The Labour Party under Andy Burnham

[weeklycommuter]

Good news that the taxpayer will pay for the l ladies who will be going back to popping out babies every year to claim lots of benefits...

Should have kept the 2 child limit, if anybody wants to have lots of kids they can pay for them themselves

This is however subject to the overall benefit cap of around £25K a year in London and £22K a year outside London. Also the two child benefit cap has not affected child benefit, only the child element of universal credit.

Benefit cap

There is a limit on the total amount of benefit that most people aged 16 to under State Pension age can get - benefits affected, benefit cap amount.

www.gov.uk

Benefits affected by the cap
The benefit cap is a limit on the total amount of benefit you can get. It applies to most people aged 16 or over who have not reached State Pension age.
The benefit cap affects:

• Universal Credit
• Bereavement Allowance
• Child Benefit
• Employment and Support Allowance
• Housing Benefit
• Incapacity Benefit
• Income Support
• Jobseeker’s Allowance
• Maternity Allowance
• Severe Disablement Allowance
• Widowed Parent’s Allowance (or Widowed Mother’s Allowance or Widow’s Pension if you started getting it before 9 April 2001)

You might not be affected by the benefit cap if you get certain benefits or you’re over State Pension age.
If you’re claiming Universal Credit the benefit cap might not start for 9 months, depending on your earnings.

 

[brad465]

Boris Johnson benefits personally from the cap lifting to the tune of over £100k








For the fun sponge pedantics amongst us, yes I am aware it's not as simple as this, what I said is purely tongue in cheek.

 

[Senex]

Interesting YouGov piece on people's reactions to the budget: https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/53583-how-have-britons-reacted-to-the-2025-budget

 

[AlterEgo]

All this making it more complicated, more bureaucratic,more expensive for landlords mean a lot of them will leave the market and sell up, decreasing the rental market. Or am I missing something?

It depends on who they sell to.

 

[Cdd89]

It's the bad landlords who will sell, and they'll increase the amount of properties for sale, keeping prices down.

I'd suggest it's not so much the good vs bad landlords who'll sell, but the professional vs sideline landlords.

I'm both a landlord and a renter, and my tenants seem happy, but even with an agent I don't have the time on top of a full time job to manage it.

By contrast I live in a build-to-rent block owned by a corporation, as it's far less hassle than owning. If anything goes wrong, it's someone else's problem to fix. I'm surprised people think owning is preferable, the implication of your post is that the market should be nudged in that direction and I'd respectfully disagree there.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I'd suggest it's not so much the good vs bad landlords who'll sell, but the professional vs sideline landlords.

I think it depends on motivation. If you, either as a large company or an individual, are in it for the long term of acquiring an asset paid for by your tenants, you're not really going to care if you have to put in a grand here and a grand there to fix stuff promptly or be unable to let for 6 months here or there or have the rent capped, because you know it all adds up to you owning a few hundred thousand pounds worth of house in 20 years' time despite having had to only put maybe tens of thousands in yourself. Whereas if you've "bought" on an interest only mortgage and are just creaming off month to month profit based on the difference between the rent and the mortgage, you're going to penny pinch. People who are renting out while they move abroad or similar for a fixed period (who can give notice to reoccupy under the new rules) probably sit to some extent between the two but more the former.

I think it's the latter who will be pushed out of the market, and I'd venture that it's a good thing that they will be, because they are generally the bad landlords because the month to month bottom line matters in the way it doesn't for the other group.

By contrast I live in a build-to-rent block owned by a corporation, as it's far less hassle than owning. If anything goes wrong, it's someone else's problem to fix. I'm surprised people think owning is preferable, the implication of your post is that the market should be nudged in that direction and I'd respectfully disagree there.

Owning is preferable for one very good reason - by the time you retire you generally own a property outright, and thus do not have to pay rent. This means the pension you require for a comfortable retirement is significantly less than if you never purchased. If you're both a landlord and a tenant you are still building up that security (assuming your rental place is on a repayment mortgage) albeit in your rental property, which you can sell when you retire to create that same situation, or even move into it.

