Labour’s child health action plan. What do you think?

[Naptrappedmummy]

https://labour.org.uk/updates/stories/labours-child-health-action-plan-will-create-the-healthiest-generation-of-children-ever/

It looks good to me (and just to disclose I will, in a ‘there’s nobody better right now’ way, be voting Labour at the next GE) but this is mumsnet so just wondered what you all thought…

Why aren’t parents teaching their children to brush their teeth, why will it become schools responsibility?

Yes, fluoride in water, and perhaps also get vitamin d in all bread? I mean that seems easy enough. 🤷

The Tories know the balance of their books. And as a consequence are looking only to reduce taxes by getting rid of benefits from the voluntarily unemployed, which as a stat that has seriously jumped since covid.

When Labour back in 2010 left a note to the successor ' there's no money left ' .. as they had spent beyond their means

They’ll have to make them not leave too to get it. And then spend it x50

I'd like to know how they are going to recruit staff for breakfast clubs. Getting support and midday staff for schools is now almost impossible. No one wants to run a breakfast or after school club because if you pay to put your own child in childcare it cancels out the benefit of working.

I agree children's tooth decay is a massive issue but I wouldn't actually want mine brushing at school/nursery because of the risk of fluoride staining - I want to do it twice a day, properly, myself! It's also diet that is surely as much an issue as toothbrushing (or lack thereof). The number of children who come into school at 9am having already has sweets or chocolate is ridiculous.

They can ban junk food advertising although most teens don't watch TV anymore. I doubt Labour can ban advertising on the internet.

To clear paediatric waiting lists, support mental health and restore NHS dentistry, they'll need more doctors, dentists & therapists. Where will they come from?

Breakfast clubs, the same. More teachers or teaching assistants?

Protecting children from infectious diseases is great but again, it needs staff. Cracking down on smoking & vaping, the same. That's a huge amount of extra resource. most of which isn't trained yet.

They're going to need to find an awful lot of non-doms. And changing the VAT rules on private schools is going to cost more than it saves.

So no, not convinced. Nothing is properly costed. Resources not identified. It just sounds good.

Parents should also feed, clothe and toilet train their own children but not all do. It is what it is.

Well this is all bollocks, isn’t it?
In fact Tory governments always borrow more and leave finances in a worse position. The tax burden is the highest since the end of the second world war. And as for the ‘no money’ thing - I don’t believe anyone doesn’t know it was a long standing joke by now. Invoking it is a sign of bad faith arguments.
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2021/06/24/the-tories-have-always-borrowed-more-than-labour-and-always-repaid-less-they-are-the-party-of-big-deficit-spending/

Obviously the ideas are great. However in our children's mental health service we have struggled to recruit for years and it's the same for my colleagues in other local authorities. You can fund recruitment, but how are you going to improve that recruitment?

I'll be voting for them because they are better than any alternative, but this feels like it was put together in a Year 9 Citizenship lesson.

I heard Wes Streeting being questioned on this - 'Why should schools/the public be bothered if parents can't do their job and brush their own kids teeth properly?'

And he made the point that it's not the children's fault and it's better to prevent issues than the tax payer paying to fix all the bad teeth and associated problems that will be waiting a few years down the line and it just made so much sense.

Just going to have to trust them to come up with the cash for it 🤷‍♀️

Not the letter again..
🙄

Abolishing the non-dom tax rules seems to be funding an awful lot under their plans ; 2m extra NHS appointments by getting the NHS working round the clock, 700k extra dental appointments and recruiting more dentists, and free breakfasts for all primary children.

It has been estimated that a change in the non-dom rules will raise £3bn a year, and that assumes that hardly any non-doms leave the country. Non doms do actually pay UK tax on some elements of their income/gains/wealth. That will be lost if they leave the UK altogether, as will the benefit to the UK economy of money they spend/invest here.

