Autumn Budget 2017 Thread

Original post by mattymoo432

Announces extra help for young people and first time buyers getting onto property ladder. Scrap stamp duty, Extend right to buy housing association tenants.

Oh please no. How does that help anyone other than landlords and home owners? I would like to see the government relaxing planning law and encouraging mass building of new homes (social and private). In my opinion, everything that is wrong with the economy in this country stems from the crazy price of housing. I don't advocate mass house price deflation, but at the very least, seeing house price growth flat-lining for 10 years or so would be no bad thing. We have accepted wages falling and stagnating over the last 10 years. Why not house prices?

Reply 3

Frank5871

9

I expect the 1% pay cap to be eased off slightly but I don’t believe there will the 1% tax raise as there will be too any Conservative rebels

Reply 4

Original post by ByEeek

Oh please no. How does that help anyone other than landlords and home owners? I would like to see the government relaxing planning law and encouraging mass building of new homes (social and private). In my opinion, everything that is wrong with the economy in this country stems from the crazy price of housing. I don't advocate mass house price deflation, but at the very least, seeing house price growth flat-lining for 10 years or so would be no bad thing. We have accepted wages falling and stagnating over the last 10 years. Why not house prices?

You are first going to have to deal with construction industry labour issues, frankly there are not enough skilled workers, you can up production a little re current resources but without colleges and apprentice schemes churning out more appropriate labour resources you will struggle. Factory built prefabs might in the short term assist but they do have a mixed history re acceptance (though production methods are miles ahead of those post the war)

Planning is merely one stage in the house building process, I am not wholly convinced it is the only logjam (I work in property though these days we do not really build, but before 2007 we did)

Hate to say there are also other issues wrong with the UK, productivity being one, there is no magic wand but a long slow grind.

What business actually needs is a bit more stability to allow forward planning, with Brexit and threats up here re Indy Ref2 ,pretty hard to achieve.

Banks etc are uncertain, they tend to lend re "safe" things, speculative building is riskier for them than lending to homeowners, hence housebuilding ,re the smaller builders/developers, who used to produce a third of all completions, is very difficult; we in effect gave up after banging our heads against a brick wall for loan funding.

Reply 5

username1799249

Original post by DJKL

You are first going to have to deal with construction industry labour issues, frankly there are not enough skilled workers, you can up production a little re current resources but without colleges and apprentice schemes churning out more appropriate labour resources you will struggle. Factory built prefabs might in the short term assist but they do have a mixed history re acceptance (though production methods are miles ahead of those post the war)

I'm not pretending it isn't going to be hard. But when you have comparatively wealthy people spending over half of their salary on housing, something is seriously wrong. Housing is a basic need and in the same category as water and food. Yet for too long now, we have been talking about people's homes as an investment and property.

If the measure of success in a country is measured by happiness, allowing everyone a secure home, rented or otherwise is likely to make us much happier than the current status quo. Happy people also work harder which feeds into a solution to your productivity problem. In fact thinking about it - construction workers tend to be happy. Perhaps creating more of them would be no bad thing for our countries productivity?

(edited 6 years ago)

Reply 6

username3548838

12

Cut in corporation tax
Basic rate Income tax threshold raised to 15000 (more money to be spent in the economy)
Promise of mass deregulation and tax simplification post-Brexit
More focus on tax avoidance and big companies arranging their business to pay such low tax in the UK
Support for small and medium businesses
Scrap HS2, and upgrade lines that need it for prices which aren't a rip off.

Investment in a genuine Northern economic resurgence (helps housing crisis too)
Diversify the economy particularly manufacturing, and heavy industry through training/education, more immigration of required skills, cheaper energy, low-tax areas
Living wage raised gradually to £10 per hour
Massive (overdue) investment in council housing

Huge spending increases for the armed forces, who have suffered decades of being run down and are now asked to find £20bn more savings
Foreign aid reduced until the vanity project spending sprees can be diverted to required areas.

Let me predict nothing serious will be done on any of these points.

Reply 7

username2837176

OP

15

Original post by Hatter_2

Cut in corporation tax
Basic rate Income tax threshold raised to 15000 (more money to be spent in the economy)
Promise of mass deregulation and tax simplification post-Brexit
More focus on tax avoidance and big companies arranging their business to pay such low tax in the UK
Support for small and medium businesses
Scrap HS2, and upgrade lines that need it for prices which aren't a rip off.

Investment in a genuine Northern economic resurgence (helps housing crisis too)
Diversify the economy particularly manufacturing, and heavy industry through training/education, more immigration of required skills, cheaper energy, low-tax areas
Living wage raised gradually to £10 per hour
Massive (overdue) investment in council housing

Huge spending increases for the armed forces, who have suffered decades of being run down and are now asked to find £20bn more savings
Foreign aid reduced until the vanity project spending sprees can be diverted to required areas.

