Big pronouncements

It’s obviously just gesture politics, it’s non targeted so everyone will get it.

Only people with enough income dismiss any extra help no matter how little.

Luckygirl3

£45 is a lot of money to someone on benefits.

It’s that amount over 6 months.
I think if it had been targeted to the poorest it could have been a lot more.
May well have been too difficult to be a targeted amount, so tbh I wonder if it’s worth doing at all.

Thank you GrannyGravy, I thought it was only 3 months but knew it wasn't for a year.

They did point out that scrapping ID cards was meaningless economically given that the money hadn’t been allocated for it anyway. I hadn’t looked at it that way and had assumed that Darren Jones was being critical of the Starmer government and, in fact, it was the opposite. Which surprised me due to his loyalty to Keir. They also said that after his last resignation speech Keir went to the pub with his mates. Good for him .

I haven’t listened to trip yet - must do later this evening.

According to TRIP scrapping VAT on energy was one of the things vote leave promised if we left the EU but then never did ( I should have remembered this as Gisela Stewart did a Q&A on here and promised just that and I moaned about it for years afterwards until it was overshadowed by even more things to moan about).

£45 is a lot of money to someone on benefits.

What Burnham has done today imo is to “signal” the direction of travel, and in the process indicating to the struggling that help will indeed be coming - although probably in the longer rather than shorter term. But we shall see.

Interesting piece from Anna Macdonald Investment Strategy Director at Hargreave Lansdowne:

The Case for a National Security Bond - With the Defence Investment Plan increasing spending, could the UK issue a national security bond to fill a budget blackhole? We explore the idea, its history, and what it means for investors.

www.hl.co.uk/news/could-defence-bonds-help-fund-britains-rising-military-costs

Appointing former Defence Secretary John Healey as the new Chancellor makes a lot of sense to me if this is to be explored.

I am a private landlord, a so called 'accidental' landlord as I just have one house. I am a good and social landlord.

The current government is attacking private landlords and forcing many of us to sell. Who will buy those houses? Not the tenants for sure but banks and big investors.
Not good for renters.
Weed out the crap landlords by all means, but deliberately destroying the sector is criminal.
So his Burnham's mealy words don't impress me.
I am very, very and . And I wont vote for either party again.

A National Recovery ISA is a great idea, David. If Burnham's people are reading this, I hope they take it on board.

And agreed, Wyllow. I'll never forgive Thatcher for that, or for the many other ways she ruined so many lives.

"If the government were to invite people to put money into a social housing bond paying a moderate return, I’d certainly invest."

My thoughts also not just housing, a National Recovery ISA current best rates are around 4.5% tax free, the UK us not short of money it's all in the wrong place doing the wrong thing

Grantanow

With our Ange in charge of housing what could go wrong?

Couldn't do worse than Thatcher, who let them all be sold off, made a bob or three in the process that didnt last long, and our proud post war record of housing people

gone, within years, for ever.

😡 😢🤬

Smileless2012

It isn't £45 a year, it's only from October to December this year.

It is six months from 1st October, not three months.

If the £45 was just till the new financial year that would tally with the £1800 bill.
5%

Moii

Is affordable housing not subsidised by someone else who has had to pay full price for theirs, should my children who have huge mortgages pay tax so someone else can get an equal house subsidised not sure that is fair.

Should I be made to feel like a pariah because I have a holiday home (I don't actually, but if I did) it's not my fault the government have let in millions of people without the infrastructure and housing for them.

Only in the same way that all social measures (education, health, benefits etc) are subsidised by those who don't need them so that those who do (which might one day include them) can have access to them when needed.

A worker subsidises those who don't work, but one day might need to claim benefits. Someone who is healthy subsidises people in hospital, but might take ill one day, and so on.

Social housing used to be a safety net - in fact that's overstating it, it used to be an option for all who wanted it - but since it was sold off it has become a scarce resource.

Holiday homes are a different case, IMO - as they tend to be centred around particular areas they rip the heart out of the communities that used to thrive in those places. With few people there in the winter, and those who are tending to bring food with them and not using services such as GP surgeries, bus routes, libraries and so on, shops and services close, so residents move out and the cycle continues.

