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

Zoe Ley bought a £7m house on 2021 off the back of government fast-tracked PPE deals. She likely made tens of millions more.

Before that she had made more than £1m in losses selling luxury dog food. She had good connections and came from aristocracy.

Is this good?

Firstly thanks to MNHQ for organising this - I'll be genuinely fascinated to read the answers

What I would like to know is what were your reasons for entering politics / joining the conservative party and do you feel that you have genuinely achieved those aims?

Why are we still seeing the LTA in place, why is this beneficial, as this caps pensionable income at around £50k per year. People should be encouraged to save and spend

You are clearly clever. Aren’t you worried that everyone on here is asking negative questions?

In interviews you say that you can only raise money through taxation or borrowing, but this isn't true. Last year you crated hundreds of millions of pounds out of thin air, to give private businesses for covid contracts. Why are you not more open about how public finances work?

I have questions about the social care cap.

1. will the cap be applied to people already in care, or only those facing new care charges? And please can you define ‘social care’ ie what constitutes a care cost - does companionship count as social care? Music therapy?
2. Currently, those in self funded care subsidise those in local authority funded care, because the govt funding is too low to contribute to adequate staffing, overheads etc. Care homes recoup these costs from self funding residents. Under the new system, it seems this problem will continue to arise, with the families of people who use carers being asked to subsidise govt funding when the individual’s own assets are depleted. What will you do to stop a two tier system developing as a result?

if I’m allowed a third question: Given the social care cap acknowledges that social care is a universal basic need and a right, what role does profit for private companies play in this system? Is it right that tax payers will be paying into the profits for private care home companies?

The money hard working people earn through their work is taxed more highly through income tax than the money the wealth earn by returns on the assets they own and just sit on with no effort - property, shares, investments, etc. How can you justify this?

I am a single parent. I don’t receive child benefit since I’m deemed too ‘rich’ despite earning less than many 2 parent households who both earn under the threshold. I cannot afford a home of my own since rents are beyond my reach in the area I live in & house prices on average 15 times my annual salary so buying is obviously out of question. I have never claimed benefits and have worked since I finished uni bar 7 months of maternity leave.

my taxes are now increasing at the same time as inflation soaring. Despite pay increases due to working obscene hours I am going backwards, standard of living reducing year on year. I fear I’ll never own a home now as I’m simply too old to get and settle s mortgage before retirement. I can’t afford to save for retirement. The future looks bleak.

How do you expect people like me to manage and how will the Uk accommodate a generation of people who no home in retirement & unable to afford rent due to inadequate pension ?

You don’t seem in touch with the electorate.
Do you think you are?

Could you please name three concrete things that have improved in the UK as a direct result of Brexit? Please provide full evidence of any claims you make about this.

I remember once you had a photo taken making tea with Yorkshire tea (I approve, most brands are too weak imo). I have several questions.

Bag or loose leaf?
How long do you let your tea brew?
Milk before or after?
Pot or in-cup?

Thank you for your attention in this matter.

Please can you explain, so I can show my 12-year old daughter, why the government is not funding Evusheld which gained its MHRA licence on 17/3/22 so parents like me who have not developed antibodies from their vaccine can at last have “Freedom Day”? Please don’t try and fob me off by suggesting it’s a question for DHSC, you hold the purse strings.

You spent literally millions on eat out to spread it about - so why not fund something to help people like me keep healthy & keep active in the economy? I work & pay taxes but not funding Evusheld shows the contempt you hold for the thousands of people in this position, where because of medical conditions we have not responded to the vaccine.

The cost is surely cheaper than ICU stays for higher risk/vulnerable patients like me, let alone potential education/social work intervention costs in the event of my death from covid?

Doyou think you could live on Universal Credit? For you and your wife it would be £509.91 per month.

Do you know anyone who livesn on Universal Credit?

Question to @JuliaMumsnet

What are the time frames for questions to be answered - sorry if I missed the date. Thank you

See also: biscuits, tea and Star Wars. It’s just not light hearted or cute or unique. It’s an opportunity for the sound bite to be ‘Dishi Rishi tells MN he always wanted to be a Jedi!’ Rather than ‘chancellor can’t answer a simple question on universal credit.’

The housing crisis has expanded exponentially.

Hundreds/maybe a couple of thousand houses have/are still being built on precious greenfield sites near me.

These greenfield sites had suddenly been declared 'brownfield' sites inexplicably.
Can you explain?

Our region has a huge amount of derilict sites yet many of these sites have been untouched since the sixties and seventies.
Can you explain?

Once these cheaply built, clapboard covered grey painted homes are built, they are immediately put up for rent .
Can you explain?

Many of these cheaply built housing estates require annual payments for upkeep for their environs . Surely councils should be trimming hedges and grass cutting?
Can you explain?

Many of these clapboard cheap homes are already showing signs of wear before the last of the homes, on the estate are being built.
Can you explain?

The housing development near us has upwards of two thousand new homes , all in a rural area, which was mainly fruit farming which has mainly collapsed due to having hardly any pickers.
Can you explain?

These vast housing developments were built with promises of new local doctors .
Our current GP practices can't cope now and new doctors surgeries haven't arrived.
Can you explain?

Now new dentists either and almost no existing surgeries offer NHS services.
Can you explain?