"Generation rent" getting to retirement without having built up that property ownership is a massive pensions time bomb.

Most families also prefer ownership because they have largely free rein to customise the property to their needs.

With regard to the "hassles" of ownership, you can keep these down in two ways - one is to get good at DIY so you pay much less for small works. The other is simply to take an insurance policy that covers all these matters. These do exist - they're not cheap, but then neither is renting in a large-company build to let block.

That isn't to say that there should not be a rental sector - there should, as there are people who it suits to rent, such as yourself. However it should be (a) smaller (that is, only those who WANT to rent should be renting; there shouldn't be people in that sector who are forced there due to house price escalation caused in part by people treating houses as investments) and (b) higher quality and better regulated. You're choosing that quality anyway by going with a commercial landlord, so the rock-bottom end of the market (the slum landlords) are surely not something you'd seek to defend?

 

[Bantamzen]

Interesting YouGov piece on people's reactions to the budget: https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/53583-how-have-britons-reacted-to-the-2025-budget

None of which is all that surprising, the budget was a whole load of nothing for everyone, and more tax burden for pretty much everyone. I wonder what the reaction would be to the same poll if taken after the news broke that Reeves chose to <cough> "forget" <splutter> that the OBR had given her better forecasts than she actually used to justify the policies she introduced?

 

[Broucek]

It's also a budget that's increased complexity which will be absorbed by businesses. Salary sacrifice pensions will be capped (rather than abolished) and other salary sacrifice benefits will carry on.

 

[aavm]

A young (relative to me) person told me that they had voted Labour and now deeply regretted it. They'll never do so again.

I guess we're condemned to having a Labour Government every 25 years or so, once the generational memory of the last one has faded WMD anyone?

Sorry. Just exasperated. Renting a lovely 3 bedroom flat via an agency to a local authority to a family on benefits that a working family couldn't afford.

 

[Broucek]

Just exasperated. Renting a lovely 3 bedroom flat via an agency to a local authority to a family on benefits that a working family couldn't afford.

If you read the FT comments (right of centre but anti-Brexit and unconvinced by Farage) there is (in general) huge upset that even working couples on good salaries can't afford a decent sized home and/or another child (particular in the SE) yet the government is prioritising spending on the retired (triple lock, winter fuel) and working aged people on benefits whilst increasing income tax via industrial levels of fiscal drag. Not sure "Labour" is the correct label for the party any more.

 

[aavm]

The core problem is not enough housing. We need more homes, literally millions of them, but no Government has the will to allow this. Until then, only the poor on benefits and the rich can afford to have children

 

[Broucek]

The core problem is not enough housing. We need more homes, literally millions of them, but no Government has the will to allow this. Until then, only the poor on benefits and the rich can afford to have children

And even if (BIG if) we fix planning, we don't have enough bricklayers, plumbers, roofers etc. to do the actual building! Perhaps one upside from AI impacting certain office jobs is that more young folk will earn a trade (and will probably earn more doing it...) That probably implies converting some of our third tier universities into technical colleages which is probably no bad thing at the societal level and may have the positive side effect of reducing the current extensive abuse of the student visa system....

 

[Bletchleyite]

And even if (BIG if) we fix planning, we don't have enough bricklayers, plumbers, roofers etc. to do the actual building! Perhaps one upside from AI impacting certain office jobs is that more young folk will earn a trade (and will probably earn more doing it...) That probably implies converting some of our third tier universities into technical colleages which is probably no bad thing at the societal level and may have the positive side effect of reducing the current extensive abuse of the student visa system....

Absolutely. Those second rate universities should never have switched from being good technical colleges to (largely) bad universities.

And if we need trades, we should train them rather than import them. Importing them is the lazy option but is worse for our economy.

