Summer Budget 2015

IronGiant

How many of the Cabinet were State educated, not many I would guess?  

Let's start with the PM: fees at Eton are currently £33,000 a year   Somewhat more than the National Average Salary I believe.

fluxo

The introduction of tuition fees was a further step, but the introduction of student loans and the reduction and removal of the maintenance grant started before before then (late 80s).

domtheone

Really

Praise the lord.

Best thing that could happen.


I suspect not a lot will change.  Personally i would have hit the BTL a lot harder but hey ho.

Upon reflection.  Nothing in the budget about the housing crisis.   Very disappointing that all the Tories want to do is follow in Labours footsteps and fuel the housing boom.

Latest headline today is that house prices across the UK hit an average of 200K this month

The biggest boom of all time and no government wants to reign it in.




Could we realistically have expected any more?


Not to mention the extra increase in the  personal allowance from next year being a winner all round.

Stuey1

Put it another way, why should people earning say £10600 and £20000, pay towards higher education that they themselves never used?

Having a fees system for higher (higher) education is a reasonable way to ensure that people choose to go to uni for the right reasons regardless of whether they ever pay the loan back and £21k is not a bad amount of money and is only where you start paying back for today's loans...

This way the tax bill is as efficient as possible and everyone has the opportunity to go to university if they accept that x% of their money will be taken after they earn over 21k a year... It's not an unreasonable system.

                                                                       

fluxo

In some ways I am not completely opposed to the idea. But it does help entrench the idea that to get on you must take on debt. Little by little it becomes impossible to improve one's position without doing that.

Getting an education is probably one of the better reasons for taking on debt. But I think it's worth being cautious here. The total amount of personal indebtedness in the UK has already reached one of the highest levels in the world, relative to GDP. At what point that becomes a problem, if indeed it does, I do not know. Probably best not to be too cavalier, though.

IronGiant

It's a weird kind of sleight of hand.  Many students will get a free University Education because they will never have to pay off their loan.

Only those that better themselves are expected to pay for it.   What an incentive...

Rasczak

Yes, it is only a gentle tap on BTL landlords - which isn't going to help house prices. Indeed with the new pension freedoms I suspect increasing numbers are buying outright rather than with a mortgage anyway.

No, not really. But it won't solve any of the problems of defence as the Tories have already tied their hands. By committing to keep the Army at its current strength - but accepting that the political will to deploy them on another large scale operation like Afghanistan is now non-existent - this will require vast sums of the Defence budget into providing equipment for something that can't really be used. In the meantime the increased costs of the late procurement of the Trident replacement will gobble up money whilst regeneration of key military capabilities that can contribute to UK plc, i.e. new Maritime Patrol aircraft for the RAF, which were lapsed to support the Afghanistan  campaign will be under-funded. Furthermore the cornerstone of our mid-term Defence policy - the new aircraft carriers - will be next to useless with funding for Tranche 2 and 3 of JSF and purchase of solid support ships. Net effect is the Government's 2% pledge is merely mitigating - not eliminating - the hash they have made of Defence.

Sonic67

Given that the Government had a big idea of expanding the reserves which never happened (as I did say at the time) they can't really cut the regulars again can they?

Rasczak

The reserves are still expanding...look at how many new RNR units have now been created for example or creation of the new Engineering branch. But all the Reserve forces - but in particular the Army - need ex-Regulars to make them a viable and a worthwhile prospect. They are not going to get that if the vast majority are all being paid as Regulars to sit in barracks all year long.

Its disappointing because, in light of Afghanistan, public opinion is unlikely to be supportive of a large scale overseas deployment within the next decade. The net effect is the better calibre of candidates simply won't be attracted to the Army at all (nor the Army Reserve - which is why they are struggling for recruitment), so we are pumping money into an impotent force. Its bad for the Army and bad for Britain.

Sonic67

Not happening.

Not in the army:

'Shocking' recruitment figures show Army Reserve barely growing - Telegraph

And the RNR? You serious? Private Eye: 12 June - 25 June 2015 Page 13.

"After a £5 million campaign far more Royal Navy personnel are leaving the service than joining it. At a time when a lot of new technology including two new carriers are about to arrive and just when the Navy has a job to do rescuing migrants from Libya.

According to the MOD's monthly personnel reports the Navy in 2007 had 39,400 regulars and 540 reservists in 2014 it had 33,080 regulars and 580 reservists.

In 2013 alone intake from civilian life was 2,770 while outflow was 4,350, a loss of over 1,500 trained officers.

Latest figures give a trained strength of just 23,260. According to the MOD this is almost 7,000 below the minimum to man the fleet fully.

Meanwhile the number of reservists being recruited has barely changed since the SDR of 2010 despite it having a big increase to counter reductions among regular ranks. This is the principal reason the MOD is desperate to throw money at advertising campaigns.

The review was designed to shrink the navy down to 30,000 by 2020. In it's hurry to reach the target early, the navy provided an easy escape for sailors but holed below the water its ability to crew its own ships."

As I said at the time it wasn't going to happen. You still think the regulars will all leave and be reservists. Never mind, the government thought that to so you are in good company.

Link here:

http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN02183/SN02183.pdf