For all those who support the strikes

[chopc]

Where do you think the money will come from for all the pay rises? Are you personally willing to pay more tax?
We all saw during the pandemic it is the poorly paid essential workers that kept the country going and they totally deserve more money than the claps they got. However will YOU be prepared to contribute to the pot ?

If not where do you think the govn will find more money from?

For those who think I want to punish the poor - you are wrong. However the way benefits given do need an overhaul eg it must be cost effective for all to go back to work and they shouldn't be only marginally better off than they were on benefits

Like a poster wrote above - both me and DH took our life insurance when we had DC so if one of us dies,m unexpectedly , the other will be able to manage.

There is nothing wrong with encouraging aspiration and to better yourselves and to live within your means. It seems that people who can afford more choose to have fewer kids than those that can't.

However for all the circumstances you have mentioned there will be special considerations

I don't believe in the nanny state and believe in accountability but we do have a social responsibility to look after those who cannot look after themselves

This may be tuppence compared to what is required to pay the essential workers more but perhaps every little helps ?

The government has its own magic money orchard called the Bank of England. The money the government “borrows” has no repayment term and they pay no interest on it

This isn’t the case at all - the BoE issues gilts, which absolutely have repayment terms and on which interest is paid.

@AdamRyan no. I was saying it was harder to get a routine appointment booked in advance (impossible in fact) post 1997 than pre 1997.

It may piss off people on this thread but our family's lives have got better, year on year - even 2020 when so many were on furlough. I took a paycut that year due to the impact of Covid on my sector and worked harder than I had ever worked before. I have always given 120%.

I'd stand up and fight for the supermarket workers - not the nurses. Nobody has ever answered me when I ask why the nurses were complaining so hard in the mid 90s and mid 00's if those were halcyon.

I can't recall a time when the NHS was fit for purpose and its nursing staff didn’t complain about lack of resources. I do fully agree that the nursing bursary needs to be reintroduced but if so with conditions. Nursing was not a difficult degree to access or complete. Too many people were doing it to get a degree on a bursary and leaving. Bring back the bursary and link it to rendering 7 years' service to the NHS. Leave after two years pay back 100%, leave after 4 pay back 75%, leave after 6 pay back 25%. That is never ever supported but nothing in life is free and other graduates don't get a bursary. Nurses either stand equal with other graduates or they have conditions attached to a free degree. Nobody can have it all ways.

Happy to pay more tax here for a more humane, better funded society which supports the vulnerable and funds it's public services appropriately. I recognise I am in a privileged position to be able to pay more tax. And I'm very happy for those earning more than me to pay more tax.

Surely nobody can really want a low tax, poor public services culture like the US. I lived there and hated it. Paying more tax for properly funded services is far preferable.

Well yes I am prepared to pay more tax. That’s kind of how society works?

The current problem we have though is we are paying more tax for shitter services with staff who are likely to leave due to low pay.

Which begs the question - what did we have austerity during for much of the last 12 years for? It seems that we have had services cut, bit not much benefit for it and now suddenly it is still not enough. Where did that money go?

Don't give arseholes bonus' and then tax them properly?!

However will YOU be prepared to contribute to the pot ?

I actually find this bloody offensive. I DO contribute to the pot.

About time those who can better afford it did so, too.

I'll add that it's the same old arguments rolled out all the bloody time, whether it's for a 21st C pay rise, ending child labour, giving women the vote....

Can I just ask what you would do about the wastage at the top? You have ideas about the average person, but there are billions wasted in government.

Many people have pointed out on this thread about COVID fraud, government schemes where businesses get loans for R&D but dont have to evidence this has taken place, the dodgy contracts during COVID where billions have been wasted, government projects that have costed billions more than what they agreed when they got the projects approved. I could go on...

We bang on about the NHS being inefficient, but didn't we waste millions on Patel's immigration scheme? Nothing literally happened with that, but it cost the taxpayer millions and then after that the mini budget disaster cost us billions. We are still yet to see any real benefit for Brexit too, but it has cost us money.

I think giving people benefit money for a second child is small fry compared to that, especially since if you support that child well they will eventually become an adult that contributes to the system.

We have had poor economic growth in the UK for a while. It is for a reason and is not an accident.

Yes I would be willing to pay more tax.

But I would suggest they find the money by taking on more debt or spending less elsewhere.