 

[Tetchytyke]

The middle are always the ones who get clobbered, it doesn’t matter which party. The rich can- or at least threaten that they can- simply up sticks if they don’t like the tax. The poor can’t really be taxed as they don’t have anything to tax. The middle can’t leave but they do have something to tax, so the bill rests with them.

I can sympathise. My household income is about £130K a year but I don't feel wealthy at all. I don't have new cars, I don't have any debt, I have a sensible mortgage on a sensible semi-detached house, I've paid off my student loan, and I still don't have all that much left over at the end of each month. I'm not complaining, I'm comfortable, I can go to Tescos without worrying about it and I can turn the heating on without worrying about it. I have at least one good holiday a year. Although we don't have the same levels of income tax here, our NI is a lot higher, so the net effect is about the same.

Renting a lovely 3 bedroom flat via an agency to a local authority to a family on benefits that a working family couldn't afford.

This really isn't true, though. For private rentals, housing benefit/Universal Credit housing element is based on the cheapest rents in a postcode and if a benefit claimant's rent is more than that then they have to find the shortfall.

The core problem is not enough housing. We need more homes, literally millions of them, but no Government has the will to allow this.

It's got nothing to do with the government and everything to do with simple supply and demand.

Housing builders don't want to build loads of houses all in a glut because that increases supply. Increasing supply decreased demand. Decreasing demand decreases the amount of money you can sell a house for. That's why house builders land bank. They drip-feed new housing into the market because that gives them the highest returns.

It's no different to the diamond market really. Diamonds are pretty plentiful but de Beers, as the main diamond dealer, withhold their stock from the market. Scarcity increases prices, so they artificially increase the scarcity.

You could get rid of all the planning rules in the country and nothing would change because the scarcity of housing is what gives the house builders their profit. It's not as if planning rules are particularly strict or particularly well enforced for house builders anyway. If you don't believe me, search for "Persimmon + planning breach" and watch your search engine explode.

The only way you get around this is with the government investing in building lots of new social housing. That is the only way the government can increase housing supply. Imagine the meltdown on the right if they did that.

 

[Harpo]

And if we need trades, we should train them rather than import them. Importing them is the lazy option but is worse for our economy.

Construction would make a superb GCSE subject. I’ve quite a list of subjects I’d happily ditch to give a place.

 

[Cdd89]

The two child-benefit cap move should have restored his popularity with the left, but Starmer has managed to mess this up by appearing to have been forced into it. Thus not getting the credit for it from those on the left, and appearing weak and profligate to those on the right.

I guess we're condemned to having a Labour Government every 25 years or so, once the generational memory of the last one has faded

I don't think another party in office became this disliked this quickly, but I am not sure the natural response of voting Conservative applies since the dislike for them hasn't yet faded. The Lib Dems ought to be the natural winners of this but they are completely uninspired.

 

[Tetchytyke]

And even if (BIG if) we fix planning, we don't have enough bricklayers, plumbers, roofers etc. to do the actual building!

Perhaps not, but that's not why house builders drip-feed new homes into the market.

House builders don't want to build a glut of houses because that would trash their profit margin. I don't judge- they're a business out to make the most money they can- but increasing supply will reduce the price they can charge.

House builders whine about the planning rules but that's their convenient excuse. Remove all planning laws and they won't build any faster.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 4 Dec 2025 ==

I don't think another party in office became this disliked this quickly, but I am not sure the natural response of voting Conservative applies since the dislike for them hasn't yet faded. The Lib Dems ought to be the natural winners of this but they are completely uninspired.

People are tired of below-inflation pay rises and they're tired of above-inflation tax rises. They're tired of paying more tax and getting less in return. They're tired of austerity.

Labour are so hated because they have simply continued with austerity. The Lib Dems aren't really the natural winners from a hatred of austerity because, as a centrist party, they're always sensibly somewhere in the middle. Right now, they're sensibly in the middle between two austerity parties.

