Got a question for Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves?

[RhiannonEMumsnet]

Hi all,

We’re pleased to tell you that later this week Justine will be sitting down with Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves to ask her Mumsnet users’ 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 deleting questions that are repeated multiple times). We'll be quite limited for time so do keep questions as short as possible so that we’re able to ask more of them - as always, we'll try to make sure we cover the topics that we know are important to Mumsnet users.

We'll be closing this thread at 1pm tomorrow, so please do get your questions in before that - and watch this space to hear the responses. If you'd like a reminder of the format you can see our interview with Keir Starmer here.

Thanks,
MNHQ

Does Rachel think the abuse that Rosie Duffield has received for upholding the rights of women and girls is acceptable?

What are Labour's plans to deal with the UK's post-Global Financial Crisis productivity deficit?

Hi Rachel, I've been listening to what the Labour Party have been saying about childcare and it sounds really promising and like you understand that there is a serious problem you want to fix - but you and Keir are obviously both also keen to stress that a Labour Govt after the next election wouldn't have loads of money to spend. Given that the childcare system is so broken and will require massive investment to fix, how do you reconcile those two things?

I have read that there are Labour plans for improving childcare which sounds great, but it sounds worryingly like your sole focus for children is enabling parents to work more by putting the onus of providing this care onto already stretched primary schools.

What are your plans for actually improving things in schools? What are your plans to address workload? The bloated curriculum which allows no scope for consolidation or enjoyment? Teacher retention? SEND? Why should I as a parent and teacher, vote Labour ?

When will you publish the plan? So that the general public can see where the money is coming from and where it will be going? Do you have an actual plan?

Rachel - Is it transphobic to say only women have a cervix?

Can you explain this one to me, and if this is ever going to change.
I can earn £50k and get full child benefit payments. I could earn £60k, but I'd lose 40% in higher rate tax, another 9% in student loan, then NI as well, but I'd also lose the £2k child benefits. So I can earn an extra £10k and only come out £3k better off. With the cost of living and wage rises at the moment more and more people will find themselves paying higher tax and also losing child benefit, will these thresholds be lifted in line with inflation?

What would Labour do to stop my teenage daughter having to share a changing room with a person who has a penis? From what Starmer has said so far, I think the answer is nothing. Which is why I can't vote for you.

And the obvious one - why are you scared to say 'Brexit was stupid, we will open discussions with the EU about rejoining'

This approach, in which a few timid questions are picked out, is so cowardly.

Why will Labour not be honest about the disaster that is Brexit, and set policy to aim for the beneficial arrangements for Northern Ireland to extend across the uk? Or, in acknowledging that NI is quite specific, at least for increased market links with the EU?

Is there a detailed and costed plan behind the political commitment to add VAT to school fees? Will this include any transitional provisions to avoid disrupting the education of children already in independent schools, many of whom are there because they were failed in the state sector?

What is Labour's plan to get to Net Zero and how will this be supported in the tax system?
I'd like to see incentives for investments & innovations towards NetZero (which are practical and don't change every 5 minutes) and penalties/financial disincentives for polluting and continuing fossil fuel use.

Currently the UK has a net zero target but no real tax policy in support of it so what are you offering to make this really happen?

Voted Labour all my life but this TWAW crap is the last straw

My membership card is in the bin

As you will learn the woke student vote will not win you a GE

I am 50 year old woman (adult human female)

The labour party has made VERY clear they don't want to my vote and that safe same sex spaces are not important and that very real and obvious abuse by TRAs is either ignored or minimised

The treatment of Rosie Duffield should make you all hang your heads in shame

The irony being I don't for one moment think many of you believe this horseshit but I guess it's expedient atm

However, the tide is turning

Biology is not bigotry

Yep
No way my comments will be passed on
🤷‍♀️

Yup. It will be very interesting to see which questions are used!

What will Labour be doing to reform child benefit payments, and particularly to ensure child benefit entitlement is calculated in a fairer way?

There seems no reasonable explanation for the current system where a family with a household income based on one salary in the £50-60k bracket are not entitled to the full, already small amount of child benefit, yet families could have a combined household income of almost £100k and receive the full amount of child benefit. The entire system needs reform - a system where one household can have almost double the income of another yet be entitled to more in child benefit is not a fit for purpose system.

When will Labour address the elephant in the room, Brexit. You can make it work by rejoining the Single market and FOM.

And will Labour push for PR voting system?

What do Labour intend to do to ensure that adequate pain relief is available to all women during childbirth, whilst at the same time ensuring that midwives and other healthcare staff are protected?

One of the most commented aspects of modern life is the awful parcel delivery services there are. Would Labour be prepared to make some steps to improve this, such as requiring companies to tell you who the parcel carrier is before you place and pay for any order online?

Yes this. And the same with tax free childcare/ 30 hours childcare/ withdrawal of the personal allowance at £100k. This can result in an effective tax rate of 85% if you have a couple of children, which is ridiculous! Yet a couple can earn £199k before they have to deal with this.

Rachel - if you are serious at all about fairness, women's rights or child poverty, you will commit to stop charging single adult households more tax on the same household income i.e. make all tax and benefit thresholds per household. For two adult households, their allowance can be split equally between them by default and they can opt-in for a different split by mutual consent if they wish. That way women in couples keep their autonomy, but not at expense of single women being penalised financially.

There is no logical reason to penalise single adult households through the tax system. In the case of single parent households, their costs are obviously higher as they have to do, or pay for, all earning and childcare in only 24 hours per day. So why are they charged more? It makes zero sense.

90% of single parent households are run by women, so it is blatant sex discrimination as well. This is meant to be assessed when making policy, but is always ignored. And obviously it's no surprise that a lot of child poverty is in single parent households when they are being penalised like this at all levels of the tax system: half the tax-free allowance, half the earnings before higher rate tax, half the earnings before withdrawing child benefit, half the earnings before withdrawing the personal allowance etc.

So, will you commit to rectifying this if you take office?

(You should obviously also abolish the withdrawal of the personal allowance for everyone regardless as well. What kind of tax system goes 0%, 20%, 40%, 60% then 45%? How is that justifiable please? And will you fix it?)

I would like to know what Labour's plans are for improving social care to improve discharge rates in hospitals but to ensure everyone who needs it can access it. Currently, it is very hard to get adequate care. Care workers are paid peanuts and councils budgets have been squeezed. It needs urgent reform.

Will Labour Ever Do Anything Ever to incentivise Employers to actually give Disabled People Properly Paid Jobs

Given that Rachel is the Shadow Chancellor, I'm surprised how few of the questions are focused on economic issues, which are her brief! I hope @RhiannonEMumsnet that you will ensure that she is asked the economic questions raised here, in particular.

Hello Rachel.Do Labour have plans to increase the minimum wage to a realistic amount so that people don't have to rely on top-ups from the state?