To be honest I don't care particularly where it comes from as long as they get a decent increase. It's shameful how little Frontline NHS staff are paid.

I definitely think that all hospital staff should have free parking.

The magic money tree was in full spring when the government threw £200million at Michelle Mone and her “PPE”.

Having spent some time in the US I'd say many of their public services are actually better. They are delivered at local level with pride and democratic accountability we can only dream of. The UK's over centralisation and continual stripping of central funding has destroyed our local services and the only thing left is to rubber stamp more housing estates with zero infrastructure improvements.

I can't agree watchrulo. I knew too many people who were too poor to access decent healthcare, suffering with ailments that would have been sorted by the NHS even if you did have a bit of a wait. I think the bottom 20% in the US are treated abysmally. Perfectly willing to accept that this may vary by state.

@RosesAndHellebores

Oh yes a form of Indentured Service, i would imagine that would go down well at your Surrey Conservative Club...

People go into nursing with the very best on intentions, then find they hate it, are treated like shit, their qualifications demeaned.. talked down too plus 60 hour weeks... so guess what? they leave.

So all your stupid idea would do is make sure less went into nursing and for those that do but find it intolerable, they are stuck.. debt, MH issues or worse.

Nursing has changed beyond measure compared to when my Mum was an SRN, back then and she'd be the first to admit it, she was basically doing the job of a band 3 HCA & there were loads of them..... an essential role but nothing compared to what my DD has to know or the responsibility dumped on her 6 months in..... no support, often only FT band 5 on ward too

...healthcare has moved on... its really time you did too.

Oh come on, Roses likes to berate the NHS for a lack of politeness. Most people are properly concerned with the actual viability of the service. It's a fine thing when your issues are rudeness or perceived respect. This is either a silly pose or a very sheltered one. Forgive it.

@Alexandra2001 when my employer supported my professional quals as a mature adult I had to sign a contract to say I'd pay it back of I left within three years. It only cost about £4k.

If more nurses stayed in nursing perhaps fewer would leave and conditions would be better for all. Unfortunately the bursaries were abused by quite a lot of people.

If only people could argue their points without being personally abusive.

For as long as the NHS provides sub-optimal care it is unacceptable. To provide suboptimal care without extending basic courtesy and affording other humans dignity is reprehensible. But we must all worship nurses and Dr's. I think not. They are supposed to be professionals, therefore they all need to start behaving like professionals.

Most public sector pensions are way way better than anyone gets in the private sector.

Average public sector workers gets £10 for every £1 saved.

Average private sector worker gets £3 for every £1 saved.

www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/pensions/article-9737111/The-great-pension-divide-private-public-sector-workers.html

😂i love the idea that behaving like a professional includes being willing to sign your life away for seven years!

If you can't see the difference between having to repay 4k if you leave within 3 years and having to repay 16-30k if you leave within 7 years then I think you aren't thinking about it very hard. But I suppose you've made it clear when you come on every nursing thread to attack nursing as a profession that you don't view nurses as worthy for basic decency, so maybe indentured service is what you are hoping for! Anyway, I suspect this policy may not be the genius way to encourage more people into the profession that you are suggesting.

Can you give any evidence of the bursary being abused? My role involves following quite a lot of the relevance evidence around why nurses leave nursing and I've never seen anything to indicate this. Besides, bursaries haven't been around for some years, and there hasn't been a reduction in the rate that newly qualified nurses leave, this has increased since the bursary was done away with.

To be honest, I'd scrap child benefit entirely. Full time workers shouldn't need to be in receipt of any form of benefit, if the minimum wage needs to rise to ensure this then so be it, the government shouldn't be effectively subsidising exploitative employers.

For those unable to work full time, provision for the costs of raising children could be incorporated into Universal Credit. Increased coverage of free childcare would reduce the number of people who fall into this category.

I agree with this. Many of us use child benefit as savings for our DC. Our household income is over £90k yet we get it, we don’t need it.

I also agree that child benefit should be scrapped.

As I mentioned upthread, the government spends most on pensions, by quite some margin.
Maybe they should do something to reduce that bill? Get rid of the triple lock, for instance? Get rid of state pensions for those lucky enough to have retired on a generous final salary scheme? They don't need it.
We could even means test the state pension, like we do with child benefit.

I'd get rid of child benefit