Your Tax Money At Work

Scotland’s last remaining oil refinery could be used to turn pine trees into petrol under a £225m taxpayer-funded plan proposed by Ed Miliband.

Under the scheme, timber harvested in Scotland would be taken to the site of the Grangemouth refinery to be “fermented” into bioethanol for blending into fuel, or used to produce chemicals and cosmetics.

It’s a shit plan but this is Ed of course. Also, we know it’s a shit plan because it’s to be taxpayer-funded. A good plan would be done without that drain on our wallets.

I am a single father and get personal independence payments (Pip). I have mental health issues and was diagnosed with autism towards the end of the Covid pandemic. I also receive universal credit, getting the limited capability for work-related activity element, which, we now know, will be cut for new claimants and frozen for existing ones like me. As inflation continues to rise, the freeze will mean that my income falls and I’m left struggling even harder to make ends meet.

How much will someone in that position actually be getting? For of course The G doesn;t give us that number. So, how much is it?

This number is thought to have risen after the Good Law Project, a political charity founded by lawyer Jolyon Maugham,

It’s a reasonable description. And now – should that actually be possible? A political charity?

But no. It would appear that there is no such plan. In reality, the whole thing is probably just a wild misunderstanding. A spokesman for the healthcare provider behind the form said that asking such questions is now “required by New Jersey law” – after local politicians decreed that healthcare providers must collect detailed demographic data about all their patients, including sexual orientation. I suspect that these politicians didn’t have the sexual orientation of newborn babies in mind. None the less, this is how their law has been interpreted.

Whatever the explanation, though, the farce doesn’t end there. Because the questionnaire doesn’t just ask about your baby’s sexuality. It also asks about your baby’s gender identity.

Among the wide variety of possible answers listed on the form are “male”, “female”, “genderqueer” – and, rather curiously, “trans woman” and “trans man”. In the context, surely it should be “trans baby”. But then, if a man can identify as a woman and a woman as a man, I suppose there’s no reason why a baby shouldn’t identify as an adult.

Possibly we should be collecting the statistics upon gay and trans etc. The Cowperthwaite response often appeals but maybe.

Recording these of babies is, of course rather odd. But that’s what happens then the blunderbuss of government and the law is used upon a point. Recording pink, blue or rainbow of babbies is not a grand problem. But you just wait until government gets around to how we’re going to power society, feed it, house it…..

Instead, Miliband has laid out lofty plans for the North Sea to be “at the heart of Britain’s energy future” by transforming itself into a hub of “homegrown” green power.

“Oil and gas production will continue to play an important role and as the world embraces the drive to clean energy, the North Sea gives Britain a chance to show new leadership once again,” Miliband said this month.

The problem here is:

Amid the sweeping ambitions, a key question remains: what will happen to the tens of thousands of oil and gas workers who risk becoming jobless?

Under plans recently put forward by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, many would transfer their skills to new roles in offshore wind, carbon capture and hydrogen production.

‘S industrial planning all over again, innit? Labour’s just some lump of economic asset that can be moved around the plan as the pencil suckers see fit. Never has worked before and it’s not going to work now….

Heavy electric cars are more likely to smash through crash barriers, putting lives at risk, a transport trade body has warned.

The Vehicle Restraint Manufacturers Association (VRMA) has written to the Government claiming the extra weight of banks of batteries in electric cars means “out of date” safety barriers on British motorways are at risk of being breached by an impact.

The group, which represents British manufacturers of road safety equipment, says design standards for barriers are failing to keep pace with the Government’s commitment to promote electric vehicles.

Clearly this could be true. Sure.

The news is brought to us by the people who would make the kit if we upgraded the entire system. Make lots and lots of lovely kit in fact.

So, is it true? Or even, how true is it?

A senior civil servant tricked the Government into paying him for three full-time jobs as he used working from home to help him to go undetected for at least two years.

Cabinet Office documents reveal the man worked for both the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) between 2022 and 2024.

It added that the official held three jobs at the same time on two separate occasions and was only identified when a government fraud squad stepped in.

