Vocal Voices

This is to help pay for Social Care.

This train has been coming down the tracks for at least two decades but our politicians never wanted to deal with it. They just kicked the problem down the road till it could go no further - now it has to be dealt with.

Because of the delays this will be costly for taxpayers - a big hike in one go. Had it been tackled (and ring fenced) all those years ago it could have been done with smaller incremental increases that we would have become used to. Will they never learn?

Good idea IF the money is spent where it should be.

If the government stopped all the foreign aid
use that instead


A solution in my mind

It is not such a bad idea but I would like to see the wastage in the NHS and SC sectors tackled first.

Cutting overseas aid further will be forever difficult, once given it is hard to claw back.

Yes but modern foreign aid is like a monthly subscription to your favourite charity.

Yet, when our income falls, we cut the charity contributions. When the countries income falls some kind of magic happens where we keep giving away and it has to be adjusted elsewhere.

It is patently wrong but politicians never work with logic.

As for the NI hike? It is one government change away from a slush fund.

The worry is that they spend a load of money and the service gets no better. Blair and May both splashed the cash but in Blair's case more than half of it went on wage rises. If this NI rise comes off there must be a corresponding improvement in the service.

I think we need to define "Social Care". Are we just looking at care for the elderly and mental wellbeing?
There are so many strands to this, not just the NHS but homelessness, addiction, deprivation, criminal activity and its causes ....
What can or should we reasonably expect the State to finance for us?

If you say it's wrong to financially penalise the young, the lower paid, and the impoverished elderly, how do you raise money? Are we coming back to a Property Tax (we are already paying huge sums in council tax to support local care) or a Wealth Tax?

Yes, by all means hike National Insurance and Income Tax, but ensure the lower thresholds before you start to pay these taxes are sufficiently high to give folk a decent standard of living, not just survival. And don't start to reduce benefits from those who have little or no other income.

But at the end of the day, the whole system of taxation and social care needs a root and branch overhaul. The alternative is, like we are already beginning to find with the NHS, that you cannot rely on State-sponsored social care and you will simply have to get used to it. An American-style medical and social insurance solution, anyone?

So, the deed has been done and the level is set at 1.5% for all. However, slipping in under the radar is the news that the triple lock on pensions will be suspended in '22-'23 so that the rise is not at 8% as would have been the case.

Both probably did need looking at but it is a cold calculation. It is far enough out from the election to have faded but with a "Look at us, we have reinstated the triple lock for '23-'24, what good boys we are" feel to it.

And one thing mystifies me. The media and government keep mentioning "health and social care reform" but I can find no details of these so-called "reforms". What are they, other than just throwing money at a problem?

Oh yeah, and only two manifesto promises were broken in one day. Or is it three?

Well done you "red wallers" eh?

You voted for this.

It is easy to make pensioners who own their own homes to pay if they have to go into care.
But why should people who have never worked get it for free usually paid for by the local council at a reduced rate.

Social care is a wide ranging subject and different councils have different agendas.