To ask if you have an idea you believe would significantly improve life in the UK?

[ConfusedmumUC]

I’ll go first.

I can’t help but think making someone’s rent payments eligible to prove you can pay a mortgage would go a long way to housing security for so many people. And limiting the amount of properties owned by one landlord / amount a landlord can charge in rent, would also go a long way. I can’t help but think profiteering massively off of a basic need and right such as housing is really not ok.

Im sure there’s a reason why my idea wouldn’t work, feel free to put me right 😂

What’s your idea?

DdraigGoch
The BBC isn't really the same. You can opt out of paying for it, as I have.
Which is true, but while the law allows fines for watching ANY live channel it could be argued that it is publicly funded and therefore a "Government department" I'd abolish the license fee, fund it out of general taxation and make it subject to rule 1

The population has increased massively in the past 40 years and yet no housing has been built because we are ‘protecting the greenbelt’. There also needs to be limits put in place to limit the increase in rent each year to CPI, unless the landlord can prove the increase is justified due to increased costs.

Education: Limit class sizes to 15 so teachers are not overworked and students get enough attention. Pay teachers really well so the best are attracted to the field.

Taxes: The whole system needs to be reformed. Households should be able to elect to file a return as a joint return for those who are married with children under 18.

Childcare for children under 16 should be fully deductible from income. If the child is disabled, childcare should be fully deducted for as long as the child remains with the children.

Everyone should have to pay a small fee to use the NHS unless your income is low, which is determined by your tax return. Services offered by the NHS should be limited to what is absolutely necessary. If you need IVF treatment, gastric bypass, tummy tuck etc where there is a benefit to your health, should be a deduction if the fee exceeds 10% of your income.

Not paying child support should be considered child abuse. Child abusers belong in jail. Child support should be paid from gross income not net so the lower paid parent gets more of the money.

Prison, I think the solution is to identify children at risk and provide extensive support early on. I think we need to be much more willing to remove children from irresponsible parents or parents who can’t cope. A good boarding school isn’t a bad option for these kids but adoption isn’t such a bad idea when they are young. The adoption process needs to be so much more supported than it currently is. These children have really had a bad start to life and I believe investment in therapy for these children and their adoptive families is better than trying to fix the parents.

Taxes on companies who don’t offer an apprenticeship program or support employees studying at universities for their bachelor while working should have a levy of 5% applied to their income to cover the cost of society paying this bill. At 18, completing a bachelor degree at all but top programs such as research programs like many of the courses offered at Oxbridge, should be a work study program. There should be zero tuition fees for a bachelor degree and subsidized fees for anyone doing a masters.

Most controversial is that I wouldn’t allow anyone to be unemployed for more than 6 months if they are able to work. There is always something you can do. Sweeping streets, pick up litter, reading to children, preparation and/or delivering meals to the elderly. If you are disabled, it shouldn’t be assumed you can’t work, with remote, part time and flexible working utilized to keep people in the workforce.

Ragrunners, I thought obesity caused lots of illnesses too, but just alcohol is the problem you say?

UBI

The BBC should be treated no differently to Netflix, Disney Plus or Crunchyroll or any of the other streaming services. Let them live or die on their own merit, they would have to improve a lot if they want people to choose to pay for their content on it's own merit.

What a ridiculous comment. I digester a classroom till I was 40. But teachers who go straight to the classroom still do normal life - relationships, buying houses, getting credit cards having babies, cooking tea getting divorced,....why would you suggest otherwise

Most controversial is that I wouldn’t allow anyone to be unemployed for more than 6 months if they are able to work. There is always something you can do. Sweeping streets, pick up litter, reading to children, preparation and/or delivering meals to the elderly. If you are disabled, it shouldn’t be assumed you can’t work, with remote, part time and flexible working utilized to keep people in the workforce

There are people with degrees who are struggling to find work after 6+ months. They wont even be considered for the most menial of jobs as they would be considered overqualified.
Good luck finding someone to employ me. No references or experience to show for 12 years now. I can't "simply" work from home when my ancient work history is physical jobs that can not be done from home.

Better career advice in school and more encouraged options to leave and pursue voactional careers early on. University isn't essential for many careers and if you can start to learn a trade at 16 with some business gumption behind you, you'll likely be much better off than your contemporaries far earlier on in life.

