Summer Budget 2015

[seduraed]

Re: Summer Budget 2015

how about the red flag. LOL

[Amethyst]

Re: Summer Budget 2015

Never smoked. Not a single cigarette.

Sugar tax could be considered to tackle childhood obesity

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...-10384672.html

[jon1965]

Re: Summer Budget 2015

Well they have to pay for the M.P.s pay rises somehow and the drop in corporation tax

[Amethyst]

Re: Summer Budget 2015

The argument about child tax credit for third child is continuing - people won't actually LOSE child tax credit, just people who have a third child after 2017 won't be able to claim it.

The Child Element of tax credits and Universal Credit will no longer be awarded for third and subsequent children born after 6 April 2017. This will also apply to families claiming Universal Credit for the first time after April 2017. Households who have been in receipt of tax credits or Universal Credit, with an interruption of less than 6 months, will be protected.

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Summer Budget 2015

So they want to discourage families from having more than two children… :mmph:

[meellis]

Re: Summer Budget 2015

All political smoke and mirrors I'm afraid. Generous rise in the low pay/living wage they have given but is it a coincidence that the timing is nearer to the next election? Also everybody is on about how big the increase is but if it wasn't for the bad times we have had/are having where would the pay level naturally be at the time scale they are mentioning? Apparently there is a dossier now that indicates that the gov't knew about the trouble with the railways before the election as they would have known about the spending needed for buck house and Westminster and also the big increases in overseas aid.

[Amethyst]

Re: Summer Budget 2015

I think the budget is a decent, fair and honest one that is well needed to turn things back around so people aren't stuck being unable to afford to go to work. When it comes down to it the country has become reliant on welfare ( even those in work ) and that needs changing - it's a really really hard job to back track from that kind of policy, and I think they have gone about it in the right way.

There are things I disagree with - the £30k income / rent increase in social housing for one. That seems to go against everything else. I have not ever understood why if you earn more you should have to pay more. Why should you ever have to work out whether by accepting a payrise you'll actually be better off or worse off because it will push you over a threshold for some benefit or other that's worth more than having the payrise. What is that system all about?

The rest would be there whether Labour, Lib Dem, UKIP, Greens or Conservatives had formed government together or alone, and I feel pretty certain the first budget would have caused a palava whatever it was.

I'd be more worried had the government NOT known about issues upcoming with the railways and other stuff tbh.

It's mainly spin and ballhooks.

[meellis]

Re: Summer Budget 2015

That's the problem with them Ame, they have just made a huge fuss about sacking some of Network rail because of the hold ups in electrification stating they had only just found out about it after the election when they really did know before the election. As for making people being able to afford to go to work, well whether it is the public sector or private sector paying increased wages it will just get passed on so affordability is a hard thing to keep down. they have promised free childcare yet a lot of nurseries survive by not paying large wages so I can't see how the free care can happen without large subsides to the nurseries. One day we will all realise that we cant have all of the loss leaders, two for one offers and other incentives that are now prevalent all other life because at some point the costs catch up and somebody has to pay. How we can have many different prices for the same utilities baffles me it is obvious that some idiot (me) is paying over the top to fund somebody else to receive exactly what I am getting but both of us are paying a different price than somebody else for exactly the same thing. While things like that go on it will always be to expensive in this country and that is the things that needs to be looked at, why other countries can live on half the income of us and why some people can come here and have our low paid jobs (ones we don't want to do) and still have a nice life and send money back to there home lands.

[Celia56]

Re: Summer Budget 2015

lol, well yes would bloody help if she mentioned she had cooking a bit earlier than 7pm the night before ! tsk.

You'll probably think me horrible but I would have been sorely tempted to make her go without to teach her the error of not planning ahead... then I'd probably feel so guilty I'd nip round the store and rush to the school before the lesson to deliver the ingredients. LOL

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Summer Budget 2015

While things like that go on it will always be to expensive in this country and that is the things that needs to be looked at, why other countries can live on half the income of us and why some people can come here and have our low paid jobs (ones we don't want to do) and still have a nice life and send money back to there home lands.

This happens in many other countries, surprisingly even in Spain which has double the unemployment rate of the UK, obviously also in the US and other 'wealthy' countries. Their 'secret' is quite simple: overcrowding! You get a lot of people sharing a flat or house, they all share the rent, utilities and other services such as internet and often also the food which is bought in bulk. In the 90s I once read a newspaper article entitled: "How many Aussies and Kiwis can you fit in a two-bed flat?" The answer was 15! The article referred to a flat in Bayswater where the travellers took turns to sleep in bunk beds so that some who worked nights slept in beds that would later be occupied by those who worked days, there were also sleeping bags on the floor, etc. I also remember a two-bed flat in a beach suburb of LA, there was a couple with twin newborns in one room, another young woman and her dad in the second bedroom, the sister of the one with the twins slept in the couch and there was a double sofa bed shared by two friends. Seven adults and two babies in a two-bed flat (all illegals). That answers your question.

