'Why no help for landlords?' LBC callers react to the budget

Let's talk to Robert in Brixton. Hi, Robert. Hi, Sheila. Great show. Thank you. Yeah, I'm just really disappointed that we don't use targeted increases. If you take the council tax A to D, yeah? Yeah. Someone could be in a council tax D but earn 100 grand a year. And it's the same with the pension. I can't see why I don't need the triple lock. So everyone that is in the band where they get the free winter fuel allowance, you know, just above the living wage, yeah? Why don't they give those people the triple lock and people like me that can afford it just a normal percentage increase? My daughter gets, her daughter has to get, so my granddaughter has to get a school bus. My daughter's a single parent, paying a mortgage, yeah? That's £350 she's got to find a term. But those within a certain area that earn 100 grand, 50 grand, 60 grand, they get a free bus. So what you're saying essentially is that many of these things that are not yet means tested based on your income or your wealth should be. Yeah. A simple thing. We means test the winter fuel allowance. Is that correct? We do now. We didn't, did we? It used to be fully universal. Why don't we means test under that simple system? If you income of under 30 grand, you get the triple lock. Otherwise, you just get the normal increase. We could use AI and we could use... Yeah, because one of the I mean, I don't know how you would use AI for this, obviously, but there will be people who could who would know. But the argument against it that I've been that's been thrown at me over years of asking people about this is it's more expensive to create a system of means testing than it is to actually just make it a universal credit or an almost universal benefit. I should say not credit. And yet you could be right that AI is the difference there. But that doesn't make sense if they've done it quite easily for the people on a certain income get the winter fuel allowance. I don't think it has been easy because they had to spend a lot of DWP time trawling to find the people who should have been on pensions credit, but weren't because they were the people who qualified for it. Yeah, but I think they could make it more targeted. More finesse. The first thing they should do with PIP is forget the people that have got long term conditions, you know, cancer, MS and motor neurons, and then target the people and give them a occupational health assessment, because it all goes on your limitations, restrictions on psychological, physical and mental health. Yeah. And just to reiterate, it has nothing to do with whether you're working or not, because there's a lot of confusion around PIP on that point. Thank you, Robert. Let's hear from David in Bayswater, keen to speak to as many as possible. Hello, David. Oh, hi, Sheila. Great to speak to you again. So basically, I think there was a glaring omission because, you know, the universities, the bill for students is 300 billion for their fees. That's what it's owed. So it's basically a subsidy to the universities, you know, to pay to keep them going. and a third of graduates are not doing graduate level jobs so we are not we're getting a very poor return on a huge investment and this 300 billion is sitting on the books increasing our payments you know our interest payments and it's just terrible and no one seems to want to address it well yeah i mean gabriel i don't know whether you were listening in the first hour but gabriel newspan my guest um personal finance guest said exactly that that this should have been part of the of the budget and it wasn't yeah yeah exactly and also just um another thing the landlord thing they're i'm a landlord myself right so they increased it by two percent it's not a lot but i'm just saying in general if you look at the number of landlords in the market it's dropping and therefore rents are going up and they're not being replaced so so i think that's another mistake i know it's complex the the property market at the moment but they're not building enough houses to to replace the properties that are are disappearing off the market so for you that was the thing you were really listening out for was this action on student loans and that takes me to another point right i have my occupational pension as a teacher i also rent a property out right so that means i could in effect do without my state pension which i will get when i'm 67 i think there are a lot of pensioners who could live without that that um 12 000 or whatever it is i think they need to look at that as well i think we all need to start looking at where we can help the country and there i'm not the only pensioner who could live without that that money i just feel like we all need to start giving and not just expecting it's just everyone just you know fighting their own corner and not trying to see the bigger picture so would you have wanted to see more on welfare yes i also think we've been hijacked by the by the autism and ADHD thing. I know half of young people who are in receipt of payments are doing it for mental health problems. That is crazy. And no one wants to address that problem because they don't want to be called a fascist and they don't appreciate it. Well, you do accept that young people can have mental health problems. Yeah, they can, but the number has grown exponentially. I'm sorry, but they're gaining the system, a lot of people. And Sheila, just one anecdotal thing. When I've noticed, when I go into supermarkets these days, all the workers are becoming Indian. They're all Indian. I've been to Sainsbury's. I've been to Waitrose. I've been to Tesco. They're all suddenly becoming Indian. Why aren't there any, you know, NEETs in there, young teenage unemployed people? It's all Indian workers. It's absolutely crazy. Well, there may, of course, be British Indian workers that you're seeing there. And of course, there are plenty of British Indian teenagers, too, and so-called NEETs, you know, who will be looking for jobs, too. So there may be an Amongst them, David, for all you know. Thank you very much for your call. That's David in Bayswater. Let's talk to Sheldon in Tufnell Park. Sheldon, hello. Hi, Sheila. Thanks for having me on. My wife is a big fan. Oh, good. Just your wife? I mean, I listen to LBC, but to everyone. I always think when someone says, my husband really likes you or my wife really likes you, they're like, I can't stand you myself. But anyway, anyway, that's by the by. You're a business owner. What did you make of that? Anything in it for you? um yeah i mean i was ready on the small business rates relief so that's not going to make much of a difference to me personally but it's more that again another budget's gone by and they haven't said a single thing about VAT