MNHQ here: Got a question for the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak MP?

[JuliaMumsnet]

Hi all,

It's clear from the boards that Mumsnet users are feeling the squeeze from the rising cost of living. So we're pleased to say that later this week, Justine will be sitting down with the man who holds the nation's purse strings, Chancellor Rishi Sunak, to ask him your questions.

If you have a question you'd like answering, you can post it below. Please stick to the usual guidelines - one question per user, keep it civil, and if one topic is dominating, please don't continue to post what's effectively the same question or point. We'll be limited for time so we won't be able to ask every question - but we'll try to make sure we cover the topics that we know are important to Mumsnet users.

We'll be closing the thread at midnight tonight, so please do get your questions in before that - and watch this space to hear the Chancellor's responses!

Thanks,
MNHQ

I am a TA. At the end of March I received my pay rise for 2021/2022 all at once due to union vs LA 'discussions'. My total increase for the whole year came to just over £120, so about £10 a month. My gas and electric bills have increased by 3x that amount, food bills have increased, council tax and petrol have increased and even with an increase in my husband's pension, we are nowhere near the income needed to maintain our already frugal lifestyle. We don't go on holiday, drink, smoke or have savings. How do you propose we survive the next winter ?
Supplementary question - how do you sleep at night, knowing that so many people are suffering, and genuinely concerned about surviving.

Hello Rishi

Your increases to NI are a bad thing, done at the worst possible time - when everyone is coping with higher fuel bills and few people have a pay rise anywhere near current inflationary rates.

What are your plans to put this right for the ordinary working person? I seem to be paying a fortune in tax and NI but when I try to get a doctor's appointment through the NHS I am paying for, I am told there is a 3 week wait.

What are you getting from this job to justify your wife paying millions in tax to keep you in post?

Do you think you could do better? If yes, what aren’t you?

Damnit! Try again:

Do you think you could do better? If yes, why aren’t you?

I would love to see this. It should be mandatory that they live on UC or ESA for a couple of months, but including paying rent or mortgage from it too. It’s time to stop the privileged few making decisions for the rest of us, when they haven’t a clue what it’s like to worry about how to feed your family due to no fault of your own, just because you weren’t born into money.

When are you actually going to do something for unpaid carers?

We got no help during the pandemic as we are on "legacy benefits " (DLA and Carers Allowance). This is despite our loved ones having to shield, my daughter didn't go to school for 6 months!

I was caring 24 hours a day, seven days a week as our carers stopped coming (but even then we were only entitled to 3 hours per week).

Utility bills are sky rocketing, and anyone who has a medically dependent relative knows that they need their suction machines, CPAPs, electric wheelchairs charging, feeding pumps charging, the heating and air conditioning working yet you won't help the people who are saving you hundreds of thousands, if not millions, in care costs per year.

I am unable to work due to ill health.

When I was working I paid into a [pension and I paid NI contributions.

I now receive contribution based ESA, but it is reduced because I receive a pension.

If a benefit is paid based on contributions how can you justify reducing it because an individual aso paid into a pension scheme?

Will you (your party) do this with the Old Age pension when I reach retirement age?

Exactly how was Brexit a success from the point of view of anyone earning below/ living on less than £ 30000 a year?

Also when are you going to compensate waspi women?

What are you planning to do about the housing crisis, with so many of us unable to afford to buy a home? I have spent 20 years renting and giving so much money to landlords. In the last few years, I tried to improve things by using the shared ownership scheme as it was the only way to get on to the property ladder at all. I've looked at staircasing, but it needs a terrifyingly large mortgage til I'm 75 (the latest they will go) and I've been refused it anyway, because lenders won't lend on flats in case there are cladding issues (there aren't; we're low rise, but that doesn't seem to matter - the government won't stop them from refusing on these grounds!). Mortgages are going up, I'm looking at taking on enormous amounts of debts until long past retirement age, I can't afford to live on a pension and still pay the rent, I'm just at a total loss. And I have a relatively good job, too, but as a single person, can't afford anything because of paying rent for so many years. This is going to be a huge crisis in terms of housing and pensions in a very short time, with so many people unable to retire, ever. What kind of plans have you to avert that crisis?

Hi
given that climate change pauses an existential threat to humanity, why is the treasury not throwing every possible resource at trying to fix it.

Can you please re consider the £200 energy loan that will apply to all & be repaid automatically over 4 years. It is not fair on those starting out (after October) who'll be paying back something they never got the benefit for.

There's loads of other unfair things of course but the above is unfair and so stupid.

Here's an idea, Rishi. Are you going to give children on DLA and adults on PIP a generous winter fuel grant? (Not a loan, a non-repayable grant.)

Related question: without checking with Therese Coffey, have you got any idea how incredibly difficult and stressful it is for adults with disabilities and illnesses to claim PIP, and how low the benefit amounts are for some of the most vulnerable in society - people who frequently have contributed a great deal to their communities and would like to still do so?

Would you like to come and work with me, for one day, at home?

bring your blankets, gloves and hat because despite 2 adults working full time, we can’t afford to heat it. Home energy now £252 a month - WITHOUT USING THE HEATING!

supplementary question - could you please donate some of your spare cash to my family please? We’re all in it together, right?

if you started looking after those not wealthy instead of the other way around, the country would be thriving.

Agree.

Do you think it is appropriate that so many are needing to rely on food banks to make ends meet in this day and age? Do you think this is acceptable?

And it is these people who are finding it difficult to cope already that are going to struggle with their energy Bill's come winter.

Why have the energy companies not been forced to take on most of the cost of the rises? Similar to how they have on the continent?

