to get to the top (unless it’s a tyre shop at the top).

Its also arguable the able-bodied person is only advantaged by their ability to take risks to get to the top. The person in a wheelchair isn’t going to fall down the stairs and break their leg. To raise the wheelchair user to the same level as the able bodied person still doesn’t solve the problem of either of them reaching the top.

Both have valid problems, neither particularly require sympathy over solutions.

Rubbish, the benefits system has always been used to help the poorest, DWP and HMRC can easily do this.

The second homes annoys me. Surely they have a register of second homes?

People can argue this until the cows come home but it is what it is.

Those on lower incomes and means tested benefits are getting an additional £650 on top of the £400.

If we means-tested every household, those on the lower incomes would end up with less than they're already getting because people generally don't work for free (I.e those who would have to spend months means-testing).

Can't please everyone.

If you don't want/need the money, withdraw £400 and walk into your nearest food bank with it.

My experience is poorer people give to food banks, not rich people.

I agree. I’d rather fuel rationing over rocketing costs, at least it’s a quantifiable amount to budget with that doesn’t land people in debt.

I put this on another thread but will paste and see if any correction

this is why imo re energy cap

Earlier some questions re why not just keep cap as it is made me think about the process

I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong but this is the way I see it

global prices on oil and gas have gone up hugely - BP and Shell etc as oil and gas have bumper profits

Consumer energy companies have to pay more as the intermediary and as a result pass higher cost into consumer

the cap means it’s the intermediary that makes up the difference - hence loads of smaller energy companies collapsing when hikes first hit.

But because oil and gas have bumper profits they are redirecting some to energy companies which then helps us

a but like owning a shop and price of tomatoes hikes and you pass it on, but growers are benefitting not shops

So the cap has to rise, but taking bumper profit from oil and gas makes sense, although adding investment criteria is good imo.

The interest rates need to be raised more, at least on par with what the Fed is doing. The pound has lost significant value because of the inaction by the central bank here. And then Rishi comes in throwing money around undoing the feeble action anyway.

It would be better to target those in need via the systems which are already in place, UC and pension credits. These are the people that need the most help in general. Giveaways to everyone make no sense at all. It will only be reclaimed with unwanted tax rises anyway. Very poor timing to raise taxes at such a time too.

I didn't realise we are all getting £400, but I will happily take it and keep it.

I didn't mind when lots of people got £150 council tax rebate or those getting the extra payments, so I don't think anyone should mind me getting me £400.

Yes to this

It’s not rubbish for one off payments.
Consider the admin necessary to target this payment in 6 months and people would still slip through the net.
Also many working parents are struggling too atm.

is this one of those threads where people discuss how wealthy they are?

pulls up gilded chair.

There is targeted help with the extra £650 etc so you would have just done that and not anything to other people?

Interest rates are set by the BoE independently, they may well do but there’s going to be a lot of squeezed people when it happens

Obviously you can never please everyone but that does not mean that this was the only policy choice. There were many others.
Throwing money around like confetti to people who don't need it and hoping they might donate to a food bank is utterly ridiculous.

The trouble with price caps is what @MarshaBradyo said about small companies going out of businesses because they cannot charge what they need to and become massively loss making. This is exactly what has happened. Ofgem should have been aware of this and not allowed this to happen.

Rubbish yourself. I actually work on some key software tangentially related to this area (or rather I did before I fucking gave up and went to work on something less broken) and you can't just search up "everyone on benefits already" and then send them some cash for their electric bill. Or go on the HMRC database and search "everyone who made less than £20k last year" and send them some money. Or whatever. It absolutely doesn't work that way, you can't just repurpose an already byzantine and barely-functioning digital system to do something new and provide a new benefit.

You SHOULD be able to, it SHOULD work better, it SHOULD be sensibly put together and maintained, but it absolutely IS NOT for reasons of greed, stupidity, laziness, technological incompetency, and grift. You know, the values of the Tory party.

I don't want Ed Sheeran to be sent £400 to heat his swimming pool either but don't be rude to me just because I'm explaining how this works to people (like you) who don't know.

'There is targeted help with the extra £650 etc so you would have just done that and not anything to other people?

Interest rates are set by the BoE independently, they may well do but there’s going to be a lot of squeezed people when it happens'

Yes, I think raising benefits would definitely be preferable. Why do you think everyone needs extra help despite the negative impacts? It's clearly a political choice to save their own skin (yet again).