Burnham's likely economic policies if he becomes PM

I agree with the need for radical reform in this area but those with mist to lose will have the most power and influence to trash it.

Tuliptree

I would be amazed if any of this came to pass -at least in the remainder of this term

No, there's not enough time to get it all through, and it wasn't in the manifesto, but if I understand it correctly (not a given) it should appeal to a lot of people at the next GE. Instead of high IHT being paid by only 4% of the population, everyone would pay 10% of property value on death, so no unaffordable bills, CT would be a lot fairer than it is currently, and the thorny problem of social care would finally be grasped.

GrannyGravy13

What about businesses who own buildings and the surrounding land (yards and storage) ?

What about pensioners who have little disposable income but have remained in their family home, how are they meant to afford it?

I am totally against IHT in its current form and collection model.

I can't remember all the detail, but I guess that someone with a family home would pay the money on death - 10% of the value, rather than ££ in CT every year. I don't know about business premises.

This would be a completely different model from current IHT, and would (to me, and at face value without much detail) seem fairer than the current way in which IHT, CT and Social Care fees are managed.

I would be amazed if any of this came to pass -at least in the remainder of this term

What about businesses who own buildings and the surrounding land (yards and storage) ?

What about pensioners who have little disposable income but have remained in their family home, how are they meant to afford it?

I am totally against IHT in its current form and collection model.

I read that he has considered a land tax to replace council tax and IHT, which would be ring fenced for social care. What I read (sorry, can't remember where) was that it would be something like 10% of the property value for everyone - no nil rate - so far more people will pay it, but at a lower rate. I don't know what happens when people have money but no property, or how selling up in older age and dying as a renter will be disallowed - in fact I don't know any of the finer details - but at face value it seems like a good idea.

Those with more will pay more, and it should help to mitigate the current situation where someone with a house worth £150k is left with nothing after care fees, when someone with a million pound house is left with £850k after the same fees have been paid. It should also even out the numerous CT anomalies which mean that someone in a small house in the North can pay double the rate of someone in Westminster who gets significantly more for their money. I think the idea is that landlords would pay double, to reflect both the profit on the rent and the appreciation of the property value, but again, I'm not sure about that.

It would also mean that there is no longer a lottery when it comes to passing on assets to children, where those with parents who need care can end up with nothing, and those who don't can get up to £1m tax free.

What Graphite said. I look forward to reading the full report shortly. It will give me hopefully a framework to analyse what AB says when he addresses his economic policies Thank you

Thank you, Maizie.

I’ve skim read it and will return later to read in more detail but the phrases that jump out at me are public control of essentials^ and the privatisation premium including water and adult social care - two major issues that I hope Burnham will tackle, along with energy and rent.

Extract:

Adult social care shows the same dynamics operating through the labour market rather than the balance sheet. The average annual cost of residential care in England now exceeds £50,000 — depleting the savings of all but the wealthiest before local authority funding kicks in, and even then, is funded by local authorities at rates care providers argue are below the cost of decent provision. The sector employs around 1.6 million people, the majority on or near minimum wage, with high turnover and insecure contracts. This is the labour market consequence of a business model that compresses the one variable cost it can control. Billions in public money flows through the sector annually via local authority contracts, while quality remains uneven and the workforce crisis deepens. The financial extraction layer sitting between public funding and care delivery is a privatisation premium by another name: resources redirected from workforce and provision toward investors, with weak public control over quality, coverage, or the business model that determines both.

I had hoped that Labour under Starmer would tackle adult social care but they haven’t. They scrapped the faulty £86,000 care cap scheme that the Tories proposed but never got off the ground. Fair enough as it was unworkable, unaffordable and wasn’t addressing the core problem which is indeed the privatisation premium.

He's supposedly going to give a series of speeches laying out his stall over the next few weeks so hopefully you'll get what you want from them.

Thank you, but I would rather hear it from the horse's mouth. At present very little is known about his intentions.

I didn’t expect a rush of posts on this thread because it’s a longish document with the rather annoying insistence on getting your details before it can be downloaded, but I’ll bump it for a bit to see just how interested those posters who claim they know nothing about what Burnham plans to do really are in finding out

Thank you! I’ll read it but not tonight, toooooo hot and grumpy!