Having done plenty of research, academic and otherwise, evidencing that the bedroom tax is unfit for purpose, when are you going to abolish it?

All this does is cause additional hardship and force people out of their homes and if fortunate to be relocated in to homes that not suitable or appropriate.

over 440,000 UK residents are being forced to pay for something unfairly charged or to move homes without regard to their personal circumstances and little guidance on how to get what very little help is available.

Are the Tories the enemies of the working classes?

I just saw this question asked in a period drama set around 1919. Doesn't look like anything has changed. Although a lot of us have been hoodwinked into believing they had.

Now that home ownership is even further out of the reach of many first time buyers, thanks to the stamp duty holiday which had the effect of pushing up house prices to a ridiculous extent (three bed terraces round here have gone up 28% in 18 months):

• Do you still think the stamp duty holiday was a good idea?
• are you planning on any new schemes / ideas to help first time buyers?

As at 2021, HM Treasury was part of the Stonewall Diversity Champions Scheme.

mobile.twitter.com/hmtreasury/status/1362350050031116289

If Alison Bailey is successful in her ongoing tribunal hearing against (among others) Stonewall, will you commit to HM Treasury leaving the scheme, and breaking any other ties with Stonewall, and making a public statement to confirm this?

Why have you decided to punish the most vulnerable in this country? Whilst your millionaire friends are getting richer by the second.

How do you sleep at night knowing parents and the elderly are having to chose between heating and eating? Worrying about how much electricity is being used just to cook, watching the numbers going up on their smart meter with dread.

Knowing that it's only going to get worse for these people, knowing that in winter many won't be able to use their heating.

Dear Mr Sunak,

I quote below a post I made in the Feminism boards in response to a question about voting in the upcoming local elections. I am a Conservative Party member, and even participated in the selection committee for my local council candidates, all of whom I like a great deal and will be sorry not to vote for. However, given that a vote for them would sadly be seen as a vote of support for the Johnson government, I simply cannot put my Xes in their boxes at this current time. Great local Conservative candidates - and long-serving Conservative councillors - are going to lose in ten days’ time thanks to the antics of your boss, because normal voters cannot lend the Party their support. Please could you share your thoughts on the fact that even a great number of Party members feel unable to support the Party under Johnson? How will you and Mr Johnson apologise to those Conservative councillors who lose, or fail to gain, council seats because of the way national government has conducted itself in recent times? Thank you.

My previous post follows below:

”I’m a member of the Conservative party but will either spoil my ballot because this government is the worst I’ve lived through, or I might even vote Lab because 1) I’ve chewed off the ears of all my local candidates (am in a marginal ward so there has been a LOT of canvassing since Jan!) and our local Lab candidates are fully on board with single sex provision and why it’s essential for full female participation in society, and 2) I genuinely believe it’s in the best interests of the Conservative party to suffer losses at the elections because then we can get rid of Johnson, get someone sensible in, and bring integrity back to our party. We won’t get that opportunity if the party does well at the locals, because he will then cling on. We need rid of him, we need sense and decency, someone who says “hold on a minute, let’s have a think about this” instead of simply waving through some dreadful policy, and we need someone who will appoint a Cabinet of people who want to do a good job rather than just be yes-men and yes-women.

I've debated resigning my party membership but I want to be able to help select a decent leader when he goes. He’s mismanaging so many things, I can’t believe he hasn’t been forced out yet. The cost of living crisis combined with this stupid back-to-the-office push is going to hit families - and mainly women - with children hardest. And disabled people on low incomes. The Rwanda deportation proposals are unworkable and unconscionable when there are so many other potential options that are both cheaper and don’t involve sending people to countries where human rights violations take place. And he just bloody well lies and lies and lies, and his ministers lie for him too. I’m waiting for the VoNC that must, must be on the horizon - and will definitely be, if we suffer sizeable losses in the locals. So I really do believe the best thing I can do for the future of the country and party is to take whatever actions I can to help get rid of Johnson.

And that might mean voting Labour in a fortnight’s time, something I haven’t done since the 2001 general election. Luckily I have decent local Lab candidates, if I had some TWAW types then I would be 100% decided on spoiling my ballot!”

How does the Treasury justify charging all customers for the cost of the losses of the privatised companies by increasing the standing charge. The cost in the SW - slightly above the cap - for customers who pay by dd is £285 for the standing charge alone. So there will be poorer families, pensioners and disabled people who will be paying nearly £1 a day before they can boil a kettle, bath wash clothes or cook let alone heating. The Treasury is benefitting from the additional VAT on these amounts. Rents in Cornwall, if families can find a home, have soared and as many need to travel by car so has the cost of getting to work.

With the probability of increased energy costs in September most people won't want loans they have to repay in the future. I have seen a copy of your letter that was sent to the MP'S when you set out your strategy to help people.

Hi Rishi,

Sir Kevan Collins was appointed by your government as a covid catch-up tsar for children. He put together an ambitious package of support measures costing £15 billion to mitigate the damage done to children's education and well-being during the pandemic. He reported several positive meetings with yourself and the Prime Minister, then the Treasury pulled the plug and awarded a paltry £1.4 billion to the DfE instead, to be spent on tutoring. The tutoring contract went to the lowest bidder, Randstad, who were totally unsuitable, the programme failed and children have been left woefully under-supported educationally, physically and mentally by your government at a critical point in their young lives.

Other countries have poured money into their covid recovery programmes, rightly recognising that the well-being and education of the next generation are vital for the prosperous future of their country.

I would like to know why you decided that the education and well-being of our children are not a priority and that our children deserve far less investment in covid recovery than those in other countries?