Choose your spending cuts for the UK

OK so we all know that, whoever forms the next govt, there'll be big spending cuts to public services coming sooner or later. What services do you think should suffer 1st &/or most & why?
My choices would be:
Faith Schools
If people are that concerned about their kids being taught in a religious environment, let them pay for it.
Municipal Flower Beds
If you want flowers on your local roundabout etc, go & plant some.
IVF on the NHS
Pay for it yourself or adopt. There's plenty of kids being dragged up in care. Some additional pressure on people to adopt them would be a good thing.
Gender Reassignment & Cosmetic Surgery on the NHS
I'm not talking about help for people born with major deformities or after burns etc. I mean people that get treatments because they convince a doctor they have a psychological problem because of sticky out ears or the like. Gender Reassignment? Deal with who you are or pay for it yourself.
Foreign Aid to China
Just WTF?

Oh & how could I have forgotten:
Policing Drugs
There is definitely police time & also money to be saved from prosecuting & sentencing. The current policy isn't working, so why not change it & cut spending too.

My list.

All foreign aid - if we haven't got enough for ourselves why are we giving it to others?

MP's Salaries - if they can claim so much on expenses they don't need to be paid so much...they may be more inclined to work for us if they get paid the same as us.

Faith schools - why should i pay for someone elses superstition?

Nuclear detterent - why not go for cheaper nuke warhead cruise missiles rather than ICBM's? Can still be sub launched, and more versatile if they actually do have to be used. Who would we nuke with an ICBM that we couldn't with a Tomahawk or similar?

Here is a novel one.

Spend all uk resources locking up in prison any police person that has commited a crime against someone, like making stuff up to frame them for murder or some other crime. I would suggest you would need double your prisons, as the police all themselves should be in prison.

Do that and you saved on all your looney toon police that are so corrupt they kill innocent people for no reason.

Much of British expenditure goes on Social Security, surely one of the most complicated systems in the world.

That needs a root & branch reform, it needs to be made more simple yet more responsive to an individuals circumstances. And payments need to be cut too, because it makes no sense working full time, only to see your neighbours picking up comparable payments off the state for not working at all. There must be a financial reward for work, and if that means people who don't get paid less so be it (not that I'm saying people should be starved into work, they should be financially tempted instead, because so many just aren't ... the balance is all wrong).

With reform, the number of civil servants administering the scheme could be reduced too. Better service, more simple, fewer staff. And that's win, win, win in my book.

reply to post by Bunken Drum


Child Benefit: there should be a limit on how many children receive this or, heres a novel idea, if you want children pay for them yourself (oh, BTW, I am a mum to 2 kids!)

reply to post by uptheirons!I dont agree that all foreign aid should end. It is a bit of a scam. When a figure is announced, that doesn't mean that the recipient country gets it as cash. A lot of it pays for British companies to build something etc there. So it supports British business. Helping develope nations is also creating new markets into which we can continue to export. It could be cut tho & probably better targetted.
I'm not sure about MPs salaries. The way they've behaved makes me want to punish them, but I also dont want clever people prefering to work for more elsewhere.
I cant believe I forgot Trident! I totally agree. ICBMs are yesterday's solution to yesterday's problem. We dont need them.

[edit on 9/5/10 by Bunken Drum]

Originally posted by uptheirons!
My list.

All foreign aid - if we haven't got enough for ourselves why are we giving it to others?

We need to dish out foreign aid, otherwise all those things we enjoy so cheaply will cease to exist.Foreign aid=buying off 3rd world leaders=dirt cheap resources=good for us in the West.

MP's Salaries - if they can claim so much on expenses they don't need to be paid so much...they may be more inclined to work for us if they get paid the same as us.

No one would want to become an MP for 20k salary a year and an assistant that's an old hag.

Faith schools - why should i pay for someone elses superstition?

True, but we need a little bit of religion, otherwise only secularism will kill us.

Nuclear detterent - why not go for cheaper nuke warhead cruise missiles rather than ICBM's? Can still be sub launched, and more versatile if they actually do have to be used. Who would we nuke with an ICBM that we couldn't with a Tomahawk or similar?