Let me predict nothing serious will be done on any of these points.

What policies would you like to see to help raise extra tax revenue?

Reply 8

username3548838

12

Original post by mattymoo432

What policies would you like to see to help raise extra tax revenue?

#1 Get more multinational businesses to move here and encourage smaller businesses to set up or expand. That means we spend less on benefits for the 1.4million unemployed, get more income/corporation tax and more cashflow in the economy.

We achieve this through the pro-business policies I have outlined above.

#2 Ensure more tax due is collected, by simplifying the entire system, and equipping HMRC to collect effectively.

#3 If we cut wasted spending there won't be a need for so much tax to be paid

Reply 9

Original post by ByEeek

I'm not pretending it isn't going to be hard. But when you have comparatively wealthy people spending over half of their salary on housing, something is seriously wrong. Housing is a basic need and in the same category as water and food. Yet for too long now, we have been talking about people's homes as an investment and property.

If the measure of success in a country is measured by happiness, allowing everyone a secure home, rented or otherwise is likely to make us much happier than the current status quo. Happy people also work harder which feeds into a solution to your productivity problem. In fact thinking about it - construction workers tend to be happy. Perhaps creating more of them would be no bad thing for our countries productivity?

The catch is, like puppies, they are for life not just for Christmas, so if you create too many skilled tradesmen what do they do after 20 years when your building surge has lost steam? Have a look at Auf Weidersehen Pet except remember we are out of EU in twenty years so avenue of them all going to work there may be closed.

The fact is it is not simple, you have a 3-4 year lead time re labour provision. You may as a stopgap be able to entice workers in ,post Brexit, from other EU countries, but that depends on keeping Sterling strong; weak currency less incentive to come and work here if sending money home.

Reply 10

Original post by Hatter_2

Cut in corporation tax
Basic rate Income tax threshold raised to 15000 (more money to be spent in the economy)

Just to point out above only increases UK expenditure if spent and the speed of monetary circulation , from being private sector spending, is greater than that re public sector spending, remember (ignoring imports/exports) your Y=C+I+G, you reduce G (which would have got spent, we know our government cannot save) and give it to C who then do not spend ( you give me a tax cut I will not spend it, I am a saver, already some of my earnings do not get spent) then you actually could reduce expenditure in the economy.

The relationship is far more subtle- e.g. if I want funds to be spent I give it to those with a higher marginal propensity to spend, in a lot of cases that is the poorest in society.

Then I have to consider imports and exports, if i give you all a tax break and you all disappear to spend it at Disneyland the money is not spent within the UK economy.

Same applies with companies, they may hoard cash on the balance sheet or use it to pay a higher dividend, well if the dividend mainly goes to UK pension funds that is now deferred expenditure (only spent when the pensioner takes their pension) and if overseas shareholders it just leaked out of the country so we lost the expenditure effect in the UK.

You always need to consider leakage, and this will not be constant through time, there are lots of things may impact, e.g. weaker Sterling so cannot really afford Disneyland even with the tax saving, so we all have a week at Filey.

The conclusion is that the idea tax cuts boost the economy may not always work, only sometimes work, and higher government expenditure may sometimes boost the economy but not always, remember the two are substituting for one another.

Reply 11

illegaltobepoor

As for near to all the previous posts above I say humbug! Won't happen; especially not with Maybot anyway. The only poster who scratches the surface of any possibilities is poster "hatter_2".

You can expect the following:

*Corporation tax being lowered all the way down to 12.5% to compete with Ireland. (Might come during Brexit).

*ESA, PIP, Access to work and the Council Tax Waver to be but cut in some way. Maybot will not let disabled people get away with making her Government look bad on the world stage. Disabled people are going to be punished I guarantee it.

*The National Living Wage will be up rated and the personal allowance will be increased to £12,000 during April 2018.

*Income tax will be increased because there is a big gap in the Tories budget.

*Expect some under hand tactics to be declared in the budget which Hammond doesn't make note of.

Oh and get real. This is a Conservative Government. Not some Occupy Wallstreet I want I want protest for whatever I want from the candy store.

Reply 12

username2837176

OP

15

Original post by illegaltobepoor

As for near to all the previous posts above I say humbug! Won't happen; especially not with Maybot anyway. The only poster who scratches the surface of any possibilities is poster "hatter_2".

You can expect the following:

*Corporation tax being lowered all the way down to 12.5% to compete with Ireland. (Might come during Brexit).

*ESA, PIP, Access to work and the Council Tax Waver to be but cut in some way. Maybot will not let disabled people get away with making her Government look bad on the world stage. Disabled people are going to be punished I guarantee it.

*The National Living Wage will be up rated and the personal allowance will be increased to £12,000 during April 2018.

*Income tax will be increased because there is a big gap in the Tories budget.

*Expect some under hand tactics to be declared in the budget which Hammond doesn't make note of.

