We’ll all take the hit

[Tiredofthis2022]

Hi. If we’re all going to take the hit, more cuts higher taxes. I have a few thoughts on where we might start.

First like to see the numbers in the Lords reduced significantly, we can’t afford to support this number.

I do not want to see any cuts to education, disability or carers, if they have to come I want to see change at the top first.

Any other ideas?

Stop mp expenses and 2nd homes. They can travel to work like everyone else.
Stop their highly discounted bar and restaurant.
Stop tax loopholes.
Get rid of police and crime commissioners.

Oh I would let liz truss have her 100k life salary for the 40 odd days she worked ! Fucking joke

And yet my awful MP (and others) manages to have a 2nd job. So maybe it’s not as full-time as you suggest?

@1001Daffodils

just for clarity - MPs are not civil servants

you couldnt have performance related pay based on implementation of the manifesto. How are opposition MPs meant to do that?

MPs do of course need scrutiny, the pay and expenses is a dogs dinner as are the payments made to former ministers when they are sacked. Not paying Matt Hancock when he is the jungle, or Boris when he is one of his multiple holidays when the House is sitting for example. There is much that could be done.

Slimming down the House of Lords really isn’t going to save the country an impactful amount of money. It’s a tiny drop in the ocean.

We need to start taxing corporations properly, then we won’t need to make savings elsewhere. Did you know in Norway oil companies are taxed at 78%? If we did the same we would make billions of additional revenue. Instead, we say we’re going to apply a windfall tax and the oil companies all dodge it by “investing” in the UK oil industry - the very same industry that we should be moving away from.

Just tax people properly. Tax foreign investors buying up swathes of London flats. Close the offshore account loopholes. Tax huge companies appropriately. Tax the energy companies making obscene profits out of the war in Ukraine.

Make it impossible for the Government of the day to give lucrative contracts to their chums with no public accountability.

Sort out the fucking housing crisis!

The UK is a poor relation in Europe now, let alone the world. It's an embarrassment to live here.

It is more than full time if done properly. If you have a shit MP, that is the fault of the voters in your constituency, but the majority of MPs work long hours.

Have you ever spent any time in politics, met many MPs? Like all walks of life, they vary.

There is no good to be gained by making parliament less effective than currently. The answer is to replace your shit MP! I personally favour PR, that way there are fewer safe seats for life. But they should be paid properly.

Parliamentary funding is important for democratic reasons but is a drop in the ocean in the national budget.

Back in the early 20th century, PMs were paid the equivalent of about £300,000 today - but now they get about £80,000. The expenses scandal was because they claimed loads because salaries hadn't kept pace with pay, it was a way of paying them more without the public getting angry about it.

Most politicians aren't greedy, they could earn way more elsewhere and with shorter hours and less stress from public harassment, press coverage etc.

There aren't any easy answers to where money is going to come from. I think retirees might have to stump up some because some of them have the most disposable income - younger working generations have higher housing costs, student loans, childcare etc and simply can't pay more.

I am happy to pay more tax to help but only if everyone contributes.

Align public sector salaries to the equivalent private sector salaries and align the benefits to match too, including pension, holidays and sick pay. We can’t afford to up all the public sector salaries without looking at the whole benefit package.

Properly sort out the benefits system so that those with a genuine inability to work or a genuine need to work part time (such as having a disability) have a proper income and can afford more than the basics, but those who don’t have a genuine need, or are choosing to work part time, only get a small amount of benefits for a set period of time.

Reform childcare so that it isn’t a barrier to working more hours and nursery staff get paid a decent salary.

Streamline management and non essential paperwork/other tasks in the NHS and education so there is more money available instead of having to find more funding. More funding when that has been done if there still isn’t enough.

I think the current salary is too low. I would raise the salary, cut expenses (personal, not the office) and restrict second jobs much more (not entirely as e.g. doctors need to retain their licence/training, but restrict the time allowed).

I am sick of the public baying for blood with MPs, then being surprised when not many genuinely public-minded people want to do it - you have to have the skin of a rhino.

@lannistunut is exactly right.

I find it really embarrassing how little people know about how parliament works and the job of the MP. They've clearly heard a moan about "MPs expenses" / all politicians abuse the system and parrot it.

Two MPs have been murdered in recent years, just doing their job. This ignorance and tarnishing all MPs with the brush of a bad few adds to the sort of climate where murders happen.

I understand your point, along with arguments about salaries and expenses being at a level to attract the right calibre of people to the job.

They are often the same type of arguments used for the heads of large charities, for example.

My retort would be (and this is a genuine question, not a provocation), if MPs are as competent and hard working as you say, why has the country been so poorly ran for so long?

I think something like 16pc of NHS staff have opted out of paying into their pensions.

I didn't say ALL were competent, ever.

I am not going to say it was utopia pre-2010. But I would argue that the absolute rot only started in 2010. Prior to 2010 UKGov was hugely respected internationally, and functioned as well as any parliament.

When you say 'do badly run for so long' - what date do you put on that? I have political issues with governments prior to 2010 but it is only since that I have been genuinely ashamed of our government in its entirety.

