Month: April 2024

UK News: Claim which relies on opaque calculations and more people using private healthcare ignores financial cost of climate crisis, campaigners say

The Reform UK party has been accused by green campaigners of trying to “weaponise” the climate crisis as a wedge issue in the general election after the party leader claimed funding the NHS and reaching net zero were at odds.

At a press conference in Westminster on Monday, Reform UK’s leader, Richard Tice, suggested that scrapping the UK’s pledge to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 would free up cash for the NHS. Continue reading…
http://dlvr.it/T5HWXD

UK foreign secretary also defended his meeting with Donald Trump during a press conference in Washington

Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves also repeatedly attacked Conservative plans over non-dom tax status. Having defended the status against calls for abolition for years, in March Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt announced it would adopt Labour’s policy and scrap the status. However, the way they are planning to do so has been criticised for including a significant number of loopholes.

Speaking on BBC Breakfast this morning, Reeves said:

The government’s plans that they announced in March about non-doms, they said they were taking our policy, well it turns out they’ve taken it but left a load of loopholes in it. And so if you are a non-dom you can still get out of paying inheritance tax: in the first year of their policy there’s a 50% discount, we don’t get 50% discounts on our taxes.

People who go out and work today – teachers, plumbers, doctors, they don’t get a 50% discount – why should some of the wealthiest people in the country get that discount? We would abolish that and we would put that money into frontline public services, where it belongs.”

You can ramp it up pretty quickly. At the start you might need to bring in extra resource but then you need to train people up within the government to do this work.

This isn’t rocket science, previous governments have managed to close that tax gap, as it’s called.

We’ve got to invest in and improve the customer service at HMRC because, you know, we had this urgent question in parliament just before the recess, which was about HMRC closing its phone line for six months a year. Because the service was so bad, they just decided to close the phone line. And we say, look, you have to invest in digital solutions and modernise HMRC. Continue reading…
http://dlvr.it/T5HW7V

UK News: DWP is forcing tens of thousands of people looking after relatives to repay huge sums after buildup of erroneous overpayments

* Analysis: Why are so many carers being taken to court?
* Explainer: Who are the unpaid carers?

Tens of thousands of unpaid carers looking after disabled, frail or ill relatives are being forced to repay huge sums to the government and threatened with criminal prosecution after unwittingly breaching earnings rules by just a few pounds a week.

People who claim the £81.90-a-week carer’s allowance for looking after loved ones while working part-timeare being forced by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to pay back money that have been erroneously overpaid to them, in some cases running to more than £20,000, or risk going to prison. Continue reading…
http://dlvr.it/T5F557

Claim which relies on opaque calculations and more people using private healthcare ignores financial cost of climate crisis, campaigners say

The Reform UK party has been accused by green campaigners of trying to “weaponise” the climate crisis as a wedge issue in the general election after the party leader claimed funding the NHS and reaching net zero were at odds.

At a press conference in Westminster on Monday, Reform UK’s leader, Richard Tice, suggested that scrapping the UK’s pledge to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 would free up cash for the NHS. Continue reading…
http://dlvr.it/T5F4bV