Need to keep up with the Big Boy's Toys, otherwise they will start bullying.

reply to post by andy1033 Well, I'd like to see criminality in the police punished even more severely than for others, because it is worse, being a betrayal of extraordinary trust. Still, building & running more prisons would cost more money, not save it.
Perhaps places freed up by not locking people up for drugs could be filled by bent coppers?

reply to post by Doujutsu


MP's shouldn't be paid anything over & above reasonable expenses they incur as part of their duties, plus the salary they had before entering Parliament (suitably capped). And that's because being an MP should be thought of as an enormous privilege, not a job.

As to "an old hag" helping with admin, that was a bit random, nicht wahr ?

reply to post by chocciebabe


Clearly you have plenty of money then. Not everyone has a lot of money, myself and may partner get by with what we aren by the extra £80 pm is very very useful for saving for our child for his future. There are plenty of other things that can be cut. Here is my list...

1. Registration numbers of council vehicles. (Glasgows Lord Provosts car's reg number is G0. Its worth £500,000). What the hell?
2. NHS treatment for gender confused people.
3. Foriegn Aid (at the present it should be suspended until we recover, or atleast cut back slightly)
4. Leavethe Eurozone (Lord knows how much we spend or are loosing because of this joke).
5. Minister expenses (you work in london, put your reciepts for travel in like evryone else who gets expenses does, you already make a fortune. If not and your so in love with changing the UK, MOVE TO LONDON).
6. 1 year maximum for people on Job Seekers allowence (There are plenty of jobs out there, just look harder, if your that desperate you'll take any employment).
7. Stop paying consultants £85,000 to £110,000 per year. Even a 2% pay decrease might buy a new few MRI scanners etc.
8. Stop using dentists from Poland to do our Weekend On Call. (one dentist in Aberdeen lives in Poland, he flies over here on a friday morning and flies home again on a monday, once a month and gets paid £3500 for the weekend.
9. Stop paying GP's £100 or whatever it is to write (actually only sign) a letter for a patient.

Need i really go on???? The list is endless

reply to post by UlalaWell, it seems to be fashionable again to assume that people on benefits are living the life of reilly, but we had to lay off 2 part time staff recently & we had to tailor their hours previously to fit in with benefits they could be eligible for, so I do know some facts about this. Even on minimum wage of £5.80/hr, a full time job pays £232/week & little of that goes on tax or NI. Jobseeker's Allowance pays £60-odd/week + upto about £90/week Housing Benefit minus the costs of going to the Job Centre & interviews (which you must or lose the benefit).
It gets more complex when people live together &/or have kids, because benefit rates are cut for a couple but dependent kids get additional Income Support & everyone gets Child Benefit.
So yeah, a couple on the dole with 2 kids could be on about the same money as they would be if 1 of them had a full time job, except that if you're on a low income, you are entitled to tax credits & benefits also.
There is a threshold point where it becomes difficult for a person to take a job without losing money, so I agree that a more individual approach is needed, but I dont think that cutting people's money is the answer. The benefit rates were held to the lowest possible during the 80s & early 90s. All that happened was a surge in crime.
Still, why should we be paying Child Benefit to well off people? There are other benefits that could be means tested too, I'm sure, but you're right, its way too complex.
Its also worth bearing in mind that people on the dole are buying their shopping in small amounts, paying comparitively more for it compared to buying in bulk, supporting local shops. Cut their money, that puts pressure on small businesses, adding to unemployment.

Originally posted by jrmcleod
reply to post by chocciebabe

 

Clearly you have plenty of money then. Not everyone has a lot of money, myself and may partner get by with what we aren by the extra £80 pm is very very useful for saving for our child for his future. There are plenty of other things that can be cut. Here is my list...


1. NHS treatment for gender confused people. - Agree if they want it pay for it!!!
3. Foriegn Aid (at the present it should be suspended until we recover, or at least cut back slightly) YES!