I think, moving forward, Labour will be feeding the media and controlling them to a certain extent. Although I don’t understand why they didn’t do it under the previous PM ? Either Starmer didn’t want them to or they didn’t want the government communicating with the electorate telling them what was being achieved.

It isn't £45 a year, it's only from October to December this year.

ronib

As a rather starry eyed teenager back in the 1960s, I remember going on soup runs in London in the middle of the night. So seems to me still that mental health of the UK has been neglected with priority being given to physical health. Maybe the new brooms can look at that?

I think you’re right, and I really hope that more will be spent on MH outcomes.

Nandalot

I am disappointed at the reaction of some on here regarding the removal of VAT from electricity bills. It may only be approx £45 a year but to a family on the breadline, struggling to afford their electricity bills, that is a significant amount. It shows the directions he is moving. I am not an Andy Burnham fan but give the manager chance!

I don’t agree, £45 goes nowhere these days, especially £45 a year.It’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick but won’t make any difference really for most people.

Graphite

I hope we can welcome this premiership with far less negativity than we saw on this platform two years ago.

I posted on the other thread about how I welcomed the promise to end rough sleeping and to build more council homes. Everybody deserves a roof over their head. Do that and all else follows, domestically at least.

I do know that there is money sitting in savings that could be directed towards social projects. Over £800 billion is sitting in ISAs and around £140 billion in Premium Bonds.

If the government were to invite people to put money into a social housing bond paying a moderate return, I’d certainly invest.

Also as I have written about before, there are a million homes in England alone sitting long term empty (Action on Empty Homes) These need to be brought into use.

We can provide an affordable home for everybody.

We need legislation to stop developers hoarding land to deliberately control the supply of new homes and keep prices high.

We need more apprentice schemes for young people to train them in the necessary skills to build and renovate homes.

We need a cap on private rents. I was struck by this young man’s post on another social media platform:

My bank tells me I cannot afford £800 a month to pay a mortgage to buy a flat. But apparently I can afford £1,200 a month to pay my landlord’s mortgage.

This needs to stop.

As I understand it developers are not hoarding. It costs them x to build a house and make a reasonable profit. Prices of building materials have shot up. They are finding that if they build houses the housing associations cannot afford to buy them. So they have stopped building and just hold onto the land in the hope the situation eases.
The cost if building the house is more than anyone can pay to buy it, simply put.

Is affordable housing not subsidised by someone else who has had to pay full price for theirs, should my children who have huge mortgages pay tax so someone else can get an equal house subsidised not sure that is fair.

Should I be made to feel like a pariah because I have a holiday home (I don't actually, but if I did) it's not my fault the government have let in millions of people without the infrastructure and housing for them.

The figure of £45 isn't per year, this is a temporary measure for this year only starting in October and ending 31st of December and the average saving for those 3 months has been calculated at £45.00.

5% vat removed from an average domestic electricity bill for an entire year would be a lot more than £45.

Doodledog

I don't think that we should give up though. I appreciate that a lot of rough sleepers are addicts, but not all - some, particularly single men, have fallen on hard times and if they have no children (and, ironically, no MH problems) go to the bottom of the lists.

Such a man called Storm and Alexis (TV phone in) this morning, and I really felt for him. He has worked since leaving school at 16 (I think he said he is now 41) and has lost his job through redundancy. As he is single, childless and has no 'issues' he's been told h doesn't qualify for help. People like him need help too.

I've never worked in housing, and clearly I don't have the answers, but I am confident that there are those who do, and with the right support we should be able to return to the days when we didn't see people in doorways in cities. We won't eradicate addiction (which is not to say we shouldn't try), but losing a job shouldn't mean people having to sleep on the streets.

Having a space of your own, your own front door, somewhere to call home, is a great source of motivation alongside the drugs / alcohol services that exist & need expanding.
I imagine it's all to easy to think "what's the point" if you're struggling coming off something & you don't even have a place to call your own.