People are receptive to radical politicians because, quite frankly, everyone is fed up and tired and doesn't think a radical will be any worse. Farage and Polanski are both offering the same thing to people- simple solutions to the utter misery of UK life right now. Farage blames immigrants and Polanski blames the rich, both are perhaps right to an extent, but both are offering a simple solution to a complex problem and it's a solution that doesn't have grounding in reality. Kicking out all the immigrants or taxing all the rich people isn't going to magically fix things.

 

[brad465]

Absolutely. Those second rate universities should never have switched from being good technical colleges to (largely) bad universities.

And if we need trades, we should train them rather than import them. Importing them is the lazy option but is worse for our economy.

The whole Uni system and the student accommodation on the side is a ponzi scheme. Its collapse will have short-term pain, but if leading to more other trades and student housing becomes available to the whole market, long term a collapse will be beneficial.

 

[sor]

Absolutely. Those second rate universities should never have switched from being good technical colleges to (largely) bad universities.

And if we need trades, we should train them rather than import them. Importing them is the lazy option but is worse for our economy.

York, a Russell Group university (for whatever that's supposed to mean), mentioned its financial situation when it lowered its international entry requirements last year. https://www.theguardian.com/educati...cept-some-overseas-students-with-lower-grades

I know this country has a weird obsession in ranking universities by their date of incorporation rather than their outcomes, but the reality is that financial struggles & over-reliance on international students is sector wide. Kent (not an ex poly) has gone through significant budget cuts and redundancies with entire departments having been cut. It is now in the process of merging with Greenwich (which actually is an ex poly), with Greenwich's vice chancellor taking over.

Oxford and Cambridge will be fine, but they've got no shortage of "interesting" people that want to have a building or school named after them.

 

[Topological]

The whole Uni system and the student accommodation on the side is a ponzi scheme. Its collapse will have short-term pain, but if leading to more other trades and student housing becomes available to the whole market, long term a collapse will be beneficial.

I suspect you need to revisit the definition of a ponzi scheme.

The whole 50% to university was the error, but that does not automatically make the sector a problem.

Smaller issues in the budget, such as the international student levy, are actually highly problematic. However, they do not affect as many people so do not get discussed here. We only see impacts when the universities close (e.g. University of Essex in Southend) and then people realise the positive spillovers on their communities.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 4 Dec 2025 ==

Perhaps not, but that's not why house builders drip-feed new homes into the market.

House builders don't want to build a glut of houses because that would trash their profit margin. I don't judge- they're a business out to make the most money they can- but increasing supply will reduce the price they can charge.

House builders whine about the planning rules but that's their convenient excuse. Remove all planning laws and they won't build any faster.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 4 Dec 2025 ==


People are tired of below-inflation pay rises and they're tired of above-inflation tax rises. They're tired of paying more tax and getting less in return. They're tired of austerity.

Labour are so hated because they have simply continued with austerity. The Lib Dems aren't really the natural winners from a hatred of austerity because, as a centrist party, they're always sensibly somewhere in the middle. Right now, they're sensibly in the middle between two austerity parties.

People are receptive to radical politicians because, quite frankly, everyone is fed up and tired and doesn't think a radical will be any worse. Farage and Polanski are both offering the same thing to people- simple solutions to the utter misery of UK life right now. Farage blames immigrants and Polanski blames the rich, both are perhaps right to an extent, but both are offering a simple solution to a complex problem and it's a solution that doesn't have grounding in reality. Kicking out all the immigrants or taxing all the rich people isn't going to magically fix things.

A very good point about housebuilders.

However, the solution there is to have planning lapse quickly and on a basis set by the authority. At the moment it is too easy to get some land, put in some plans that will get passed and then wait. So many land bank companies show what can be built on the land, inflate the price and then hope to sell. Firms who have been demonstrably landbanking should then be unable to get further planning permissions. Landbanking creates huge frictions in the market.

