Angela Rayner delivers one devastating blow to hardworking Brits | Politics | News | EUROtoday
Council tax goes up throughout the UK by as a lot as 10% as deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner permits some city halls to double the same old annual improve with out holding a referendum.
Yet virtually 1 / 4 of taxpayers’ cash is getting used to finance beneficiant public sector pensions. That’s a mean of £230 paid by hard-pressed households in the direction of gold-plated pensions most of these within the non-public sector can solely dream of.
The public sector is a leviathan, looting our purses to pay for comfy retirements that almost all of us couldn’t afford. It was a complete of £7billion in 2024 – with some councils re-routing as a lot as half of taxpayers’ cash to their pension pots.
One of the worst offenders is Birmingham City Council, paying in some £141.7million to pension schemes, whereas on the similar time teetering on the sting of chapter. Countrywide, extra money goes to pensions than the £2billion spent on emergency council housing or the £1billion spent on native libraries and tradition. Many of those are overly beneficiant remaining or career-average wage pensions which can be now not supplied within the non-public sector due to their unsustainable prices.
You can take a Local Government Pension Scheme from the age of 55 and it rises yearly with the speed of inflation. Some eye-wateringly excessive pension pots have been amassed with 7,607 former council employees receiving greater than £50,000 a 12 months and 203 high executives having fun with retirement on greater than £100,000 a 12 months – courtesy of your council tax funds.
Decades of beneficiant public sector pensions have constructed up a debt of £5 trillion. Reform occasion chief Nigel Farage has rightly described it a “ticking time bomb” for our nation’s funds.
Unfairly, new inheritance tax guidelines are focusing on non-public sector pension pots from April 2027 and largely leaving public pensions untouched, additional widening the gulf.
Overall, 1.16 million persons are at present employed immediately in native authorities whereas 6.8 million retired employees are members of the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS). To be sincere, what number of of those city corridor employees would we miss in the event that they weren’t there or completely on strike? The new business of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, or DEI, has discovered a fertile residence in native authorities amid a rising tide of wokeness.
A current authorities report concluded that 6,000 public authorities have been using 10,000 public DEI officers, at a value of £557million a 12 months to the UK taxpayer.
Last 12 months, Birmingham City Council alone employed 11 employees in these Woke roles and will have saved £450,364 by axing them.
That this tier of trendy paperwork is actually one thing we may do with out has discovered a heat welcome in President Trump’s America together with his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) placing all DEI employees on paid depart till they’re completely dropped from the workforce. Entire swathes of the US authorities at the moment are being analysed for his or her usefulness. Elon Musk, heading this DOGE process pressure, has pledged to cut back the US Federal deficit by half to $1trillion, by eradicating pointless paperwork.
A current authorities report concluded that 6,000 public authorities have been using 10,000 public DEI officers, at a value of £557million a 12 months to the UK taxpayer.
Such a dramatic discount of presidency prices within the UK would give Chancellor Rachel Reeves extra headroom for the mandatory tax cuts to get our economic system rising once more. But because the occasion of the general public sector, Labour would somewhat give them extra of our cash than much less. They hope they’ll stay loyal voters, realizing which aspect their bread is buttered on.
But how lengthy can Britain help this patent gerrymandering? How lengthy can taxpayers be anticipated to help the privileged life of the general public sector?
It is patently unsustainable and if Trump’s prosperity drive pulls forward of the UK, chopping waste and stimulating progress, there have to be a requirement amongst voters for the same strategy right here.
The one piece of fine information is that the LGPS is at present operating a surplus of £85billion and the plan is to make use of this to cut back employer contributions that are as excessive as 27% in some councils. No doubt you received’t see this in a discount of your council tax however not less than much less of your hard-earned cash shall be going to help council employees dwelling within the lap of luxurious.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/2009852/angela-rayner-tax-rise