Where is the money going?!

[WilderHawthorn]

All we seem to hear at the moment is that spending needs to be cut and tax increased. I’m a middle earner (not higher rate tax) and don’t mind paying my fair share. But where is the money actually going?

welfare is being cut
education is on its knees
the NHS is a shambles
roads are atrocious
infrastructure generally seems poor
public transport is useless
social services are appallingly overstretched
the £ is at a terrible rate internationally
food inflation is huge

I get that illegal migrants and adult social care are huge costs, but where is the rest of it truly going? I cannot fathom the situation we’re in, is it truly to service the economic debt from Covid?

Yes it’s Starmer too. He’s the first in line on this.

Rather than that HS2 was (and is) a total vanity project. An overpriced attempt to remedy years of infrastructure neglect, as well as to thickly line the pockets of Tory donors and provide opportunities for mps looking for a side hustle (and no they haven't been wielding shovels or mixing concrete)

From these replies It seems people believe money is going to immigrants or even illegal immigrants!!!! Just check how much they really cost the UK… a drop in the ocean!!!!
this is the racist propaganda people have been fed that brought Brexit and all the crap behind that.
brexit is costing the uk billions but no one will admit it as British politicians have been lying so much that it would be embarrassing. The cost if importing goods, the lost market the lost workers, people do not even realise.
the inefficiency of nhs is crazy and it’s really expensive. Despite having one of the worst health system in the developed world it is also one of the most expensive. The fact that doctors and nurses are mainly contractors paid thousands a day does not help at all.
benefits for British people are crazy expensive, wages are low and the amount of benefits people need to survive is staggering.
then there is pensions. It is ironic how just today reeves announced more taxes on pensions which will lower the amount people put in them hence having the rely on the state even more in 20-30 years and in turn making it pay in further taxes to our children… it is such a short term, idiotic way of governing that is shocking how she can even think about it. But again loads of British people chose Brexit, which just tells it all…

The concept was sound, the EC and WC main lines are full so build extra capacity. But the actual doing and politics behind it were and are awful.

Yes, because the threat of war has increased

Gosh you right wing imperialists are just desperate to get your noses back into the trough and grind the working classes noses into the earth aren’t you? For your info it’s desperation like this that actually gives me hope for Labour, that they are trying and will deliver the change we need.

Like the corruption and contempt the new style Tories show for people is sooo much better. Austerity gave us hugely increased national debts. Weird that.

I don’t like modern neoliberalists of any description or colour. New Labour gave us so many problems because they followed the Tory neoliberalist playbook.

What we need is old Labour and the old style One Nation Tories back, everyone else is just stripping the country bare. We cannot go on in this fashion with third world public services and gross inequality. (Or, yes, the total lack of interest, lack of any competence, or duty of care for the rest of the country in the HS2 debacle).

I have been to both state and private schools. Worlds apart. Class if 12 rather than 30 odd. Good Behaviour expected in the private school whereas the state half the lessons were disrupted by unruly kids. Private schools have more leeway to boot out troublemakers than the state system

The teachers may come from the same " pool" but less challenges teaching

Debt increases have meant higher borrowing and as already mentioned, interest rates are higher.
Benefits have not been cut. More and more people claiming disability allowances, which has now become unaffordable.
Special Educational Needs, suddenly lots of children are neuro diverse and are demanding EHCPs.
Higher unemployment, due to recent national insurance increases. Therefore more universal credit applications and less being paid in tax.
People having less money equates to less spending and less tax revenue.
People tightening their belts and putting money into tax free savings schemes.
More and more people coming into the country, migrant hotels, housing for successful asylum seekers.
Policing for never ending demonstrations.
Demand from EU for Brexit repayment.
Demand to help overseas countries in crisis.
Fall out from Covid
And to think nearly 70 million live here, but there are only 25.5 million full time workers. That means an awful lot of pressure is put on a third of the population.

Maybe I was expecting too much? Probably unrealistic expectations on my part, but when a Russian girl joined my dc private school, she unfortunately 'could wipe the floor' with our children in chemistry, maths and physics, and her parents told us that they were dismayed at the standard of sciences teaching in our school. Their girl was the same age, joined from a state Russian school and was literally years ahead of our children. Her parents had no airs and graces, said she was very average ability back in Russia and was not even good enough to have been sent to a maths, physics, etc. competition by her old state school. I honestly thought that if I give them all the money I earn, they shall return a better product. I was wrong. But you are right, they had smaller classes, behaviour was exemplary, they could even expel full-fee paying children for bad behaviour, uniform was pristine, hockey and cricket and rugga, and even polo lessons. But how does that help in getting to uni and real life? Basically, I think I was missold. I rather I mis-bought.

Connections is how it helps in real life. A son of my mums friend scraped by at private. He was good at rugby. The connections he made in that opened doors to banking jobs . He never went to uni either

Housing costs underpin this in a very significant way.

The increase in working people having to claim additional benefits is due to wages not keeping pace with the cost of living. And that is largely down housing costs taking a disproportionate amount of income.

The increase in the need for temporary accommodation (and the crippling costs for councils paying private landlords as a consequence) is due to private rents remaining unconstrained and a housing market that prioritises residential property as an investment vehicle rather than a home.
Rent increases follow where the property market is going. Not where wages are going.

There are empty properties that people can’t afford to buy.
There are empty properties that investors hang on to as an appreciating asset in a portfolio.
There are luxury flats built to order as investment vehicles and at best rented as short lets.
Property developers have no interest in building affordable homes.