Whether it can be made easier for new developers to enter the market I am not sure. That would be the market solution, but it is hard to get the capital to become a housebuilder. It does always please me to see that there are still some developments built by locals.

 

[Tetchytyke]

However, the solution there is to have planning lapse quickly and on a basis set by the authority. At the moment it is too easy to get some land, put in some plans that will get passed and then wait.

If you tightened up planning to lapse quicker they'd just "start" building just enough to keep the planning active. We already see that with developments, they'll do just the minimum to keep the planning consent active and then drip-feed into the market afterwards. Again it makes perfect commercial sense for them to do this, the last thing they want is to swamp the market.

The other issue is that the last thing the government want is a swamped market. New housing already acts as a depressant on house prices for existing stock. The last thing homeowners would want is to see a glut of new houses absolutely trash the value of their home. Homeowners who end up with reduced house values get angry and that anger gets shown at the ballot box.

The only way around it is, in my opinion, to ramp up social housing construction and ensure that this social housing cannot ever be sold on the open market. That gives us the extra stock we need, it helps put a brake on insane private rental levels, but doesn't destroy the value of homes in private ownership.

 

[Topological]

If you tightened up planning to lapse quicker they'd just "start" building just enough to keep the planning active. We already see that with developments, they'll do just the minimum to keep the planning consent active and then drip-feed into the market afterwards. Again it makes perfect commercial sense for them to do this, the last thing they want is to swamp the market.

The other issue is that the last thing the government want is a swamped market. New housing already acts as a depressant on house prices for existing stock. The last thing homeowners would want is to see a glut of new houses absolutely trash the value of their home. Homeowners who end up with reduced house values get angry and that anger gets shown at the ballot box.

The only way around it is, in my opinion, to ramp up social housing construction and ensure that this social housing cannot ever be sold on the open market. That gives us the extra stock we need, it helps put a brake on insane private rental levels, but doesn't destroy the value of homes in private ownership.

I was envisaging that the same steps to ensure speedy delivery applied at all stages. As you say there are plenty examples of "just enough" to keep planning active.

I agree that house prices get surpressed when supply rises, it is simple economics. However, having artificially inflated prices is not helpful either. It also follows that homeowners need somewhere else to live when selling and therefore would be able to buy their next house at reduced price.

The challenge is where you create negative equity. Anyone drawn into negative equity by home building generating reduced prices would rightly be annoyed. It would be nice to see the government engaging with the financial sector to support people drawn into negative equity as part of the deal for being able to profit from the infrastructure investments. Banks would likely be agreeable to such given that reposessions wouldnt be particularly lucrative either.

I can see the argument for social housing, but for many reasons there are equal negative effects on house prices. Just that instead of direct supply, the downward pressure comes from reduced demand.

 

[Yew]

I can see the argument for social housing, but for many reasons there are equal negative effects on house prices. Just that instead of direct supply, the downward pressure comes from reduced demand.

Personally, I would have a programme of social housing building that aims to:
a) Provide affordable, quality housing to renters on low incomes, and acting as a driver for private landlords to up their game.
b) Be built at a rate to bring house price inflation below the general rate of inflation, to bring house prices to more manageable levels without a big crash.
c) Is ran by the government, without being outsourced, or some PFI scam.

 

[317 forever]

I strongly suspect that too. Some scientists are now saying that some artificial sweetners, when consumed regularly, affect the gut microbiome and in the long term can cause bowel problems as well as glucose intolerance and inflamation. Quite a few years ago I noticed that whenever I ate or drank something which contained Sorbitol, I had stomach cramps and would be in the toilet in a flash.

Let's hope George Osborne and the food industry don't consign a future generation to health problems of a different kind.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 Nov 2025 ==



Won't be long before they introduce a Staying Indoors tax...

