AIBU to want spending cuts rather than more tax rises?

[PinkFruitbat]

The foundations are being laid for more tax rises in the October Budget.

https://www.ft.com/content/6d43b599-3d7c-471c-88c2-0f056475a840?syn-25a6b1a6=1

AIBU to ask for savings in spending to help balance the budget rather than more taxes.

With welfare spending at nearly £1bn each day, when is enough, enough?

I think MP’s and councillors get more communication than ever before especially with emails etc.
Years ago you visited their surgery on a month or you wrote them a letter!
Can you imagine how much complaints about god knows what before they get to something they can actually help with!
I feel sorry for the poor member of staff having to read everything!

@EasternStandard yes, I think we have to move to a broader tax base and stop relying on taxing PAYE income so much, capital and inherotance needs to be taxed more. It is wild I recentlty got taxed 40% on a £1.5k work bonus but someone else can trouser hundreds of thousands tax free for simply being born to the right family.

I would tackle tax evasion - including for small businesses and self employed peope who are, in aggregate, some of the worst offenders.

We also need to make our peace with the fact the biggest growth in NHS spending and benefits is going to come from an aging population and focus some tax and/or savings at that cohort. .

Councils could save money by cutting residual waste collections to monthly. Recycling and food waste should be mandatory with fines for putting recycling or food waste into the residual waste bin. Ideally households should be charged for the waste they dispose of instead of the flat charge via council tax.
Much higher fines for flytipping and catch more flytippers , most flytipping is black bag waste. People should be made to be responsible for the rubbish they create and if they don’t recycle they pay more.
Waste crime should be tackled aggressively (government has recently made a good start) but more needs to be done to tackle the situation that has allowed criminals to move into the enforcement vacuum left by years of conservative government under funding and weak policies.

There's very little point trying to have a reasoned debate here. I suppose I'm one of the 'lazy work shy'. After spending my whole working life in a public service role, I was diagnosed with a brain tumour (which also rendered me deaf) so I can't work. I can tell you that benefits are very hard to get and do not finance a life of luxury.
I'm guessing you know fairly little about the realities of real poverty. I'm sure we can all find anecdotal evidence to back up our firmly-held views. But at some point you may find something happens to you, or your loved ones, that means you need the (frayed and massively underfunded and clearly resented) safety net of social support. I hope it's still there when you need it.

What would you really cut that would make a significant impact ?

for example

how would you pay staff to catch fly tipper and check on waste if you are cutting costs ?

And if we want more people in work we need a lot more money on mental health support and the NHS

Define a 'huge' amount. I have employment, rental and investment income which can vary each year. I'm above the average income and in the additional rate but I live in the south-east and I'm not loaded.

Yes I would agree with that.

I fail to see why you (England and Wales) can't pay the same tax rates as us (Scotland). For all your complaining you pay 2p less for your Higher Rate and yours starts at 50k while ours starts at around 43667.

I highly doubt any of us went bankrupt or suddenly became homeless or could no longer afford a cup of tea (or whatever).

Thanks for your answer. Administrators is a pretty big umbrella. That covers everything from Border Force staff providing immigration and customs services to officials in Parliament. Do you have any specific groups you'd target?

HR, as unhelpful as I find them at times, provide a pretty fundamental role in ensuring business critical processes such as recruitment, performance and dismissal run smoothly and minimise risk to the business. I wouldn't want to run a poor performance process as a manager without them.

Social media feels less critical and I agree this is probably where I would look but how do you raise awareness of policy changes without them?

Had a look on Civil Service Jobs as you suggested but struggled to work out how many diversity vacancies the Civil Service has to be honest. Loads of adverts come up for diversity but that's not because they are diversity specialists. One was an IT specialist. It must be because of the standard job advert wording which says they're an inclusive employer.

I've also had a look on the civil service jobs website for interpreters and I found 0 adverts. Of course you have conflated central and local government (local government aren't the civil service and don't use civil service jobs) so maybe you were thinking of local government or NHS? They're wider public sector though, not civil service.

I think you'd find it a lot harder to cut 25% of civil servants than you realise.

Civil service cuts don't work because the result is that the civil service then has to bring in consultants to do jobs that they were previously equipped to do in-house. The consultants, who incidentally work for organisations that are chums with the tories and reform, then charge the civil service £5k a day to march in, declare it all inefficient and provide a crap slide pack to 'solve' it all that could have been produced by an existing HEO in 2 hours for about £20.

Google tells me major accounting and consulting firms have already secured £1.25 billion in government contracts during 2026.

Thank you for this insightful post. I agree with you.

I also agree with this. Cutting civil service hasn't actually led to cost savings in the long run once you factor in consultancy pay.

Big companies need taxing properly, big earner need to stop being able to use loopholes to evade tax.
Stop trying to squeeze even more out of the poor.

Another backing this up (as usual first reply nails it).

We are already seeing the fall out of children whose families lost community services when they were babies.

What do you suggest?

Because if we cut more we’ll need more prisons - that will also cost the tax payer.

Agree and how much is wasted taking parents to court and loosing over ehcp etc

We do need more prisons anyway.

Pensions do need to be reformed we should move away from state pensions and people just privately saving up. We need to reduce the size of the state

I disagree families passing their wealth on is nothing to do with your being taxed on your extra.

“NHS incompetency and bloat” - so fucking disrespectful. Do you know that the NHS management spend is proportionately lower than private sector? That services and standards can’t manage themselves? That many NHS workers are absolutely overrun with work, from helping you and your family, our community and ensuring every blood box is ticked so we don’t get sued, are compliant with law, and continue to adapt to a growing nation of unhealthy people?!

It’s so easy to point the finger, when the reality is so different. I’d recommend you increase your knowledge before making sweeping statements.

I think we need huge nhs reform. And to stop this nonsense view that everyone in the nhs is amazing and works so hard. It is wasteful and people need to pay a small contribution for frequent use

Totally agree with previous poster about increasing inheritance tax. No one is entitled to inherited wealth. They don’t “deserve” it simply for being born to parents or grandparents who have excess wealth. It’s inherently unequal and should be heavily taxed.

Want money, earn it and save it.

Definitely cut the DEI managers

There is nothing left to cut,we have had 30years of budget cuts- what would you suggest cutting? Civil service and the armed forces cut back to the bone, roads and pavements worse than l have ever known them (I'm 64). Education budget per child lower than most European countries and lower than Scotland or Wales.Higher education is the most expensive it has ever been.Seriously what would you cut?

Mandatory in person pip review would cost more money than it saves.

a large number of people on pip have what is known as acquired injuries - so stroke heart attack motorbike accident and the like. These are generally well documented with medical evidence of admission, treatment, etc etc.

in person review would just cost more.

but if you want it go for it. I’m on pip following an accident that means I use a wheelchair and I honestly don’t care about going to an in person,

you’d need to have people who go out to homes to assess people for all the people in care homes who are too disabled to live at home.

25% cut to welfare if it included pensions (and pensions make up a lot of the welfare bill) will lose whatever party suggests it the next election. There are a LOT of pensioners and they vote.

if it doesn’t include pensions then you’ll have to do some savage cuts to UC (which largely goes to families in work).