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?

Tax inheritance as income, including where wealth is transferred when the parents are still alive
It is insane that vast estates have passed between generations since the Norman conquest

Not putting clocks back to GMT in winter. For the majority of people an hour of daylight in the afternoon is more useful than one in the morning, and I think it would reduce road crashes and SAD.

The biggest thing would be to adjust tax based on county lines (or London boroughs) so the North has a chance to make more money, attract more investment and retain more talent.
The South becomes less attractive for those looking to get jobs further from home. For example, I would suggest Basic Rate Income Tax in an SW1 postcode to be 25%, whereas M18 would pay 13% for the same rate.
To enforce this, I'd also give HMRC powers to prosecute those who commit fraud to dodge these taxes. Social housing and Universal Credit get reduced tax rates nationwide, if at all.
I would encourage employers to consider these areas where employment is cheaper with reduced Class 1 National Insurance rates to reduce costs overall (<10% instead of 13.8%).

The policy would be reviewed mandatorily every year during the budget and would hopefully become a major part of the tax environment in the UK. It would be reported on by the OBR alongside population movements to show the country how it is changing year on year (house prices, employment figures, crime, education).

This would of course create issues with billionaires moving to far parts of the UK to avoid paying as much tax, but then add a few stricter housing policies in such as an increase in Stamp Duty on second homes from 15% (over £1.5m) to 75% and you're laughing.

But nobody wants to touch tax. Political suicide.

Can you enlarge on this?
Communism as practised in the Soviet Union?
Would you prevent people from leaving the country or encourage friends, family and neighbours to report anyone for speaking against the regime?

So you tax based on where someone lives as opposed to where some one works.
What about someone who lives up North but works at home for a London based company?
What about someone basing their company up North but all their employees live down South working from home?
Someone lives up North but travels south and stays in a hotel through the week (the business pays - this often happens)
Wealthy people usually have their second homes already bought - so no penalties for them. What do you do about in between areas?

Firstly, I appreciate the discussion.

• I'd tax based on somewhere someone lives, yes. Do not be under any presumption, we do not currently tax based on where someone works. We tax on how people work (self-employed, IR35, full time), but definitely not where they work.
• If someone bases their company up North and have all their employees working from home who live down South, that would effectively hit the crux of the matter at its heart - talent in the south is expensive. If you want full-time employment, then you will have to pay more for it.
• Consultants in the South who work freelance under IR35 in this hypothetical northern start-up would also have to pay more on their tax individually to the state.
• Northern Based London-bound commuters are 9 times out of 10 consultants who work privately for London firms, bringing home massive sums (3x-5x) compared to the UK annual salary. Most likely they'd fall into quite a nice postcode for their hard work and would pay a lovely postcode-based income tax based on that. If a business pays for this travel for a consultant then it's considered a benefit so I would classify them as an employee and charge them a much higher Class 1 NIC based in London.
• Wealthy people do have their second homes already bought but my thinking is about long-term in an era where short-termism is rife. The aim is to stop buying-to-let as a practice in hopefully 10-15 years and give the housing sector time to build more homes in places that were not affordable/desirable but now suddenly are due to tax rates being adjusted for different boroughs.

Yes, I'm well aware that the UK isn't just England, thanks. The reason that I referred to England is that land use statistics are compiled separately for each nation and I wasn't going to spend hours aggregating the statistics.

The UK is the most overcrowded large economy in Europe. This is a fact, and it's not sustainable.

I think my aim with this one rather large but important change would be to effectively shift the population of the UK away from London and to other regions where people desperately need more investment, income, and jobs, and those people in the South desperately want to own a home and raise a family.

University leavers who grow up in the North also leave their hometowns for London, never to return unless it's the Christmas period and so this economic benefit to the region is lost forever, as is the much-needed council funding based on a lower and aging population.

Obviously, infrastructure needs to be heavily invested in as we are operating off of frankly, Victorian-era transport that hasn't really been updated for over a century and we aren't going to get anywhere with cars alone.

What are in between areas?

The Uk isn’t overcrowded, it has inefficient and ineffective housing. What people forget is that social housing was sold off in the 80s because it was in such poor condition and the idea was to build new. Michael Hestletine has spoken about this many times. Thatchers government didn’t build back.

It was under new labour that we have PFI and BTL because of severe capital deficits in both hospitals/schools and the residential housing market. At the time lots of people spoke out that we would have these issues now with the NHS because of the PFI contracts. BTL, it was talked about it not being a bad thing, but legislation was needed around price increases and renewal of leases. In the past twenty years legislation has done everything but address these two areas, which I think would do more to provide tenants with what they need, secure housing.

I strongly believe prison reform starts in school and small class sizes will enable much more attention to be given to children whose parents can’t provide for them. As a parent with now 3 children who have issues, and the small class size enables them to cope. My children were at a state school in the Us with therapists on staff. It was a joke. The quality of the provision was awful and good luck getting anything close to what is needed for your child to make progress. It’s a great idea, however no child with sensory processing issues is going to do well in a class with 25-30 children. It’s also extremely expensive to implement properly. Centralized therapeutic care makes so much more sense.

Special needs provision in Denmark was absolutely ridiculous in schools and should not be copied by anyone. The track in Denmark was that my children were being babysat until they would be put on disability and left to ‘exist’. I want more for my children and I know they are able to achieve it.

Yep, well done on your decision not to get cancer and therefore be able to work 'harder'. Your kids should definitely get an easier life and a leg up on the kids of those feckless people who got cancer and were too ill to get savings together.

Completely right! Housing stock was sold off in the 80s and there were never any provisions to continue post-war building projects at that rate after that. So we are trying to keep up with what we have and privatised the rest. £300/day for a bricklayer? Sign me up!

What about people who travel for work? Are you going to fit trackers to their briefcases and bill them accordingly.

If you want to level up the North, you would be better off upgrading the infrastructure. Eastern Leg and Golborne Link of HS2 need completing, NPR needs to be built in full, existing lines need electrifying.

People need to work and I don’t think second homes should be discouraged. In the 80s lots of fathers worked in London, leaving early Monday morning and returning on Friday for dinner. They had a pied a terre close to work. The wife and children were in a family home in a cheaper part of the country, close to family. It worked well for lots of families. Some wives worked, others didn’t. They did have aunts, uncles, grandparents etc close by.

Of course it didn’t work for all, but for many it worked out well.

Make council tax the same throughout the country. And band based on last sold price. It's a joke at present

Definitely not, house price inflation doesn't mean you are rolling in disposable incom

Income

Bring back nursing bursaries. Possibly grants for stem degrees.

Not everyone can afford life insurance. And what about those born with a disability? Very few policies (if any) cover pre-existing conditions.

Free child care? Nothing is truly free.
I would say it woukd be good if we could bring back a sense of community.

@woodhill my council tax is £3,130.49 in north east.
Ealing in London. £2,506.81 for same band.
Wages are lower up here. It's wrong

Wandsworth, which saw average sale prices of property hit £956,541 in 2020, residents only pay £845 per year for council tax.

Tax the rich more, lower the wages of higher paid people - politicians etc. invest more in services . Give more to the poor.

I hear you

That is a lot but isn't the property cheaper in the North