This will give a whole new meaning to the sentence Staying in is the new going out

 

[Egg Centric]

The other issue is that the last thing the government want is a swamped market. New housing already acts as a depressant on house prices for existing stock. The last thing homeowners would want is to see a glut of new houses absolutely trash the value of their home. Homeowners who end up with reduced house values get angry and that anger gets shown at the ballot box.

As a relatively young homeowner it's exactly what I want, so I can move into a mansion as the absolute difference will be lower!

It's the older home owners who don't want it.

I totally disagree that planning laws don't matter. The oligopoly you identify of a few large home builders comes about partly because of all the regulation. Building your own home, or becoming a small developer, requires a lot of faff. Hypothetically if we had no planning laws at all I could more or less buy a field and get at it.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 7 Dec 2025 ==

It's the bad landlords who will sell, and they'll increase the amount of properties for sale,

Yes

keeping prices down.

No. The difficulty is that renters live at higher density (HMOs, flat shares etc) so converting renters into buyers while a laudable aim and one I agree with means we need even more of the homes were not building. Or more efficiently allocating housing stock. Changing stamp duty into property tax in a revenue neutral way is one great way of encouraging that but the boomers will never stand for it.

 

[ainsworth74]

I'm dropping this here as Labour are the party of Government at the moment but really it could be aimed at almost any party (and possibly even a new thread now I think about it!) but good grief are we ever going to do something about getting to grips with Local Government and it's funding? My local Council, Redcar & Cleveland, is in consultation mode at the moment for it's 2026/27 budget and it's produced a bit of an FAQ and some of the contents are frankly terrifying:

Your council has faced budget pressures in recent years, due to a significant increase in demand for our services.

To balance the budget, we have made more than £20 million in savings in the past four years.

Despite this, we anticipate a pressure of around £2.9m on this year’s budget.

There are financial pressures across our services, with the main issue being the cost of providing residential accommodation for children in our care, where the cost of the most expensive places can be between £500,000 and £1 million per year for one child.

[...]

Social care – supporting our vulnerable children and older residents – is becoming increasingly expensive and now accounts for around 65% of our total budget overall.

Because we are legally obliged to provide some of our services – including social care – we cannot simply stop spending in these areas.

• What about next year?

We do not anticipate that the current pressures on the budget will ease, and there is a possibility that the cost of meeting our residents’ needs will increase even further.

We anticipate a multi-million pounds pressure in providing these services – which we are legally responsible for providing – with the funding we expect to receive. Therefore, we will need to act to balance the budget, as we are legally required to do so.

Another key consideration is the level of our reserves, which every council holds to meet unforeseen costs during the year.

After years of a high demand for our services and the funding we receive not keeping up with the cost of meeting this demand, our reserves are at a critically low level and we cannot rely on them to meet any shortfall next year.

• Where does the council spend its money?

The council provides many services each day, from supporting the vulnerable, to maintaining roads and keeping the borough clean.

Demand for our services means providing social care – supporting and protecting vulnerable children and adults – accounts for around 65% of our budget. There is no sign of that demand reducing and we expect that percentage to rise next year.

This will mean there is less money to provide all our other services.

Budget FAQs

Answers to frequently asked questions about the Council's budget can be found here.

www.redcar-cleveland.gov.uk

So 65% of the Council budget (and more than that in 2026/27) is going to be going on social care, they've made £20m of cuts in the last four years (and move over the last decade!) and are still looking at around a £2.9m shortfall this year and another shortfall next year requiring a dip into reserves (though they seem hopeful that after that they'll have balanced the budget).

This is surely insanity that cannot continue for much longer? 65% of the Council's budget going on social care meaning that everything else (and particularly services that people tend to value like roads, libraries, public toilets, street cleaning, bin collection, etc etc) face more and more pressure and cutbacks.

Council's are, in a very real sense in my opinion, providers (or commissioners) of social care who happen to have a sideline in collecting bins and fixing potholes.