He would have been paid on PAYE. With three personal allowances. And three sets of income at standard rate and so on. It’s all long enough ago that he should have filed tax returns updating this. Which, I suggest, it’s unlikely he did. So, HMRC should pursue him for the tax unpaid.

Which would be fun and appropriate, no? The tax rate on those second and third jobs should have been 45% plus 2% NI. On all the income from those second and third jobs. Betcha he ain’t paid it.

Oh, and the personal allowance would have been withdrawn, right? So a 60% rate for some of it…..

Benefit claims for minor mental health problems are to be rejected under Labour plans to cut the welfare bill.

Ministers have proposed changes to a key benefit scheme to make mental health problems less eligible for state support.

But it’s not going to work all that well, is it?

Leigh Day class action suit in 3…2…1…

If you want a brand new BMW i4 M Sport, you have two choices. The first is to lay out the full £52,770. The second is to tell the DWP that your mental health makes it hard to leave the house, claim the enhanced mobility rate of the Personal Independence Payment (Pip), fork out a down payment of £7,999, and get the Government to lease it for you.

In exchange for the mobility component of your benefit, you’ll get a new BMW every three years, your insurance and accident breakdown paid for, your servicing and tyre replacements covered, and your choice of “conventional metallic paint option”.

Incentives matter…….

Mental health claims have fuelled a surge in benefits payments post-Covid, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned.

New figures show that the number of working-age adults claiming disability benefits across England and Wales has jumped from 2m to 2.9m since 2019, with the increase containing half a million people who cite poor mental health as their main condition.

It’s entirely possible – possible, you unnerstan’ – that lockdown led a number of people to note how bunking off, if you can do it, isn’t all that bad. Ally this with finding out that mental ‘elf benefits can, if the system is fully exploited, lead to near median incomes once tax etc is taken into account. And, well, what does anyone expect would happen?

Well, it’s possible, isn’t it.

Overseas development aid will fall from 0.5% of the UK’s gross national income to 0.3% – a cut of about £6bn – in order to pay for increased defence spending.

The cut will have dire consequences, according to the groups delivering much of that aid. Describing it as a betrayal of poorer countries, Dr Alvaro Bermejo, director general of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, says: “This will cost lives.”

Those who get paid a cut of the money for spending the money upset at there being less money they get a cut of to spend.

Film at 11

An environmental group is to take legal action against Ofwat, the water regulator, accusing it of unlawfully making customers pay for decades of neglect by the water industry.

River Action will file the legal claim this month, arguing that bill rises for customers that have been approved by the regulator could be used to fix infrastructure failures that should have been addressed years ago.

The water bills have to rise to pay for the demands of cleaner rivers by people like River Action. River Action then demands that water bills not be allowed to rise to meet the demands for investment by River Action.

Ho Hum.

James Murray, a junior Treasury minister, claimed that a new windfall tax would give businesses greater certainty to plan their future investments.

Consultation documents published on Wednesday said the tax must also “deliver a fair return for the UK for the exploitation of our natural resources” and ensure the country “receives a fair share during times of unusually high oil and gas prices”.

In a forward to a consultation, Mr Murray said: “The Government is clear that it is right that when oil and gas prices are unusually high, the sector should make an additional contribution to public finances.

“This new mechanism will be predictable and sustainable, and we will ensure that it minimises distortions on investment decisions when prices are not unusually high.

“This will support continued investment in our domestic oil and gas production throughout the transition.”

It’s foreword, obvs. It’s also weaselwords, equally obviously.

But, OK, oil and gas prices soar, government should get more. Why not just charge a percentage royalty?

Possessing photos of a Muslim woman without her hijab should be made a criminal offence, MPs have proposed.

The Commons’ women and equalities committee said pictures of a Muslim woman without her headscarf – taken without her consent – should be considered ‘non-consensual intimate images’.

Such photographs should be treated the same as child sex abuse images, possession of which can carry long prison sentences, the MPs said.

Where’s Guy Fawkes when you need him?

