UK Politics Thread

UK's new brexit minister

The Andrew situation is a funny one. None cooperation is kind of an admission of guilt legally. I mean unless he has something to hide why would he not.

Everybody thinks or presumes he's guilty but I think that girl has launched civil proceedings against him in the States. Deciding not to represent himself would be funny.

A social care plan that doesn't actually do anything? Never!

Here is a summary of the plans, based on an embargoed briefing from No 10 given earlier.

The NHS is getting £36bn over the next three years “to fund the biggest catch-up programme in the NHS’s history, tackling the Covid backlogs”. Adult social care will be reformed to stop people facing “unpredictable and catastrophic costs”. And health and social care will be brought closer.
How it is funded

A new UK-wide 1.25% “health and social care levy” will come in from April 2022, based on national insurance contributions. It will be paid by working adults, including people over the state pension age (unlike normal national insurance, which is not paid by pensioners).
Initially from April 2022 national insurance contributions rates will go up by 1.25%. But from April 2023, once tax systems have been updated, the levy will be separated, so that the levy will appear as a separate line on pay slips. At this point working adults above state pension age will start contributing.
How much will people pay

The system is progressive, No 10 says. Those who earn more will pay more, A typical basic rate taxpayer earning £24,100 will pay £180 a year, or £3.46 per week. A typical higher rate taxpayer earning £67,100 - in the top 15% of earners - will pay £7.15 a week.
Additional rate tax payers (those paying the highest rate) will contribute 20% of the revenue, even though they are just 2% of taxpayers.
Higher rate taxpayers - 14% of the total - will pay half the revenue.
6.2 million people earning less than £9,568 will not have to pay.
Dividend tax is going up too by 1.25%, to ensure people who receive income through dividends make the same contribution. These people are more likely to be higher earners.
Big businesses will pay the most of the extra revenue coming from the increase to employers NICs, with 70% of the money coming from the biggest 1% of employers - those with more than 250 employees.
40% of all businesses (mostly small business) will not have to pay anything extra.
No 10 says that, because employers also contribute, raising NICs is fairer than raising income tax. To raise this money from income tax, income tax would have to go up by 2%. A typical basic rate taxpayer would pay around £230 a year, instead of £180. For a higher rate taxpayer, that would be £1,090 instead of £750.
International precedents

No 10 says France, Germany and Japan have all increased social security contributions to fund social care.
Support for the NHS

The NHS will get an extra £12bn a year for investment in frontline care over the next three years, No 10 says.
The new funding is expected to fund an extra 9 million checks, scans and operations.
By 2023-24 activity levels in the NHS will be 110% of what was planned.
Reforms to adult social care

Currently anyone with assets over £23,250 has to pay their care costs in full. That means around one in seven people pay more than £100,000. From October 2023 the system will change and anyone with assets worth less than £20,000 will have their care costs fully covered by the government. Anyone with assets between £20,000 and £100,000 will be expected to contribute to the cost of care, but will also be eligible for state support covering some of the costs. This support will be means tested.
No one will ever have to pay more than £86,000 for care in their lifetime - roughly equivalent to three years of care.
The system will be made fairer, so that people who pay for their own care do not have to pay more than state-funded individuals for equivalent care.
The NHS and the care system will also be brought closer together.
Devolved governments

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will get an extra £2.2bn in health and social care spending as a result of the levy. No 10 says there is “a clear union dividend from this policy”.

Why don't we just create a National Care Service, which is funded from taxation (including a wealth tax) and free at the point of use?

boris is a fookin red!!

So the massive increase in funding for social cares would go to *checks notes* dividends to shareholders in a private equity firm who have bought the social care provider by loading debt onto it?

Nothing dodgy about that. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Unsurprisingly these proposals are very popular with one group:

This care cap has done fuck all for my mums £88k per year care home bill

They can all join FG too

Wait till he finds out who got them elected.

If anyone just wants a perfect illustration of what is so utterly fucked with politics in the UK atm then have a look at the debate this afternoon on the introduction of vaccine passports in Scotland.

Both Douglas Ross and Anas Sarwar are strongly opposing the SNP on this and are being given ample media spotlight to vocally criticize the Scottish government for bringing the legislation forward. They will vote against the bill tonight.

That's Douglas Ross, leader of the Scottish Tories, who also sits as an MP in WM and will go on the record as voting FOR the introduction of vaccine passports by his own Tory government. And that's Anas Sarwar, the leader of Scottish Labour, railing against a policy that both Keir Starmer, as opposition leader in WM, and Mark Drakeford, as Labour FM in Wales, will publicly support/bring into effect.

Opposition for the sake of opposition. Utter hypocrisy, almost comical stuff. What a time to be alive.

SNP BAD