Depending on which source you read, the NHS budget is around £170bn a year. The estimated non dom gains amounts to around 1.7% of this figure. This relatively small amount is apparently going to fund a round the clock NHS, more dentists and free breakfasts every school day for 5.5m children. I’m not convinced the figures stack up.

Aside from the questionable figures, where are all these extra NHS workers and dentists coming from? The NHS already has a huge recruitment and retention problem. It’s the same with the 6,500 teachers which Labour are apparently going to recruit using VAT on private schools. Teachers aren’t exactly queuing up to fill teaching vacancies.

Well done for keeping track. I’m not sure they are

O I bet you weren't crying booo tories when you taking their covid payments? Etc

Do you have any idea how much that largesse cost the government??

400bn pounds... and in the times of high interest rates, what does that equate sunny jim ?

Its a no win situation.. ie if they don't give, they are capitalists, if they give you take and then moan.

You can cite how much rubbish you want, but get yourself an eduction on the workings of the global economy, rather than cutting and pasting some clips.

Its not your work and your mind that is doing the thinking there.

2 big problems:

• The maths is not based on human behaviour. So it works on the basis they remove non-dom status and these individuals will now just pay huge sums of tax - they won’t. They can just jump to Portugal or Spain who are already woo-ing them.
• Same with VAT on private schools fees. It works on basis the numbers will stay the same. The fact is even if say numbers drop 10% not only are you “losing” 10% of your VAT predictions but also those children are now in the state sector (and schools get funding per child) and the parents aren’t paying more tax.

Secondly. proposals are based one recruiting more staff and unless we are going to recruit huge numbers of staff from abroad (Labour won’t do because they will be worried about the red wall), then you are looking at 3-6 years to train staff just to probationary level.

if you want to massively cut wait lists for camhs quickly you need to allow children on camhs lists to go private (I know in some areas this is happening, but you would want to roll that out). They are then off their lists and they can focus on providing MH support. Same for paediatric wait lists - anything that can be done in private sector (grommets, tonsils out) just contract private sector.

They need to do something about child poverty with real policies and not worrying about bloody teeth brushing.

As a life long labour voter I am so,so disappointed in Keir Starmer.

I think they think they've produced a few good soundbites that they have no chance of delivering on.

I didn’t take any, because I worked throughout. However the fact that covid relief could be afforded undermines your argument, not mine. Governments can afford whatever they want. A country’s budget isn’t like a household one, whatever Thatcher said.
Also I didn’t cut and paste. I linked to a reputable economist’s full argument and gave an example of the ‘joke’.

As for the incremental ban on smoking (which I believe both of the main parties are saying they want), has anyone taken into account the amount of tax that will be lost? Tobacco tax brings in £10bn per year, and smokers cost the NHS an estimated £2.5bn. Obviously improving health is a good thing and should be something we strive for, but it might not come without a financial cost.

It’s very easy to give the media populist soundbites about taxing non doms and private school parents. Someone needs to challenge them to produce detailed calculations. These two policies, which seem to be their two main policies at the moment, raise a relatively tiny amount. The reality is that these optimistic reforms of state provision will need to funded by either increasing tax in a more wide ranging way or reducing spending somewhere else.

Not convinced the tax changes would pay for this
some definitely would leave the country so the extra tax remaining ones would make up the amount we lost so overall I don’t think we would have that much more revenue from it

Again, nobody asks Tories how they’ll fund stuff.
Country’s can fund anything they want to - as I’ve said, whatever Thatcher told you their budgets are not like household ones.
If you want more Tory mismanagement, own it. Don’t hide behind ‘Oo Labour can’t afford this’.

Yes you’re right

It's like the Magic money tree all over again. Not that the Tories paid their mates with the magic money tree when Covid hit.

'Governments can afford whatever they want? '

You are embarrassing yourself now.

Do you know anything about Economics?

As I said, cardi b go and get a GCSE in Economics before you spout anymore rubbish.