Too many people , no doubt folk like you, decided to buy property at whatever the cost as you knew that property is a safe investment.
Vast tracts of pretty places are uninhabited now due to greedy people with property portfolios.

Huge swaths of Cornwall, parts of Wales, parts of Scotland, Northern Ireland and the English coast lye empty for much of the year...as well as the Dales, Peak District and many other touristy areas.

Locals are priced out and local businesses suffer national chains won't invest in smaller places and local public services are facing a recruitment crisis as a result of people not being able to afford to move to such places.
Can you explain.

SEN needs are being hideously overlooked .
Endless meetings are required with poor provision in schools.
LIFT meetings are determined to throw issues back to schools which can't afford the extra provision as Higher Needs Funding is onerous to apply for.
Can you explain?

Your and your wife's tax affairs seem odd as are your and your wife's domicile issues.
Are you really a US citizen?
Can you explain?

So as a single mum this.month not only have i had an increase in £100 in gas and electric, i've also had a £40 increase in my food shopping, I've had a £15 increase in my petrol cost and as WELL AS ALL THAT due to the national insurance hikes I got £100 less in my pay packet. Thats £255 extra a month that i suddenly have to find to make ends meet....where should I find it from Rishi?

Apologies for spelling and grammar.

Apologies for spelling and grammar.

I’d like to know why the nhs is underfunded to such an extent that in my early 40s I’ve been struggling to walk for the last 4 years and am still waiting for surgery. Can’t all be blamed on covid as it started before then. I didn’t even get seen within two weeks when on a 2 week cancer pathway. Similar to my friends husband who died a couple of months ago from cancer after been fobbed off and fobbed off and unable to be seen, delays in referral, delays in treatment. You have responsibility for deciding funding surely?

no nhs dentist, no chance of any physio, no mental health support for my Dd who’s just taken her second recent overdose. 111 don’t even bother calling back about overdoses when they say they’ll get a medic to call back. Still waiting!

£200 increase in energy costs, £100 extra on fuel, house prices rising to such an extent my kids will never be able to buy a house, NI increase, price of everything is going up not just food.

and I read it’s going to cost you 12 k a year to heat your outdoor pool at home number 4 (or is it 5). My heart bleeds.

Do you REALLY believe we are all (still) in this together? If so - why? When people are facing mounting food and fuel bills on unliveable wages / benefits. Do you really think the financial hit is being shared equally?

Our household income ranks in the top 9-15% of British households according to the IFS. Yet we are shocked when we realize our energy bills will treble. We have a relatively affordable mortgage of £1k by London standards (less than a quarter of take home pay after tax and pension). We have no car and are still childless. Yet we feel the pinch. I cannot imagine how the rest of the population feels.

I do not understand how you as the chancellor can fail to realize the impact on the vast majority of people. Unless you truly believe that you are the chancellor of the top 1%, rather than the chancellor of the British people. Your £150 tax rebate and klarna style loan is derisory. You could have imposed windfall taxes on the energy companies but you chose not to. You chose to let the British people suffer.

P.s..you do know that more low income people than high income people vote for the Tories. You are literally freezing your voter base. Oh and the old. The people who can't just pop a jumper on cos they are more likely to have health problems. Who wants to kill their voter base?

Oh I have many... but here are just a few:

1. Why did you quickly write off almost £5 billion in furlough fraud? Surely that should have been investigated?
2. Where's the £350 million a week for the NHS?
3. How can a country that is so wealthy have so many people living in poverty, or homeless, or on the breadline? There's no real safety net as the years of austerity measures have ripped massive holes in anything that once existed to help those in need,
4. Why was it ok for companies who did not pay tax in the UK to get furlough loans when this was banned in other European countries?
5. Why are you allowing energy firms to coin in billions in profits yet at the same time expect the suffering customers to foot the bill of energy price rises?
6. In the same vein, why were energy bill rises not capped at 4% like in France. How is is possibly ok to see household energy bills rising by 400% or more?
7. Why are people hounded by the tax office for small issues when you allow businesses and people to "fix" their tax status for personal profit?
8. How could you possibly have believed having a green card was suitable for a serving minister in the government of the UK?
9. What deal did you get from US health insurance firms for the NHS?
10. There is real rage from bereaved families regarding the sheer number of parties and lockdown rule breaking that was going on at the heart of government. Can you understand how repeated denials, gaslighting and belittling of that rage is helping to fuel your demise?
11. Can you explain why so many Tory donors or contacts got preferential PPE contracts, despite no experience, no knowledge of the market and often charging way above competitors?
12. Can you also explain why so many of these rushed PPE deliveries were inadequate, unsafe and had to be burned at an additional cost to the taxpayer?
13. Brexit - lorry delays, businesses going under or moving to the continent, European firms no longer wanting to export to the UK, nor want to import our goods, a destroyed fishing industry, a savaged musical touring industry, farmers sold up the river, a mass loss of much needed workers in care, hospitality and the NHS... I could go on and on. It is a disaster - when are you going to admit this? Unless of course that was the plan all along...

I mean there's so, so much more. And if he could answer these without blaming a government that was last in charge 12 years ago that would be great.

This is an example of a ridiculous, nonsensical question when there are urgent and vitally important questions, impacting countless peoples lives, that this joke of a politician should instead be answering.