Oh and get real. This is a Conservative Government. Not some Occupy Wallstreet I want I want protest for whatever I want from the candy store.

I disagree with this entirely. The govt has already pursued a number of cuts to welfare, particularly disability benefits. They would never get the backing of a majority of MPs to make further cuts to the areas. Disabled are the most vulnerable group in society. Theresa May has no majority to pass legalisation to make further disability benefit changes.

Reply 13

L i b

Original post by mattymoo432

I disagree with this entirely. The govt has already pursued a number of cuts to welfare, particularly disability benefits.

No it hasn't. Spending on PIP/DLA and Attendance Allowance have all increased ahead of inflation and will continue to do so for the rest of this parliament under current spending plans.

I appreciate that this sort of thing gets a lot of silly comment in silly newspapers, and that things like PIP reassessments have seen some people get less (and, of course, some get more) but these benefits are quite simply not being cut.

Reply 14

L i b

Original post by DJKL

You are first going to have to deal with construction industry labour issues, frankly there are not enough skilled workers, you can up production a little re current resources but without colleges and apprentice schemes churning out more appropriate labour resources you will struggle. Factory built prefabs might in the short term assist but they do have a mixed history re acceptance (though production methods are miles ahead of those post the war)

In terms of construction labour, the real issue is going to hit over the next ten years as the older generation retire from the industry. The worst is just over the hill. Perhaps a labour shortage needs to happen to drive up wages and entice more young people in, who knows?

In terms of prefabs (and I know the industry hates the term being used), the capabilities there are incredible. One problem that needs to be surmounted is how we treat them for surveys and mortgage purposes. Non-traditional construction has been treated cautiously by lenders, in this case undeservedly.

Banks etc are uncertain, they tend to lend re "safe" things, speculative building is riskier for them than lending to homeowners, hence housebuilding ,re the smaller builders/developers, who used to produce a third of all completions, is very difficult; we in effect gave up after banging our heads against a brick wall for loan funding.

Well, quite.

Reply 15

username1799249

Universities Forum Helper

Original post by DJKL

The fact is it is not simple, you have a 3-4 year lead time re labour provision. You may as a stopgap be able to entice workers in ,post Brexit, from other EU countries, but that depends on keeping Sterling strong; weak currency less incentive to come and work here if sending money home.

Oh, the irony!

Reply 16

Snufkin

21

I'm prepared for disappointment. I expect Philip Hammond will make paltry promises to build more houses (but nowhere near enough to make a difference) and extend Help to Buy (which helps middle-class people and housebuilders, but nobody else).

Original post by L i b

I appreciate that this sort of thing gets a lot of silly comment in silly newspapers, and that things like PIP reassessments have seen some people get less (and, of course, some get more) but these benefits are quite simply not being cut.

Only some? That's simply not true. PIP is a total shambles, that is obvious to everyone.

There are all kinds of statistic which show the damage PIP is doing... but this one is, I think, especially prescient: the number of complaints about PIP assessments that were upheld rose by more than 700 per cent (from 67 in 2015-16 to 545 in 2016-17).

(edited 6 years ago)

Reply 17

Original post by ByEeek

Oh, the irony!

I know, talk about shooting oneself in the foot re Brexit, and the currency devaluation adds another issue re attractiveness of sending money back to original country.

We have three tenants in the joinery business, I think the youngest member of staff for them is about 35 (Young Richard), the others look 45 and upwards, if there are younger tradesmen out there who are not from EU (ex UK) I do not meet many of them in my job (property company). The electrician we use is now well into his sixties and these days is only part time.

If I was HMG I would certainly be splurging re training in the trades, but the catch is trainees need experience outwith the classroom, so even bigger financial incentives to the construction industry would not be amiss.

Besides, in 30 years all the white collar work will have been taken over by AI, if I was 18 again right now i would probably train as an electrician rather than go to university, no shortage of work and think it is going to be a while before robots can thread cable through houses and connect it all.

Reply 18

Original post by L i b

In terms of construction labour, the real issue is going to hit over the next ten years as the older generation retire from the industry. The worst is just over the hill. Perhaps a labour shortage needs to happen to drive up wages and entice more young people in, who knows?

In terms of prefabs (and I know the industry hates the term being used), the capabilities there are incredible. One problem that needs to be surmounted is how we treat them for surveys and mortgage purposes. Non-traditional construction has been treated cautiously by lenders, in this case undeservedly.

Well, quite.

And it is in part reflected in construction costs, was advised the other day that flat building (nothing that fancy) is up near £168 per sq ft (excuse me, I am old so do not think in sq metres) , this was nearer £90 circa 2008/2009 when I last seriously looked up pricing, and selling prices up here, in Edinburgh, appear to be touching £350 per sq ft or more re new build flats. (used to be £200 was a decent price)

Reply 19