And yet Labour (and everyone else it seems!) are content to simply kick the can down the road yet again with a Commission due to report on social care in 2028 (I think?) meaning that nothing will happen this Parliament as there's no way they'll get into it that close to the election.

Is it going to take dozens of Council's going bankrupt before anyone actually grasps this nettle?

 

[Egg Centric]

I'm dropping this here as Labour are the party of Government at the moment but really it could be aimed at almost any party (and possibly even a new thread now I think about it!) but good grief are we ever going to do something about getting to grips with Local Government and it's funding? My local Council, Redcar & Cleveland, is in consultation mode at the moment for it's 2026/27 budget and it's produced a bit of an FAQ and some of the contents are frankly terrifying:

Budget FAQs

Answers to frequently asked questions about the Council's budget can be found here.

www.redcar-cleveland.gov.uk

So 65% of the Council budget (and more than that in 2026/27) is going to be going on social care, they've made £20m of cuts in the last four years (and move over the last decade!) and are still looking at around a £2.9m shortfall this year and another shortfall next year requiring a dip into reserves (though they seem hopeful that after that they'll have balanced the budget).

This is surely insanity that cannot continue for much longer? 65% of the Council's budget going on social care meaning that everything else (and particularly services that people tend to value like roads, libraries, public toilets, street cleaning, bin collection, etc etc) face more and more pressure and cutbacks.

Council's are, in a very real sense in my opinion, providers (or commissioners) of social care who happen to have a sideline in collecting bins and fixing potholes.

And yet Labour (and everyone else it seems!) are content to simply kick the can down the road yet again with a Commission due to report on social care in 2028 (I think?) meaning that nothing will happen this Parliament as there's no way they'll get into it that close to the election.

Is it going to take dozens of Council's going bankrupt before anyone actually grasps this nettle?

I believe Labour are at least taking SEND provision central in the next couple of years, which was the second biggest one. So there's that at least.

But yes care, like anything else to do with old people, just isn't being sorted. If MPs want to be truely publically spirited they could just sort it out this parliament and accept they will lose at the next GE. In a decade's time they'll be given knighthoods.

 

[weeklycommuter]

I believe Labour are at least taking SEND provision central in the next couple of years, which was the second biggest one. So there's that at least.

But yes care, like anything else to do with old people, just isn't being sorted. If MPs want to be truely publically spirited they could just sort it out this parliament and accept they will lose at the next GE. In a decade's time they'll be given knighthoods.

The Government is moving responsibility for funding Special Educational Needs from local government to the Government's Department for Education from 2028 but the Government still needs to sort out the mess left by the previous Government forcing local government to fund SEND and holding money borrowed for this off balance sheet. As the Government forced local government to spend this money the Government really must make this money borrowed for SEND formally part of the National Debt for which the Government is responsible.

The Government also really must move responsibility for funding social care from local government to the Government's Department of Health and Social Care. It is just not acceptable for the Government to impose the statutory requirement to fund social care on local government forcing local government to pay for this cost over which local government has no control. Local councillors cannot be accountable to the residents of the wards they represent for this statutory spending on social care over which local councillors have no control. This requirement on local government to fund social care has already bankrupted some councils, risks bankrupting more councils and forces local councils to cut other services to pay for ever rising social care costs over which local councils have no control.

 

[Citybreak1]

Government considers free TV licences for benefit claimants

Officials are considering making concessions for individuals receiving state support, according to a review of the BBC’s Royal Charter

www.standard.co.uk

Officials are considering making concessions for individuals receiving state support, according to a review of the BBC’s Royal Charter

Also they want to charge for old Iplayer content too

 

[Gloster]

Government considers free TV licences for benefit claimants

Officials are considering making concessions for individuals receiving state support, according to a review of the BBC’s Royal Charter

www.standard.co.uk

They really seem to be determined to rile the Mailygraph. This is three of their favourite targets in one: the Labour Party, the BBC and ‘benefits scroungers’.