[meellis]

Re: Summer Budget 2015

I am well aware of that FP I used to look after some properties that were rented by an Oxford bus company who put as many polish people in as they could, pay for them to get their PSV licences and then employ them and these weren't illegal. Overcrowding is a simple answer but I sometimes think we have been brought up to expect too much and take it for granted. A Thai person I once knew told me the happiest days she had was when she used to walk 7 miles to school, 7 back and then go out selling noodles at night. You might think she had a miserable life if that was the highlight but you could see in her eyes that she truly believed this. How many youngsters in countries like ours would be happy to walk 14 miles a day to get schooling. Saying that how many adults would be happy scrubbing toilets for the minimum wage and then go and live in a crowded dirty house and still feel like the sun is shining on them.

[jon1965]

Re: Summer Budget 2015

I think the budget is a decent, fair and honest one that is well needed to turn things back around so people aren't stuck being unable to afford to go to work. When it comes down to it the country has become reliant on welfare ( even those in work ) and that needs changing - it's a really really hard job to back track from that kind of policy, and I think they have gone about it in the right way.

There are things I disagree with - the £30k income / rent increase in social housing for one. That seems to go against everything else. I have not ever understood why if you earn more you should have to pay more. Why should you ever have to work out whether by accepting a payrise you'll actually be better off or worse off because it will push you over a threshold for some benefit or other that's worth more than having the payrise. What is that system all about?

The rest would be there whether Labour, Lib Dem, UKIP, Greens or Conservatives had formed government together or alone, and I feel pretty certain the first budget would have caused a palava whatever it was.

I'd be more worried had the government NOT known about issues upcoming with the railways and other stuff tbh.

It's mainly spin and ballhooks.

If it is decent and fair, why is it that the ONLY working people who will be worse off with the tax changes are the lowest paid , those on 10-12K . The benefits cap is a joke when you consider it includes housing benefit and all other benefits . A single person who is out of work with two children aged 10, different sexes in Birmingham is entitled to rent for a 3 bed house and total benefits of just under 20K . If any one of the people in the household are ill, say the parent getting WRAG ESA it is more than 20K so they will lose money , an absolute disgrace . In London it will be even worse , same person in Tower hamlets paying the LHA already has their benefits capped by 4000 and are now going to lose another 4000. It is absolutely absurd.
Add on to that that the only way to improve the health of the nation and reduce the cost to the NHS is to cut poverty, this has been shown time and time again , in fact the countries with the lowest wealth divide also have the lowest health divide.

There is no way that this budget is fair-wealth does not trickle down . Mind you labour are probably no better.

Maybe people will now realise that the Lib Dems actually were able to moderate this government.

- - - Updated - - -

I am well aware of that FP I used to look after some properties that were rented by an Oxford bus company who put as many polish people in as they could, pay for them to get their PSV licences and then employ them and these weren't illegal. Overcrowding is a simple answer but I sometimes think we have been brought up to expect too much and take it for granted. A Thai person I once knew told me the happiest days she had was when she used to walk 7 miles to school, 7 back and then go out selling noodles at night. You might think she had a miserable life if that was the highlight but you could see in her eyes that she truly believed this. How many youngsters in countries like ours would be happy to walk 14 miles a day to get schooling. Saying that how many adults would be happy scrubbing toilets for the minimum wage and then go and live in a crowded dirty house and still feel like the sun is shining on them.

The problem here is that the law states that children of opposite sexes need their own bedrooms after the age of 10

[MIKE770]

Re: Summer Budget 2015

So they want to discourage families from having more than two children… :mmph:

New something different here I must live in China!

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Summer Budget 2015

The problem here is that the law states that children of opposite sexes need their own bedrooms after the age of 10

That's not a problem, it's the way it should be for obvious reasons.

Saw a program about council housing and the right to buy the other night, that's precisely the problem: all the housing stock has been sold and most buyers didn't actually make their council flat their home, they sold them to private landlords who are now charging market rates for the same properties. A lot of people can't afford the rents so they have to get HB. The councils are now paying rent to private landlords for the same properties they previously owned. There were some relatively young people who already have a property portfolio and are ro££ing in it after having started by buying their council flats! One thing is to have private landlords buying private properties to let which is fair enough otherwise there would be nowhere to live if you don't qualify for social housing, however, former council flats are now largely in the hands of private landlords.

[jon1965]

Re: Summer Budget 2015

What I was meaning was that if you think we should accept overcrowding there is a law in place that partly prevents that. I think all children over a certain age should have their own room or at least their parents should not be penalised for it. Is it appropriate for an 18 year old to share a room with a 8 year old