Suggestions for Osborne's July budget

lisyloo

My dentist now sends me email AND text reminders before appointments.
Some missed appointments could be avoided by relatively simple measures.
Happy to fine people whi miss appointments unless it's genuinely health related (my MIL may have missed a dimensia appointment :-) and even blacklist or charge repeat offenders.

Tromking

A big steer on Osborne's thoughts on this was made at PMQ's today. He stated that the UK represented 1% of the worlds population, 4% of the worlds economic activity and 7% of the worlds welfare payments!

caronoel

Tromking wrote: »

A big steer on Osborne's thoughts on this was made at PMQ's today. He stated that the UK represented 1% of the worlds population, 4% of the worlds economic activity and 7% of the worlds welfare payments!

No surprise there.

Something has to be done on working benefits, and on preventing the state pension from ballooning further.

Tromking

caronoel wrote: »

No surprise there.

Something has to be done on working benefits, and on preventing the state pension from ballooning further.

Yes, time to shift the responsibility for paying low paid private sector workers a reasonable wage, back to the companies who employ them.

caronoel

Some more ideas

Cut Foreign Aid budget by 50%
Why are we using UK taxpayer funds to support the economies of the likes of India, China and a range of others. We should be focussing our funds and efforts on countries that lack the capability themselves to provide for their own people.

Privatise more of the public sector
The likes of the BBC website, Channel 4, and Radios 1 and 2 could be hived off quite quickly and free up licence fee funding for other areas. Any purchaser would have to sign up to some form of public service broadcasting commitments.

Heavily curtail the use of “consultants”
NHS spending on external consultants doubled over the life of the last government. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/11282888/NHS-spending-on-management-consultants-doubles-under-Coalition.html). There should be an immediate reduction / ban on this spend.

mwpt

Tromking wrote: »

A big steer on Osborne's thoughts on this was made at PMQ's today. He stated that the UK represented 1% of the worlds population, 4% of the worlds economic activity and 7% of the worlds welfare payments!

I'm not incredibly left leaning but these figures are meaningless. Or rather, if you want to extrapolate from them, could Osborne give us the same figures for China or India? Do we want to emulate those welfare models?

wymondham

Scrap Vehicle Tax and add it onto fuel. This way everyone pays based on actual usage and it can't be avoid/forgotten and makes collection more efficient.

lisyloo

As usual there is some middle ground.
I wouldn't want anyone out on the streets or living in some of the dumps now, but neither do I want to put them up in Kensington & Chelsea.
There is room for cuts, fairness and compassion, I think.

Tromking

mwpt wrote: »

I'm not incredibly left leaning but these figures are meaningless. Or rather, if you want to extrapolate from them, could Osborne give us the same figures for China or India? Do we want to emulate those welfare models?

I'm not right leaning, but I think he was trying to highlight the unsustainable nature of those figures.
It was intimated by Andrew Neil on the daily politics today that due to the lack of a Labour leader at the moment, Osborne is rumoured to favour going big time on welfare cuts in next months budget. Catch the Labour front bench at their weakest as it were.

wymondham

caronoel wrote: »

Some more ideas

Cut Foreign Aid budget by 50%
Why are we using UK taxpayer funds to support the economies of the likes of India, China and a range of others. We should be focussing our funds and efforts on countries that lack the capability themselves to provide for their own people.

Foreign Aid is just a cloak that helps us win 'favour' in the world. If you look at who we give aid to, often they have space programmes well in advance of our own. These governments can help their own people out of poverty, but choose not to (such as India) - why should they when someone else will?


I have heard it said if you look at the countries who give us arms contracts and the list we give aid to they are the same....