Budget 2017 Wish List

IronGiant

The point they are making is that you can be a citizen without having a passport

Also, just checking, you think it is fair that the 13M outside the U.K. get access to this free education, but those who reside here and actually pay their taxes don’t?

EarthRod

Apologies for any confusion.  OK, they are both Residents and Citizens, they didn't lose Citizenship when their passports expired and we didn't renew them

IronGiant

Right there is the confusion and you can't see it or you are making a point and missing the essence.

I'll say it again: there is a difference between a citizen and a resident of a country.

Shall now bow out and let you do some research.

raduv1

Well you're missing the point that my children are British and although they have held passports in the past they have lapsed as they don't need them at the moment. So I'll ask again, why should they have to buy a passport in order to qualify for your free education idea? Holding a passport does not change their Nationality status at all.  Which is what I thought we were discussing. I am aware that Residency and Citizenship are not one and the same, apologies if I appeared to suggests it, perhaps I shouldn't have capitalised Resident and just said they live here .

Jezza99

I would like then to do away with car tax and put that tax wholly on petrol, Diesel , gas , hybrid , electric  consumption of ones vehicle/ vehicles . Although it would be a hike for some the cost saving on the public sector alone would be worth it if simplified only on consumption .

domtheone

Not a budget measure as such, but wouldn't this conversation be simplified if we had compulsory ID cards?  (in fact it would simplify a lot of things, IMHO)

EarthRod

I was thinking of 2,3 and 4 just as i was opening this thread

Seemingly, there’s going to be a lot of talk about housing.  

Goverment won’t do anything to risk bursting the biggest bubble of all time though.


Limit BTL to 1 (or maybe 2,3,4 etc) per person?

I’d like to see all politicians banned from using the term “affordable housing”

It’s absolute horse **** and skirts around the big issue which is the prices of houses.

Politicians should not be afraid of stating that they want to introduce measures that will cause house prices to fall.   If they are serious about addressing this huge issue, prices HAVE to fall.

IronGiant

OK. As long as it is clear a British citizen in the UK is not the same a resident living in the UK.

A birth certificate might prove British citizenship whereas a passport definitely proves citizenship, there is no doubt of citizenship.

For example, an expat family living in South Africa gives birth to a child in South Africa, the parents of course obtain a birth certificate from the British Consulate in Pretoria. The family then go back to the UK with the young baby. Eventually the child, now a young adult, wishes to go to university. The birth certificate   entrance forms   certificates etc are duly sent to the university who write back querying the birth certificate. If a British passport was sent to the university there would not be problem with entrance paperwork.

I was trying to avoid reams of explanations. But the above is just one example of many problems which can be avoided if a passport is produced and not a birth certificate. Makes life so much easier for the college/university who are not experts about birth certificates.

IronGiant

Agreed and sorry for creating the confusion

nheather

Building houses 30,000 per year without supporting infrastructure is madness.  And the housing developers are allowed to get away with all kinds.

Over the last few years my small town has had significant amounts of green belt released to developers following the government mandating that more homes be built.

The councils have mediocre commercial and legal teams so the developers teams run rings round them.

Take the development just to the north of where I live.  During consultation, the local residents identified that the infrastructure could not support it - roads are conjested, trains are full, overcrowded schools, no hospital and limited medical facilities.  It was also pointed out this was an expensive area so the houses would not be affordable to those that the initiative would be targetted at.

The council advised us that they were only allowing the build if there is affordable housing, and the the developers would include schools, a railway station, hospital, recreation facilities etc.

Now that the ink is dry the reality that we predicted has happened.  The developers have wriggled out of most by applying loopholes in the contracts that the council's mediocre team signed up to.  And the affordable housing - well firstly it is a very small proportion and secondly, affordable has been defined as a proportion of the other houses in the development - so the affordable houses are all over £250k - affordable to whom?

Now the council are whining to the government saying that these developments are going ahead and there is insufficient infrastructure, the developers are not providing it and the council can't afford to provide it.

It looked all so great when the councillers were fine dining, looking at architect's plans and taking back handers (probably).  Not so great now that they realise they have been stitched up.

Cheers,

Nigel