The issue with all these suggestions is that the amount saved would be minuscule and essentially irrelevant in the scheme of things compared to (say) freezing benefits / state pension / public sector spending or increasing income tax by a percentage point or any other change which affects a large percentage of society rather than just a few hundred MPs. (Not saying I want to do any of those things but those are the sort of changes which affect the bottom line)

MPs are relatively badly paid given the responsibility, skill and work involved to be a good one. I make more than an MP and I’m an averagely paid lawyer. If you make it any less attractive most people who will do it will be people who are already wealthy or people who aren’t very good.

Well, my awareness of politics really only started in the early 90s. And every government, and often Parliament, since then has been poor, or worse. I could name the big hitters- Black Friday, Maastricht, 2nd Gulf War, 2008 financial crisis, austerity etc. But it’s much more than that. Unlike you, I don’t feel that UK Gov has been respected internationally or that it’s functioned particularly well. I notice that you give 2010 as a watershed; is that because of your political views? How do you feel the 80s were, for example?

We wouldn’t need higher taxes or to cut vital services if people and companies at the top paid their fair share of taxes.

I think that winter fuel allowance should be means tested as with the recent fuel allowance. No one in my road needs this ( including us). My MIL does not need it. Crazy that it’s given out to everyone - must be a huge saving possible here surely?

It just always feels that those who put in the most get the least out but I don't know how to make it fairer.

I would challenge anyone who thinks their public sector pension isn't generous to do an online calculator about what the equivalent private pension would pay out based on what they pay in....my place of work has lost several staff members to public sector jobs recently, equivalent pay, generous pension/maternity/paid sick leave, flexible working etc etc

Also a lot of the tax rises discussed in this thread have already been done e.g there is a 2% surcharge on SDLT for non-resident buyers. There’s an annual tax called ATED on certain properties. Non-residents also now pay capital gains tax on sale of UK property.

HMRC and the government have put huge effort into closing loopholes and tightening up anti-avoidance rules in the last decade. I could reel off dozens of really radical initiatives e.g general anti avoidance rule, recent reforms to off payroll working rules, anti-phoenixing rules, diverted profits tax. Uk anti-avoidance legislation is quite advanced internationally and we are often ahead of the OECD e.g with our digital services tax.

It isn’t reported much in the press because most of the press and the public don’t understand tax and aren’t that interested except to occasionally pop up to say more should be done when they have no idea what is already being done.

I think they should focus more on tax enforcement than new rules for a while. The government keeps cutting HMRC’s budget though which makes little sense. I think most big corporates and wealthy individuals are compliant with tax law (or at least their or their advisor’s understanding of it) but I’m sure HMRC could collect more under the current law if they had more manpower.

@Hazlenutlatte23 the big problem with teachers' pensions is that they are entirely unfunded, unlike local government pensions for example which are just under funded. So in order to pay the current retired teachers you don't have any assets at all generating a return, you just have the current teachers contributing.
If current teachers stopped contributing to that scheme and bought into defined contribution schemes like most of the rest of us, the taxpayer would not only have to pay all the currently retired teachers, they would also have to pay all the pensions owed to the future retired teachers from the contributions they've been paying in (many at 8-10% a year so much higher than the average private sector worker). It might not go down well with the voters.

I don't think your view of politics is grounded in the reality of doing politics. You may not 'feel' the UK govt was respected internationally but that is incorrect - we may not have been respected/agreed with on policy grounds but the system was respected.

My view since 2010 - and more specifically since 2016 really - is based on:
-undermining civil service
-not resigning for minsiterial breaches
-PMs repeatedly resigning
-breaking the unwritten constitution (prorogation the most extreme example)
-inflated honours lists
-funding/defunding/refunding schemes at rapid speeds

The system has been strained beyond belief just recently.

I would stop wasting money on hotels and prison camps on asylum seekers who want to work and are being deprived of their liberty and human dignity.
I would allow them to apply for asylum wherever they are right now, as the Ukrainians did, instead of forcing them to come to the UK to apply. Then when they arrive they will have a guaranteed status and can get on with supporting themselves much more quickly. It would be much more humane.
I would apply the value for money criteria which is applied to most public sector spending to ministerial contracts in particular and with rigour. Any MPs/ministers who were found to have awarded overpriced contracts to their friends by an independent body such as the national audit office should lose their job, be unfit for future public office and depending on the severity lose future benefits such as pensions if there was fraud involved.
I would means test all benefits. If you're a higher rate taxpayer you don't need a free bus pass or warm home pensioner discount or child benefit, not when it's our children paying it off with interest.
I would lower VAT and raise the personal allowance/national insurance threshold so that the lowest earners pay least.
I would consider some type of housing buyback to redress the right to buy sale - it couldn't be compulsory but there's going to be a big market slowdown, rents may become unaffordable as landlords look to pass on their higher borrowing costs so this might be the best opportunity councils or housing associations have had to buy existing properties in their local areas to rent out on secure tenancies.

@Chessie678 👏