Summer Budget 2015

EarthRod

With the changes to tax relief on pensions and dividends, he’s done over the “wealthy” as well.

Sve

As far as motorists are concerned:

* First MOT on new cars to be required after four years, not three.
* Fuel duty will remain frozen.
* Some small changes to the Vehicle Excise Duty. Company car tax has increased in line.
* Some incentive with regard to funding driverless car technology.

Stuey1

Osbourne himself said he wants more people given the chance to go to uni, not me.

Alan
He hasn't given anything yet and the cuts will come in before he does. The lowest paid in society have once again have the most pain.

Philly112

And they have the chance, they just have to be confident enough in themselves to actually complete a useful course to a decent standard and it may help them - or they can choose other routes too

Education is free up to college, if you want to go to uni you are effectively backing yourself with your own money to "succeed" academically and i don't see an issue with that - especially seeing as though if you don't "succeed" financially you will pay no penalty for never repaying the loan

Stuey1

Was your degree 'xxxxx studies'? I begged my wife's best friend not to let her daughter go to Salford 'University' to study Media. Hey, Salford Quays is where they film the shows, right. So it must be a good course...
But I lost the argument, and there she is, convinced she is going to present the 9 o'clock News in 10 years time. I'm not joking.

Philly112

No I actually did Business Information Technology (or i was enrolled at least) - as a failed experiment it cost me over £10,000 but you live and learn...

fluxo

Thanks. No problems, you are someone who has learned that many degrees are pointless. There are so many people out there who believe that any degree from any establishment calling itself a 'University' is equivalent to a 'useless' Classics degree from Cambridge.
Good luck to them. They'll need it.

pragmatic

The issue is that many of those in the WRAG group are very seriously ill and disabled. Reducing their payments to JSA level doesn't wean them off support, because they are incapable of working. Reducing someone's income is not a medical treatment. Furthermore, not very many employers want to pay to merely have these people around, which would be little more than a charitable gesture. As an employer, would you employ someone incapable of doing the work you need doing?

This is nothing to do with incentivizing work and everything to do with saving money and, as a consequence, it will cause tremendous suffering. To cause a similar level of suffering to other taxpayers, you would have to do what? Raise income tax rates to 90%?

When a government's policies are so extreme that people are killing themselves, surely you would pause for a moment to ask yourself whether that can be justified. I know you disliked Labour and I was not a great fan of them either. But did you ever feel so persecuted by them that you wanted to end your own life?

There are certain aspects of Conservative thinking I agree with. But I cannot stand this repeated hammering of the vulnerable. It is contemptible.

Rasczak

You can't have it both ways, if people aren't paying it back then it's a one way bet.
If a kid is not smart enough to recognise the benefit of going to uni, or doesn't have the academics to get in a course that benefits them after graduation while having to pay an effective graduate tax,  then not going to uni is probably right.

Sve

Responding to a parliamentary question, universities minister David Willetts said the government had been reviewing its modelling on student loans and now estimated that about 45% would be written off - an increase from 40%.

Around 45% of university graduates will not earn enough to repay their student loans, the government now believes.

Should those 45% never have gone to uni, or was it stupid to introduce fees?

If it gets to 48.6% which could well happen, it will have cost more than they get in.