Part II - To ask what you'll be doing to avoid the Labour tax - Scandi model

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Page 40 | To ask what you'll be doing to avoid the Labour tax hikes | Mumsnet

This thread is full, but there was a post at the end asking about fair society and Scandi model.

I wanted to share this link - really good description
DI_The-Nordic-social-welfare-model.pdf (deloitte.com)

"Many public services and benefits in the Nordic countries are provided to the entire popu lation for free, or at a reduced price, independent of market mechanisms (see figure 4 on page 12). Free and equal access to these social services is the core universal principle of the Nordic model. Access is not based on the ability to pay, nor economic need."

" the size of public pensions in Norway, Sweden and Finland depends directly on how much the individual has earned and contributed to the pension system. "

"The Nordic countries all have employment rates above 70 per cent, and most land near the top of the list of OECD nations (figure 6 on page 13). Iceland and Sweden, in particular, stand out with employment at approximately 85 per cent and close to 80 per cent, respectively. "

"How do the Nordic countries achieve these high employment rates when they offer such generous social benefits, which are not limited to the poor? Why don’t more individuals simply take advantage of the broad social security net? The answer seems to lie in the gradually ‘tougher’ policies the Nordic countries have adopted, which increase incentives to work in various ways and balance the provision of social security. For instance, the unemployment benefit period has been progressively reduced, as has the amount of compensation"

The entire debate in Britain is about redistribution. In Nordic model EVERYONE pays in and EVERYONE get services, not means tested. Of course this leads to much more equal and fair society. But to try to move this way here we'd need to make all benefits (WFA, childcare, child support etc etc) non-means tested, increase taxes at the bottom and make UC time limited. Anyone up for it?

Not working is looked down upon there. There aren’t as many non-working mums for example, and very very few people living off benefits.

@AgentJohnson exactly. But these higher taxes aren't at the top, they are much higher at the bottom. And yes, people are expected to work and have only limited time of how long they can receive state welfare support, albeit generous one.

I think what really needs to be reformed in the UK is that benefits should be linked to previous earnings, e.g. you're paid 80% of your salary for the first 3 months (up to some very generous cap), then 50% for another 3 months, then some min amount for another 3 months and then that's it.

Increase taxes in the middle/bottom to Scandi level.
Given that 20% of tax now goes to welfare, significant part of this amount could be then streamlined to public services.

That's partly because childcare is so good. Almost every child between 3-5 is enrolled in a preschool. Their childcare is subsided and fees are calculated according to number of children and household income. All children are offered at least 525 hours of free pre-school in the autumn of the year they turn three.

I think we have a poor attitude to work in this country.
I worked with an Eastern European who had a period of increased bills. Rather than moaning about it she took on a temporary extra job to pay for things. She was quite matter of fact about it and she didn’t want to get into debt. She never complained, just worked out how much she needed to earn to pay for it all.

In the the uk 3-5 year olds are entitled to 30 hours free per week for working parents starting next month. If that’s only for term time it still amounts to 1140 hours a year. (well more than Scandinavia). The condition is parents need to work and rightly so. If your child is in childcare then no reason not to.

If you tax lower earners more though, how will they afford to live? Genuine question. You can't do that without bringing in some sort of rent control, rent prices are outrageous right now.

I am Swedish and can comment a bit on how this works in practice, if anyone is interested. I just wanted to pop on and make it clear that we have no wealth funds here like Norway does. We refer to it as "their oil money" with a mixture of condescension and jealousy.
Our current problems with gun violence and gang crimes are not related to the welfare model, by which I mean that the existence of the welfare model did not create them per se. They do however challenge it profoundly since it turns out that welfare fraud connected to organised crime is a big problem. Organised crime have also planted members or people tied to criminal organisations in other ways in positions where they can undermine the legal and prison system, the welfare system and so on.

We need rent control, but regarding lower earners we need to increase salaries and have a living wage. People shouldn't need top up benefits. When people have more money they spend more which contributes to the economy.