4. Leave the Eurozone (Lord knows how much we spend or are loosing because of this joke). Why did we ever join...............
5. Minister expenses (you work in london, put your reciepts for travel in like evryone else who gets expenses does, you already make a fortune. If not and your so in love with changing the UK, MOVE TO LONDON). Not going to happen anymore - addressed and dealt with.......................
6. 1 year maximum for people on Job Seekers allowence (There are plenty of jobs out there, just look harder, if your that desperate you'll take any employment). Really........send us links BIG MAN!
7. Stop paying consultants £85,000 to £110,000 per year. Even a 2% pay decrease might buy a new few MRI scanners - GREEDY DOCS........SHAME
8. Stop using dentists from Poland to do our Weekend On Call. (one dentist in Aberdeen lives in Poland, he flies over here on a friday morning and flies home again on a monday, once a month and gets paid £3500 for the weekend. This is what the Government did sold of all our goods.........alone we stand!
9. Stop paying GP's £100 or whatever it is to write (actually only sign) a letter for a patient. Yeap right and he tells you "no go then Mister"........you did well there

Need i really go on???? The list is endless

reply to post by chocciebabeI definitely think Child Benefit should be means tested. I have 2 kids also. They're 19 & 21 now so no more benefits. There were times when we needed that extra money, but others when we really didn't.
I think it could be abolished, if the whole welfare state system was simplified. If there was a rolling "minimum family income" that kept pace with inflation, then you could have a simple benefit that brought you up to that if you earned less.
I'm intrigued by what you said about limiting the number of kids that could recieve it. Do you mean nationally, or something like only for 2 kids per family?

reply to post by Bunken Drum


Yes it should be means tested - The thing with this site is trying to understand different legislations regarding different countries...............we are all on a different scale.

For people like Victoria Beckham to get it is...................wrong!

Anyway got to go too sleep right now - ATS live has made my sleep pattern go haywire

The annual half billion subsidy we give to the Queen for her farms.

reply to post by Bunken Drum


What i cannot stand is hypocrites. Police would openly admit that they know plenty of people on drugs or what have you.

The system is a con beyond words, and society is a waste of time as police can just make it all up to haress you all your life.

I couldn't agree more regarding Child Benefit. In an ideal world it should be scrapped altogether, but means testing it so only the poorest and most in need receive it is probably the way to go. If you can't afford to have kids, don't have them. I want a Ferrari, but I can't afford it... there's no way I'd expect the government to help out with buying it.

I used to work in a further education college in a very deprived area of Edinburgh and know for a fact there are people out there who deliberately have children because we pay them to do it. Many also see it as an easy route to obtain council housing and, subsequently, as an excuse not to work. Unsurprisingly, many of these children grow up in less than ideal circumstances.

I wonder how the UK's appalling teen pregnancy rates would change if there was no financial benefit to having children?

All this debate, and no one bothers to bring up the figures on where our 26 percent borrowing "black hole" is being spent?
budget.treasury.gov.uk...

I say cut social security by attaching all benerfits to (some) kind of work. I'd put the saving into tax cuts for the working class (i.e. the people who most hate scroungers on benerfits). Income Tax reductions will increrase all consumer spending, this will support buisness, which will then bring more revenue, for the same tax rate.

We need more prisons, and less money spent on them. The best way is to cut the prisoners living standards e.g. why do Vegans need to pay tax so the man who burgled his house can eat burgers? I mean if you do give e.g. sweats, they should at least do work, to support either their families, or the governments costs on themselves.

However to do that we need to leave the European Union first. Obviously we need to do a Norway, where we would withdraw having our satisfied, free trade, requirments. But many countries in Europe would like to see us go, and no club wants unwilling members, so we can a good exit from something that resembles Neo-Dictatorship rather than democracy.

PS To all "Sheeple": MP's expenses is a very small amount GDP, and is really just "brain-numbing" media, gossip; helping keep the wool over people's eyes.

Cutting MP salaries (not that high really), flower beds, nukes and foreign aid is a drop in the ocean.

I work in the NHS and could cut out 10%. That's a few billion. How? Well, where do you want me to start? Reduce / freeze high pay (GP salaries £100K plus, clinician salaries £100K plus, some managers), scrap strategic health authorities, scrap quack medicine (e.g. homeopathy), stop vanity cosmetic surgery. Introduce business practices to improve productivity e.g. in surgery by expanding the indepenent treatment centres et al. Close or downgrade some hospitals.

Schools. Make teachers work a full year by keeping schools open during the long school holidays to teach children who need more help.

Welfare. It's a crying shame that the State supports so many people who don't work but should (mothers who have children at school and voluntary unemployed) and conversly support so many who want to work but cannot (e.g. the elderly forced to retire).

Hope this adds to this thread

Regards