There is always something you can do. Sweeping streets, pick up litter, reading to children, preparation and/or delivering meals to the elderly. If you are disabled, it shouldn’t be assumed you can’t work, with remote, part time and flexible working utilized to keep people in the workforce

But what about the people who already do these jobs (for a low wage)? Put a bunch of people out of work, increase Government administration and then put those same people in those same jobs 6 months later but only pay them unemployment benefits?

Non resident parents being forced to pay for half of what it costs to raise their children. And I mean forced - imprisoned for non-payment, and I also mean half not some shite amount. and it shoudlnt reduce if the non resident parent has more children or moves in with someone who has children. This would help the children, and single parents and also stop non resident parents having more children willy nilly. It would also help the resident parent be able to pay for childcare so they can work more easily. This would change so much of society especially as most parents are single parents.

Definitely but do you trust teachers to keep up to date - my kids were told a load of out-of-date crap - a quick google would leave you more informed, maybe we should teach kids to figure stuff out for themselves.

So you d build so many houses that prices collapse and to become affordable, houses would need to be around 100k.

A fall of 200k on current average prices.

What do you think that would do for our consumer and house price led economy?

Consumer spending would dive and throw millions into negative equity, people never be able to move for better jobs etc etc.
Mortgage industry shuts down as so many default.

Then there is the roads schools and infrastructure for new towns, greatly expanded cities, villages.

Another totally ill thought out "idea".

I would also suggest fines for missed appointments is a must. If you have a phone you can contact the GP to cancel, there is simply no excuse for missing appointments without letting them know.

Good luck with that. It often takes 45 minutes or more to get through to my surgery, if I had 45 minutes to spare to hang on the phone to cancel the appointment, I'd be able to get to the appointment. It's happened twice, once when I've been delayed because a work commitment has overrun, and once when I was stuck in traffic because there'd been an accident.

You expect childminders and nursery staff to work for free?

I think school age is far too young to be thinking about what career you ultimately want to be doing.
16-18.. you are still a child.
Honestly, who on MN is doing the job they were advised to do at that age?

Do you realise how tiny a % of the UK is actually built on?
I am sick of seeing this stupid trite and pointless comment.
What percentage should we aim for?

Free school meals for all children, Primary and Secondary.

Always amazes me how little people know about what is taught in secondary school... Students learn many life skills including cooking, managing money, how to apply for a job, write a CV, practice doing interviews, IT skills, teamwork, the list goes on! They don't just sit there copying out of textbooks for 20 hours a week! Every child is entitled to a careers appointment with a qualified adviser before the end of year 11. Just because not everyone manages to remember or use these skills, or listen to the advice doesn't mean it doesn't happen!

@Aintnosupermum So where are the schools and teachers going to come from to have class sizes of 15?

Thats a doubling of the teacher workforce and a doubling of school class rooms..

On top of 110k NHS vacancies, most need a high level of education.

And another 300k needed in social care.

Where are all these skilled people coming from? the vast majority of people are already in work and those who are not, are not really suitable to become nurses.

Agreed - we also don't have a lack of affordable housing everywhere - we have a lack of jobs in cheap areas and a lack of affordable housing in areas where we have massively overfocused economic activity for no good reason - eg The South East of England.

I completely agree @ironingboredrefusal. It really annoys me that whenever we talk about child poverty in this country, the fact that so many kids are in poverty because their father doesn't financially support them is not mentioned!

We should be much more like the US - the debt should never die, take it from their pensions and estate when they die if they manage to evade it all that long. But I'd also take away their driving licence, passport, not let them marry again and then finally stick them in prison - it would only take a few 'normal' blokes going to prison for the penny to drop with the rest!

I'd bring back Council housing, cheap at cost rents, so cuts benefits bill & more local spending and or saving.

Totally wrong to have privatised social housing to individual landlords.

It might be because it directly concerns me, but I'd like a massive increase in provision of accommodation for old people. Not just care homes (though those, definitely) but more sheltered accommodation, more older citizen shared communities and, while we're at it, a move towards more respect for the elderly and greater inclusion of them in the wider community.
This would have a number of benefits: freeing up space in hospitals, freeing up housing stock, reducing fear and loneliness in older people, uniting society, and giving older people a part to play in society.
If you live long enough, you will all thank me one day.

Good idea but Where are you going to magic up the staff to work in these places for NMW ?

If you up their salaries to say £13 to 14 ph (reasonable to attract new staff as NMW in '23 is 10.42) then what do you do about Nurse/AHP pay?