This was “starkly illustrated by their continued disagreement” over how much it would cost to build the line from London to the West Midlands, it added.

In November 2023, the DfT’s estimated cost for HS2 was between £45 billion and £54 billion. However, HS2 Ltd’s latest estimate, from June 2024, put the figure at between £54 billion and £66 billion.

Once the estimates, which are based on 2019 prices, are adjusted for inflation, the cost “might be close to £80 billion”, according to the report.

My initial diagnoisis here is don’t use government to build things.

My considered and thought through opinion is don’t allow politics anywhere near the societal chequebook.

Plain, flat out, idiocy:

On Sunday, Donald Trump announced that his administration was pressing ahead with plans to set up a US crypto reserve, identifying three digital coins – XRP, Solana and Cardano – that would be included in the fund.

Trump later added that Bitcoin and Ethereum, the two biggest cryptocurrencies would “obviously” be included, adding: “I also love Bitcoin and Ethereum!” The two digital coins subsequently enjoyed their own price spike.

My assumption – but who knows? – is that it won’t happen. Congress has to approve spending money, no?

The government has cut millions of pounds in funding for victims’ services, prompting warnings that “criminals will go unpunished” unless it urgently changes its position.

The bastards will get away with it unless you spend more money on me? Rilly?

“These crucial services ensure victims have the support they need to recover from crime and stay engaged in the pursuit of justice,” Baroness Helen Newlove wrote.

“Without this support, prosecutions will falter, criminals will go unpunished, and we risk jeopardising a sense of security and justice in our communities… the failure to prosecute may contribute to further offending.”

I thought CPS did the prosecuting, not private individuals?

The Prime Minister could have chosen other areas of spending to cut – the rising welfare bill, or the expensive triple lock on pensions.

But he chose to slash the aid budget from 0.5 per cent of national income to 0.3 per cent in just two years: a far cry from the 0.7 per cent championed by David Cameron.

Only 0.3% to go then. Permanently, obviously.

Great British Energy, for instance, the ridiculous state owned energy company that won’t produce energy or cut our energy bills, is due to get £8.3bn over the course of this parliament.

It has been given just £125m this year so that’s £2.1bn a year for the remaining years. The National Wealth Fund is due to get £7.3bn over the same period. Cancel that and save another £1.5bn a year. Then there’s a further £1.5bn a year of additional funding due to be spent on public sector decarbonisation and Labour’s warm homes plan.
…
Cancelling much of what the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero is responsible for has an added bonus in that they won’t need the £600m increase in resource funding that they were allocated at the Budget.

The final few hundred million or so could come from cancelling the Chagos Island deal and abolishing the smorgasbord of other quangos and advisory councils the Government is establishing.

The Industrial Strategy Advisory Council. The Net Zero Council. The Regulatory Innovation Office. National Jobs and Careers Service. The Fair Work Agency. The Football Regulator. There are others. No amount of additional bureaucratic meddling will boost growth or living standards in this parliament. So the Chancellor should get rid of them all.

All of this would save the £10bn-11bn a year that is needed to halt the changes to National Insurance that are already doing such damage to the economy.

Obviously, that’s only the starter. We’ll get the main course a little later.

Adam Smith
22 February 2025 7:00am GMT

Ah, yes, knew there was something about that laddies I liked.

Fewer claimants are having their benefits cut after refusing to work, according to official figures, despite Labour’s pledge to tackle Britain’s joblessness crisis and boost employment.

Official figures show 117,000 out of 2.1m people claiming Britain’s main unemployment benefit had their payments docked in November 2024.

This is down from 137,000 people sanctioned a year ago, when the number of people claiming Universal Credit who had to look for work stood at 1.89m. It means the effective sanctions rate on people whose benefits depend on seeking work is 5.5pc, down a quarter from the 7.5pc who had payments docked a year ago, despite rising unemployment.

Clearly, now that we are in hte sunny uplands of a Labour government, one that truly cares for the people, fewer are willing to try and rip off the collective weal.

That must be it, right?