Stephen Flynn put pressure on immediately after the opening of Parliament. The seven Labour MPs who had to courage to vote with him were suspended for their principles. But now Starmer and Reeves are facing an increasing backlash from cabinet members, Kendall, Phillipson. Rayner and Streeting.
Farage is just bandwagon-jumping as usual.
There are no figures on how many families have four or more children but around 1.2 million families have more than two. At around ÂŁ300 UC a month per additional child say it would cost ÂŁ5 billion a year to remove the cap (Resolution Foundation says 3.5) .
Although there is a separate thread, I’d add in universal WFP which costs less that £2 billion so say a maximum £7 billion for the two.
There is more than enough money to pay both. Spending creates taxation. One would expect most of the additional UC for children to be spent on zero rated food and clothing but most of universal WFP was probably spent on taxable goods and services so the net cost would be less than ÂŁ7 billlion.
It really is peanuts compared to the 1.3 trillion of government spending every year - just half a percent.
Betting is an obvious target to raise more taxes. Gaming, including betting and gaming, bingo, and lotteries are normally exempt from VAT (although the rules are complex). Why?
www.gov.uk/guidance/how-vat-applies-to-betting-gaming-and-lotteries-notice-70129
True, the sale of lottery tickets raises money for good causes - 28% for that but only 12% in lottery duty - making it cheaper to gamble than work. Additional lottery duty could be raised and taken from the 50% that currently goes to prizewinners. Double lottery duty and it would cover the gross cost of universal WFP.
Yes, I know all the arguements about giving it to people who don’t need it, but if they don’t, they will likely spend it on something that’s taxed at a much higher rate than domestic fuel.
Better that than divisive means-testing that leaves people on the cliff-edge.
We’ve had the experiment now to see who comes forward to claim Pension Credit. Relatively few made successful claims - only 5% of the anticipated number of households said to be eligible. Poor uptake is an ongoing issue that needs to be dealt with separately.
While we’re on the subject of gambling, I would get rid of Premium Bonds. They are currently responsible for £128 billion of public debt on which the Goverment pays out over £5 billion in interest (prize money) each year, tax free.
If the Resolution Foundation figures are more accurate than. mine (and they probably are), we could fund uncapped child UC and univeral WFP from that.
Most of that ÂŁ5 billion goes to already wealthy individuals and couples who can afford to loan the government ÂŁ50,000 to ÂŁ100,000 - with no guarantee of a return - in the vague hope they might win one of only 24 million pound prizes each year.
The odds of winning a million pounds with one ÂŁ25 bond is only 1 in 2,602,163,211 each month. The next biggest prize is ÂŁ100,000 (78 of those) but if you afford to loan that much why bother as the chance of winning is still only 1 in 66,722,130.
