Here we go - my manifesto to put things right !
Public Sector Pensions - arguably the elephant in the room - salary related public pensions cost approximately £60 bn a year with £30 bn coming from current workers with the government / us making up the other £30bn . There is no underlying fund. It is estimated that the overall future liability / "promised payments" is in the order of £1400 billion in today's value!
Solution : These need to be abolished and be based on actual pension contributions and the performance of an underlying fund and not be salary related / index linked. Companies did this years ago to manage their liabilities and costs - but MP's love their pensions, so they are not going to vote to get rid of them, therefore the rest of the public sector is probably safe. However, given the economics it can't really be allowed to continue. Perhaps introduce to new members only - that way MPs and existing beneficiaries should be happy !
Immigration - Foreign Students - approximately 750,000 per year (nearly 400k from non EU countries). Of the 2021 arrival cohort, 59% continued to hold valid or indefinite leave to remain three years later, compared with 39% for the 2019 cohort. I can't think of a good reason for any of these to remain.
Solution: Enforce study periods and hold bonds for foreign students (offered by private companies and mandatory for all students or those coming from problem areas (those least likely to return to their country of origin). Bond forfeited by private company if student doesn't return. The private company has the right to apprehend and return students to immigration officials if they breach their study period. Bit like the USA, for criminal offenders out on bail, who breach their bail conditions.
No extensions to the initial study periods to be granted, without going through the complete process again and a strict limit of x years put on study terms with enforcement from immigration officials . Foreign Student non attendance to be notified immediately to immigration officials and offenders removed / have their visas cancelled. Absenteeism rates, of say 20%, should result in the immediate cancellation of study visas.
Fines and closure for universities and schools that have a high percentage of non returning foreign students (some of these schools are a complete scam - just a means for people to enter the country). To ensure proper credentials of universities and schools, foreign students should be limited to a fixed percentage of UK students (e.g. maximum of 20%). No family members should be permitted. If the child is a minor they should not be here or they should be in a paid for full-boarding facility.
Economic migrants / small boats - Solution no payment of benefits until citizenship (think this has been proposed but see potential problem below) and no more rights than an individual in the UK.
No language support/ non english documents - except when removing / challenging their right to stay .
Any employer or anyone employing an illegal immigrant fined £100,000 or 5% of their turnover whichever is greater (consistent offenders to face forfeiture of business/ assets and the same applies to any business / person leasing premises to consistent offenders). These rules would apply to the main and sub contractors - i.e to capture any business ultimately benefiting from the employment of illegal immigrants. Rewards of £10,000 for every illegal immigrant worker who is reported and subsequently deported.
This would choke off the reason for immigrants coming here and avoiding immediate safe havens. If we remove the right to benefits before citizenship, we will see an explosion in illegal working, so this has to be controlled and policed to a far greater extent than it has in the past.
Reform of the welfare state - needs to be based on contribution and helping temporarily, not permanently (a way of life), plus stimulating economic activity not discouraging it e.g rent being paid for you if you only work a maximum of 16 hours or per week . When this point is reached there simply is no incentive to work - hence businesses can't find anyone to employ or have 3 part time "workers" where they used to have one. Solution: Remove free rent after a period of time or put it on a sliding scale (lose 20%- 33% per year after year one) and combine it with a condition to work more hours. Perhaps only make rent payments available to new people, who have at least completed a certain minimum period of full time hours, in the first place.
Uk mobility scheme - limit it to one car manufacturer and base models or cancel all together.
Skilled workers and immigrant labour Solution - Establish a technical college in each major town so we have the plumbers, builders, and crafts people to both maintain and build the infrastructure and housing we require today and in the future.
At the moment, we can't even maintain what we have, never mind building 1.5 million new homes. Courses should also include the hospitality, care and every other sector of the economy (priority should be given to creating places where we have the greatest needs and import the most workers). Every school leaver should have a skill and hence no excuse not to work. With AI a lot of more intellectual /student type jobs will be lost . Technical colleges offering skills can fill the hole and make sure the economy benefits not suffers as a result.
Long term unemployed should be encouraged to attend, take courses, or lose their right to benefits ... There should be creches on site,with priority given to single mums, or people/families coming from the long-term unemployed. The most recent youth labour‑market bulletins show around 2.86 million 16–24‑year‑olds were economically inactive (inactivity rate ~38.4%) in the latest quarter, and youth unemployment and employment figures are published in the same releases.
According to the OBD an average low‑paid worker who arrives in Britain at age 25 can cost the public purse roughly £150,000 over their working lifetime (measured to state pension age). If a newly retired person receives £12,800 per year in public spending and lives 15 years after pension age, nominal public spending ≈ £192,000; for 20 years it’s ≈ £256,000. These are straightforward multiplications and do not discount future spending to present value or include all NHS/social‑care costs, which would increase totals. So with healthcare and pensions and other benefits many of these low paid immigrant workers could cost us £500,000 over a lifetime. Many of these work in the health service etc, because we do not have the people with the necessary skills/willing. The above needs to and should address this !
Dynamic assessment / Active management - we need to constantly assess where rises in unemployment / immigration are coming from and take action immediately - provision of courses and skills, removal of benefits , stricter assessments and look at the corresponding potential long term damage/benefits and prioritize on that basis. This should be hardwired into Government reporting and management.
MP's pay and experience - Quadruple MP's pay or have salary alignment if they have relevant sector experience to encourage people that have actually done the job to go into politics and discourage career politicians. For example , an ex general/high ranking successful officer to be responsible for the military, the head of the most successful National Health Service Trust to run the NHS, etc...
It's incredible to think that today we probably have someone in charge of the armed forces or national health that has no military or health service experience and has never managed a huge budget or corporation / organization. This would never happen in industry. Basically, as in most things in life, you get what you pay for and there is no substitute for real job experience. At the moment hardly any of our MPS have any private sector job experience never mind relevant directly related job experience.
The Governement has the biggest jobs and budgets with the biggest implications - we need and deserve the best people to manage them !