We need more houses not rent control. They tried that in Germany and it failed miserably. If you control rent then landlords sell up, so fewer rental properties so housing crisis worsens.
We desperately need more social housing , we desperately need more rental properties with decent landlords, we just need more housing full stop. Not everyone wants or is able to buy.

We also have a much bigger population now compared with 20 years ago. I’m not getting into a debate about the right or wrongs of it, but a bigger population means a bigger need for housing.

There has to be a plan like they had post WW2. The trouble is our governments are only interested in the short term vote winning policies. There’s no actual long term strategy and I’m not sure Labour has the answer sadly.

Is it actually 30 hours, every week, with space for every single child and completely free at point of us? Or is it 30 hours for a few weeks a year with various topup payments and limited spaces?

For us where we live fulltime year round childcare is around £80 a month, this is the maximum rate for a second child, some pay less.

Christ, but they’re boring countries. I’d like equality n aw tha but please don’t make it dull here.

1140 is what you get if its term time only. if it was for year round it’ll be well more than that. My point is it’s still well more than scandinavia.
The problem is I don’t think the government actually thought out how it would be provided. It has to be available and it has to be good quality. If people are struggling to access it then the policy isn’t working.

I don't know why everyone is saying ooh look at Norway. Firstly they are way smaller than us, their immigration profile is very different (important in many ways including integration, benefits payments etc) and lastly they've had a massive exodus of rich people to Switzerland due to wealth tax.

We need to stop this ridiculous comparison with Scandinavian countries.

We desperately need more social housing , we desperately need more rental properties with decent landlords, we just need more housing full stop. Not everyone wants or is able to buy.

But load don’t want that 🤷🏻‍♀️

Yes! That would actually be the way to go IMO.

Instead of counting on a very small percent of the population to fund services for everybody, we would have way better results if we increased taxes for everybody.
The services could significantly be better, I’m thinking especially about public transport, childcare and care and this would in turn allow many people currently working part time / not working to access more jobs and have a better quality of life.
For ex women wouldn’t have to reduce their hours because of having to care for DC/parents (as they are usually the lower earner in the household) and they wouldn’t risk poverty if their partner leaves them, with no pension contributions and not enough income.

What exactly is boring about the Scandi countries? Particularly Norway?

Never met anyone with a streak of individuality. Not able to think independently.

I’d vote for a Scandi model.

Middle income households in the uk pay far less tax than middle earners in Scandinavia. I for one don’t have spare cash for another massive tax hike.
Interestingly higher earners in uk pay similar to higher earners in Scandinavia. All we hear in UK is that higher earners should contribute more, when it’s actually middle income that will need to cough up.
Would everyone be happy with that?

@Doublesidedstickytape

Exactly. And - unemployment benefits to be time limited as well. And - higher earners to have exactly the same benefits as lower ones, e.g. childcare, rebate of private school fees.

Anyone up for this?

They’re just a happier type of people - I used to work in a scandi company - they were all happy dappy people - boring as hell, but happy 😂 - also, most really just trust the process and it works. They work together as a collective whereas here it’s not quite like that…

We’re middle earners in Sweden, we pay lass tax here than we did in the UK, with the added bonus of a fulltime childcare bill of £84 a month rather than essentially £80 a day.

I agree with the principle that people don't want to pay for something they don't use which I think is why we have a multi tier system.

People who can pay form private healthcare and private school and private homes obviously don't want to pay more tax for those things.

If there was no private option, I think people would feel differently and, frankly, those with the influential skillset of the upper middle class, would have the wherewithal to genuinely pressure and lobby government to fund such services more fully.

Poorer people have too much on their mind and a lack of upper-mamagement speaking skills to lobby for such things effectively. To quote Matilda, "presentation is 9/10th of the law".

Noone cares what "bigoted women" or poorly educated people, who are at the heart of social welfare, actually have to say because there is a perception that they are scroungers. People sit up when Lord or Lady X, a doctor or a private school headteacher band together to push an agenda and get the buy in of multiple organisations and MPs to listen to the cause.