SleepingRedSnowBootsAndThePea ·
10/03/2023 19:41
Just tried to post on that thread but it had run to 1k responses already, so here is a continuation one and my answer to the OP's question.
Rachel Reeves in her recent Mumsnet interview made it clear that she's not interested in dealing with the anomalies and unfairnesses in the tax system. One example given and that she was asked about in that interview was the way single parent households/ single income households lose child benefit at half of the household income. But there are many, many more such issues creating disincentives to work across the economy.
The role of Chancellor, if the country is to improve in terms of services or living standards, is more important than that of Prime Minister. And I found her response on this critical issue very poor.
Her day one job in role should be to address the things that she can fix immediately, that ARE within her power to sort out with immediate effect. Most economic reforms will take far longer to bear fruit but the tax system, as Chancellor, she would be able to sort out, if she had the will. Yet she made it clear that she has no intention to do so.
Bizarrely for someone who I had high hopes for as a potential Chancellor - as someone who for a change does actually understand economics - she appeared to be unwilling to accept or engage with, let alone address, the massively damaging effect our tax system has on families but also on productivity, at all levels of earnings. And particularly on single mothers and childhood poverty, given that most one parent households (over 90%) are headed by women, and much of child poverty is in those households. And yet she's quite happy for them to be taxed more than other households with the same income, and have child benefit withdrawn at half the income, etc.
So, despite her protestations about wanting to address productivity - which is the only way our economy can grow so that living standards rise and public services can be funded properly - I don't believe she's serious about doing it. Even if there are big infrastructure products and jobs in green energy etc as Labour claim there would be, if the tax system isn't fixed, it won't fix the problem.
The tax system needs fixing at every level of earnings:
amp.theguardian.com/business/2023/feb/13/full-time-part-time-work-no-longer-pays-uk-economy
I am hugely disappointed in her response to even the partial question on this that Mumsnet asked her in that interview in relation to child benefit. And they didn't even bother to ask her about the wider question about how she should obviously remove the disincentives at every level of the tax system: double the tax-free allowance for single people, double all the tax/ benefit thresholds for them, get rid of the absurd tax rate of 60%+ at £100k. Remove the bottlenecks that stop, at various earning thresholds, it being worthwhile for many households of any composition to work more or seek promotions etc.
The way she responded shows me she's not willing to make rational, evidence based, fair policy and is instead - depressingly - yet another politician who will pander to optics instead of doing what works and what needs to be done, for everyone.
So I can't vote for them unless their policies on this change.