Scrutable

Lots of coverage for the alleged announcement of free child care hours for 1-2 year olds.

I'm not convinced this will make a jot of difference... and I say that based on the observation that when my kids moved from paid to "30 hours free" my monthly nursery bills were about the same... because 30 hours free never meant free, its subsidized, and to such a low level that the nursery had to charge for other things or tie it to days / hours of provision that meant you ended up paying the same.

So if this announcement is actually going to make it pay for parents to get back into work, it has to actually save money for them.

It's also quite possible that a Nursery which only has space for 20 children will go from 5 carers to 4 carers.

Usefully freeing them up 1 former carer for a job in manufacturing.

Ha, what an idiot to highlight swimming pools.

Ha, and the Scottish lot got excited when he was silly enough to praise independence.

This shows what technocrats do well. I thought it was a good budget.

Didn't like the continued fossil fuel subsidies, obvs, and the very very rich got extra tax breaks on super high pensions, but meh.

The good stuff should have been done years go. Help for young mothers and help for people with disabilities to get back to work, plus things like helping children in care and boosting the drug, film and AI industries. The Conservatives problems are:

- they haven't the competence to execute on any of this
- these are all long term measures that will benefit people and the economy in the 2-10 year time horizon, i.e. helps the next government

Has to be said, given what he inherited Hunt has done a remarkably good job in getting things back to cohesion in just 6 months.

lpm wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 15, 2023 2:00 pm

Has to be said, given what he inherited Hunt has done a remarkably good job in getting things back to cohesion in just 6 months.

That’s a very low bar to get over

lpm wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 15, 2023 2:00 pm

This shows what technocrats do well. I thought it was a good budget.

Didn't like the continued fossil fuel subsidies, obvs, and the very very rich got extra tax breaks on super high pensions, but meh.

The good stuff should have been done years go. Help for young mothers and help for people with disabilities to get back to work, plus things like helping children in care and boosting the drug, film and AI industries. The Conservatives problems are:

- they haven't the competence to execute on any of this
- these are all long term measures that will benefit people and the economy in the 2-10 year time horizon, i.e. helps the next government

Has to be said, given what he inherited Hunt has done a remarkably good job in getting things back to cohesion in just 6 months.

He made a good job of sounding like he was in control and fixing things. Whether that is true is another matter.

JC identified problems, which is a good start, sometimes even being fairly honest about the scale of some of the problem. Then he said he was fixing it. But many of the fixes won't be enough, or don't address the deeper issue that causes the problem. For example the tweaks he mentioned on the investment side won't go anywhere near fixing our large national shortfall in R&D in comparison to peer economies. And we've heard fine words about making it easier for businesses to get the finance they need before, but fixing it has often amounted to ramping up the risk in financial markets, without actually fixing it. I think it's a difficult problem and the likelihood they will solve it in a hurry is low.

The pension changes and doctors issue are an interesting case study. After saying no doctor should be limiting their hours due to pension distortions - a problem they finally admitted to about 6 or 7 years ago, but did nothing about in all that time - he then admitted that the changes to "fix it" only solve it for only about 80% of doctors. So in fact he hasn't addressed the underlying problem. But he has given money away to lots of rich people.

I'm suspicious of the disability changes until I have read some kind of an expert appraisal. They have a history of being nasty in this area, which I suspect they haven't suddenly recovered from.

Grumble wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 15, 2023 2:41 pm

lpm wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 15, 2023 2:00 pm

Has to be said, given what he inherited Hunt has done a remarkably good job in getting things back to cohesion in just 6 months.

That’s a very low bar to get over

It is a very low bar, yes. But nonetheless surprising that there's a Tory capable of getting over it.

There were a couple of secret bits to the pensions announcements.

1) 25% tax free lump sum is only tax free for the first £250k. This sort of existed before because of the £1m cap, but now it's an explicit limit

2) Can start drawing pensions and still invest in your pension fund up to £10k (instead of current £4k) and get the tax bribe

The pension changes are supposedly to encourage older people to keep working, but it could have the opposite effect. By increasing the annual allowance, it's now easier for people to reach the size of pot they need to retire.

dccarm wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 16, 2023 7:58 am

The pension changes are supposedly to encourage older people to keep working, but it could have the opposite effect. By increasing the annual allowance, it's now easier for people to reach the size of pot they need to retire.

This is a good point. Savings went up when interest rates fell very low during the global financial crisis, and I'm pretty sure this contributed to it.

A lot of people save money so that they have enough later. Certainly the way I think. So reducing interest rates encourages people, who think like that, to save more. In fact, the way legacy final-salary pension funds work institutionalises this behaviour, as such funds are required to ensure they have enough money to pay out, which means they have to take higher contributions during periods of low interest rates.

I see that the Labour Party are now sufficiently outraged by this quiet hand-out to the rich to call it out, and say they would cancel it.