The welfare bill will never reduce enough until housing costs are a more affordable proportion of incomes.

Mental health and child poverty will continue to decline while people are forced to live for years in inadequate, unsafe housing.

Even if we expel every asylum seeker property will still be unaffordable for too many and poverty will continue to rise.

It’s why housing is high on the EU agenda as it isn’t solely a UK problem.

Threat of war? Like Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Lybia were threatening us. And now Iran. My gosh, when will people stop being so silly?

Too many extremely rich people and international companies able to avoid tax due to favourable tax laws.

Is this a serious question? Have you really forgotten all about 14 years of austerity (under the Tories) and Brexit?

Pensioners get half the 'living wage' ...think about that.....and most just hit paying tax...they have worked for 40-50 years for it as they were told to.
Lots of incommers and dependents are on u iversal credit..free health teeth eyes housing council tax ...and so on. People moved into HMOs have no bills for 5 years....

Too many people are ill following covid...through no fault of their own. They need supporting financially.
Lets cherish our children, elderly, ill, veterans and be caring to them first. Government throw money around boris 50£M on a bridge idea... covid cons that are still to be clawed back dont let the Government continue to set people against each other.
Noone on the front bench has started or run a business. How can they run the country.

Absolutely right! Never mind the catastrophic impact on our economy, what about THE ATTACHED BOTTLE CAPS!
And we have attached bottle caps, not because the EU is making us, but because manufacturers align their products with the major markets. Which for us is Europe. So we are now rule takers rather than rule makers.

There's no doubting that COVID has cost us dearly. But don't forget labour bankrupted us by bailing out the banks first. Despite the Tory austerity, that debt actually went up not down, we've never paid it off. COVID goes on top of that! The biggest problem imo is our governments (all parties except maybe snp) fanatical avoidance of investing in British business and industry. Its been going on since Thatcher. Businesses in this country can't compete on the work markets which means less growth, less jobs and therefore less tax. Whenever a British company starts to be a success it gets bought by a foreign company who pay workers low wages (less tax again) and milk the company dry whilst avoiding paying corporation tax. East Germany went from a failed communist state in the 80's to the biggest economy on Europe because it invested in and subsidised industry. Same as Japan after the war, same as China is doing now. We can't pay the tax needed to fix things if we're all out of work or low paid! Something needs to change now as we are on a near unstoppable downward spiral. Putting a penny on income tax won't do a thing. Sorry, rant over!

I’m not sure people realise how much social care costs - and the majority on the younger members of society, not the elderly. Some private special schools charge in excess of £70,000 per year per child. Day rate, £100,000 is not unusual. This is usually paid by the LA. Times that by the amount of children needing this per LA and you can find out where millions, literally millions of pounds goes. It is horrendous and I have no idea how to solve this unless the LAs have their own special schools.

And of course they did have their own special schools, until they were closed, and profit making private enterprise took over.

NHS, get rid of the ridiculous "Quality initiatives" which middle managers implement, in a bid to further their own careers.
I've worked on units that were extremely short staffed and yet, all staff would be required to down tools once a fortnight for 3 hours, working on new projects that we had literally had to wrack our brains to come up with. So clearly not that important, but something for Katie to talk about at her next interview.
What the NHS needs is to let clinicians get on with treating people, get rid of middle managers and appoint more clinicians.

Re adult social care, people need to know that care is not free, CHC is nigh on impossible to obtain, therefore they need to plan accordingly. I meet people every day who insist that everyone else has to pay for Dad's care home, because they want to inherit his £1million house.

Local councils, still throwing money at ridiculous art installations. Wigan council and the £75k phallic, black pudding rocket, next to broken children's play equipment that they can't afford to fix.
Our parish council gets an allowance every year, from the govt, that is earmarked to be given to charity. Just why? They usually spend it on easter eggs for the local primary kids and nice bunches of flowers for whoever they deem would like one, (usually their relatives).

Universities, big waste of money, akin to a MLM scheme. How many psychology grads do we actually need? Spend 3 years watching SpongeBob square pants and smoking dope, learning how to be lazy, while getting into debt. Even medical students struggle to get a job after graduation. Degree apprenticeships are the way forwards.

Environment, well several of our local farms have had to be sold to pay increased inheritance tax, snapped up by rich townies who, granted, have made beautiful homes, with pools and hangars for classic cars, but who is going to produce food once all these farms have gone? I hate that Labour are reducing planning rules and allowing new housing on greenbelt land.
Also stop "tidying up" the countryside in the name of conservation. Our council spent millions tidying an area of wilderness, that was full of cuckoos, swifts, sand martin's, garden warblers, firecrest and lesser spotted woodpeckers, and turned it into a busy "nature reserve" that is so busy all the birds have left. But hey, their mates in fencing supplies, environmental surveying, and mobile coffee vendors did ok.

In 2022 a study published in the Journal of Epidemimology and Community Health found over 330,000 excess deaths in the UK over a 7 year period , attributing them to austerity policies and welfare cuts.
The Department of Work and pensions released figures in 2024 showing the number of children living in poverty in the UK reached its highest level (4.45 million) since comparative records began in 2002 and they are still rising.
Even the United Nations poverty envoy warned the UK that poverty levels in the UK were not acceptable.
But there is always more money for 'defence' and most of that money is not being used to defend UK territory anyway, it's used for proxy wars outside of the UK.

Wilderhawthorn

Watch Sky News - they regularly give exactly that breakdown

You just have to look at who is getting richer...

The number of billionaires in the UK has risen from 15 in 1990 to 165 in 2024.