Would you pay more tax to boost defence spending

[trainermush]

Obviously we are now in a more precarious position & defence spending has been underfunded for some time. RR had just said we need to spend more money & she will but without breaking her fiscal rules,

"So we will stick to our fiscal rules. But recognising the priority of defence spending in the world that we live in today means that we will have to make difficult choices so that we can spend that money that is needed to keep our country safe."

Mulling it over & even though I think I pay enough tax I would pay more each month towards this (cut back in other areas) as opposed to labour cutting back on something else. I guess thinking about my dc & other loved ones has changed my mind somewhat now things appear more bleak. What do others think?
Conscription of young people terrifies me even though my dc are too young.

Already happening.

https://jobs.army.mod.uk/regular-army/what-you-get/bursaries-scholarships/

The only possible issue is the inequality that could be caused by students from poorer backgrounds being more likely to sign up, or possibly even feeling pressured to.

You're on mumsnet, you're not more willing because you have children. Most of us do. You're scared and you're buying into your.own fear. Get your head out of the news and spend your money on quality time with your kids.

T'was always thus.

I was gobsmacked when I learned about how few benefits the UK offers service members. You need something like our G. I. Bill to make it an attractive option for young people.

In the U.S. it’s seen as a path to a good career and the middle class for poor people.

It’s already attractive. The competition for officer training for all the services is insane. Salaries are excellent and the pension is non contributory.

@trainermush , 100% I would and anyone who would not is a fool. It will be your children conscripted into a war of horrors one day if we aren’t sufficiently strong militarily.

Yes I'd say that was true here too. A way out of poverty and a life of excitement and structure.

It’s already attractive. The competition for officer training for all the services is insane. Salaries are excellent and the pension is non contributory.

The recruiting challenge is in enlisted ranks, not officers. Here anyone who serves for two years or more qualifies for G.I. Bill benefits, which includes university fees and expenses for further education, low cost home mortgages and low interest loans to start a business. It’s all designed to give soldiers a good start in life when they get out of the service.

The military pensions here are non contributory too, but you need 20 years of service to qualify.

The LibDems have proposed a Digital Services Tax, the Military cannot spend a large increase in funding, just a few billion at a time is enough... if we rebuild manufacturing at the same time.

Reeves raised 30 billion in ONE budget, raising an extra 4 or 5 billion above any growth in GDP, cannot be beyond the wit of man surely?

As i said earlier, reduce the tax benefits of ISA's... say with a limit on the total held, 50 or 75k? wouldn't affect the average saver, the rest above this, could be taxed at 10%... so still a tax efficient benefit.

Hunt's NI cuts cost the Govt over £10bn each year..... £10 billion invested in the UK manufacturing base would lead to skills, more tax take, less benefits, more spend in the local area, extra taxes, revitalise former industrial heartlands.

Yep - £10bn would go a long way on infrastructure. Revitalise ship building. Dig a deep water port into St Ives for a submarine base and Make Cornwall Great Again.

What's not to like 😄

Reversing those NI cuts would make perfect sense, it was stupid not to do it when they first took office. It was blatantly obvious that cut was an only made to salt the earth.

Cornwalls never been "Great", for Cornwall it might be better to spend the money on a motorway to Make Cornwall A Passable Place to Have a Holiday Again.

Well £10 billion would be enough to dig the last four miles in North Cornwall so that the River Tamar joins up with the sea to "Make Cornwall An Island" .

We can then have better control of immigrants coming (legal and illegal) in from the likes of far flung places like London. Failing to integrate, buying up second homes and eating their "foreign" food like avocados on toast and hummus.

Ha! The man whose wife has been creaming off millions (yes more than one) in USAID to teach bewildered Afghan children about Marcel Duchamp….
Another one with a hand on the cookie jar.

So an 10bn extra for defence spend isn't welcome? would take us above the Tories target of 2.5% of GDP.

Whats your solution?

Oh and on your knowledge of UK deep ports, its Falmouth

Yes the cost to the Govt is huge, over 10bn each and every year... for almost zero return.. thats money that could have gone into Defence.... thanks Hunt/Sunak.

To put this in context our military spending and personnel has been in an almost unseen decline for years...charts here:

www.ft.com/content/36f47240-7c0e-11e6-ae24-f193b105145e

Sorry I don't know why the charts came out black in my above post but you can see the charts on the link too. Up to 2015 the conservatives quite quietly initiated a significant contraction of our military capability, that decline and trend continued from 2015 for the next decade as well.

So increased spending is only going to put us back to where we were a few years ago, but yes I would pay more taxes to do that. It's only a slight security blanket but is needed with Putin dominating the world stage.

It’s about informed choices - I’ve already got a DN in the forces and a DS interested in cyber security

This has been an insightful thread & I feel a lot more positive today. they are discussing the defence cuts/spending needed on lbc now if anyone is interested.

I would if they eliminated waste and redirected other streams to defence first. Things like foreign aid and taking in asylum seekers should be scrapped, the money from that going to defence.

There are two main areas I'd be happy to contribute on. First is more nuclear weapons, our nuclear deterrant is very limited these days. We need more nuclear weapons that can be fired from a variety of sources. The submarine system is fine but should only be part of the deterrant, we need intercontinental ballistic missiles that can be fired from the UK and overseas territories and we need an aeroplane based system for dropping nuclear bombs. You might think that's a bit archaic but the only successful use of nuclear weapons in anger was when they were dropped from a plane, it's a useful part of an overall scheme of defence.

Defence spending shouldn't just be on a bigger army with better technology either, citizens need to be armed and trained for when we are invaded. We need firearms obviously, but also urban guerrilla warfare skills like hand-to-hand combat, making improvised weapons and molotovs, maybe first aid as well.

The trouble is the government is so reactive to crises. As with the previous failure to plan properly for the pandemic, they seem clueless about the forthcoming war and prefer to bury their heads in the sand. When war comes, it will be too late to start issuing weapons and training people.

Cuts are being floated in the press so it's likely more that than taxes

For all the people saying ‘absolutely not’, I can 100% bet you’d change your tune if we went to war and there wasn’t enough money for us to have an effective defence. I work in the MOD and know that we’re massively underfunded yet people still expect to be protected. Can’t have it both ways 🤷‍♀️ There’s plenty of things that can be cut back on that will mean we won’t pay more in tax but defence can have more money.