thresholds nothing what did you want on that i wanted an increase really because that is what i probably speak for all barbershops around that try and operate in a you know in a legal manner shall i say that want to take card and take payments and crack on and actually build build themselves up for the business the minute we hit the 90 grand threshold we're then having to fork out 20 percent tax straight away even even if we're running at a loss so you know good staff cost a lot of money to keep but do you do you collect that tax essentially from your from your customers or do you not always feel you can pass it on it still doesn't uh doesn't account for the fact that we're running at a loss because we then have to pay out a lot for our staff so so so on business rates you're you already get business rate relief do you uh yeah that went up a little bit because they they're they i think they increment my 12 to 15 was it yeah my shop went up in rateable value in value so i ended up going i still got a little bit of relief but not as much as before i was on zero before and then i ended up getting a little bit but now that's going to be with this new thing with this new um system i'll probably go back down to zero hopefully what about the sort of domestic fuel stuff because again presumably for you the cost of fuel is a business you know literally if you're a barber you're going to be using quite a lot of energy aren't you uh yeah we use it i mean we don't actually have any gas in our shop it's all electric so that's not been that's not a major cost for us if i'm completely on electrics mainly is the VAT once we get to a certain point it's uh it is a bit of a struggle to keep up it's like constantly playing catch up because there are other costs involved with running a business where you're having to try and balance the books i just wish they would probably it would be better if the VAT was probably a ladder system yeah i don't i don't mind paying VAT i don't i'm not saying i don't want to pay any tax at all no no you don't sound like you but it's like reassure you yeah of course it's more like if you get to like i don't know 130 you pay 10% if you get to 150 you pay 15% like the VAT ladder would be more than appropriate way of tackling it so that was missing for you thanks sheldon for your call sheldon in Tufnell Park Barry in Croydon hello hi good afternoon uh sheila and listeners um i almost feel a bit sorry for John Healy, because he hasn't got much room for manoeuvre I'm sure he would love to do much more, and he's able to do, pay more to nurses and police officers, etc. But we just don't have the money. I mean, Nadeem Zahari's got some blasted cheek, hasn't he? He was saying that the economy is almost stagnating, which is not true. It's growing at around 1.5%. But that's higher than his government did. and we're hamstrung, we're one arm behind our back because of Brexit that he and his party supported. Well, that's why I went back to him and asked more about the freer labour market. Obviously, he was thinking about the kind of responsibilities of employers more than anything, but you can't talk about the labour market without talking about Brexit, can you? Well, can I just move on to Royal Mail? I've worked for Royal Mail for over 40 years and I think Royal Mail has got a potentially very bleak future because what's happening now in Royal Mail is that what they call the legacy posties were on good contracts negotiated by our union in agreement with the Royal Mail's management. But what's happening now since privatisation is that the new posties are on virtually zero-hour contracts or not much more than that. They're speaking to the older posties and saying, oh, hang on, how come you're getting more than we're getting? We're stuffed this, we're not staying here. Hundreds of young posties are leaving every month from Royal Mail. you can feel i know they are yeah you but you can feel if i'm honest barry i hate dealing with royal mail as a customer because what should take one day ends up taking three weeks and doesn't you never get the outcome you need it is it is clearly an organization that's on the wane isn't it what is happening is that management but since privatization they've made the rounds way too big you can't complete the round in the time you know whereas you were previously finishing your round maybe half past two whatever it's now four o'clock half past four and you're bringing back work because you just thought i've had enough for today i just can't do the round in the time that's why i left early i was finishing you know in the winter months half past five six o'clock you mentioned the european you mentioned brexit at the beginning of your conversation it didn't come up massively in the in the budget itself but in prime minister's questions it did I don't know whether you were listening. Yes, I was, yeah. And for the first time since referendum and this ridiculous Brexit deal the last government did, I'm hopeful now Andy Burnham is making some encouraging noises that, you know, we may in the 2030s get back into you I want Labour in their manifesto for the next election to put it in their manifesto so that we will negotiate to come back in again. That will boost the economy by 4% or 5%, boost jobs and we'll all be better off inside europe we've got threats from america threats from russia we need to be in the club where we'll be safe do you see we are in nato were you a remainer in your thinking i was too but but let me ask you this um do you accept that for all those people who think hang on a sec didn't we just vote on that and and won't feel the way you and i perhaps feel about it do you accept that this is a political uh not nightmare but it's a massive political challenge for andy burnham or do you think times have changed sufficiently we had a referendum in 1975 and the result then was to stay in then the brexiteers never accepted that and as we we all know what happened in 2016 we were lied to there was possibly russian interference in that got more than a decade out of it though didn't we yeah and and it's caused this country so much economic damage. And the racists, you know, it's given them free reign to, you know, do what they do. Were you moved at all by Kemi Badenoch's argument in PMQs that Brexit, running that series of arguments again, would paralyse the country? I mean, Andy Burnham made capital out of that in PMQs. Rather than have another referendum, Labour should just say, we'll put it in our manifesto that, you know, if you like the idea that we want to negotiate to come back into Europe, vote for us if we don't we stay out you know and we'll and we'll continue to suffer as a result all right okay put it put it bluntly is what you're saying Barry thank you for your call Barry in Croydon