What the new government must do for consumers

Oh, as an afterthought, would you rather have a decent NHS or get to Birmingham 1/2 hour quicker on HS2?

I was referred to a consultant to look at my finger through the NHS who flew over from Germany for the day once a fortnight. How much NHS money is wasted on ludicrous staff contracts?

It may well come to that Malcolm. I have relatives who live in the West Midlands who all speak more highly of the health treatment they receive there so maybe half an hours trip on HS2 would probably afford me much faster and more efficient treatment than I receive in my area!

But HS2 I accept remains a very sore (forgive the pun) point with many people especially those who live near its proposed route and are seriously inconvenienced by it. But in a global economy change is necessary in order meet the needs of a growing population and a greener and healthier climate and also assist with the governments plans to create a northern powerhouse providing more jobs there and relieving some of the congested London and the South Eastern regions.

Beryl, but it is a question of priorities, isn’t it? Like Trident, aircraft carriers and American fighters that don’t really work well – should we spend money on those, or the NHS for example. Are we being pressured by our allies, or are we pressured by our services chiefs to have big-boys toys and end up being overinsured? If we had unlimited funds I would maybe feel differently but in my view we need to build up this country with better health care, better education, more investment in productive industry through research and development and we can then think about affording the luxuries. No different to your personal budget really is it?

First and foremost, we need to build a successful economy to rid the country of its debts in order to pay for better healthcare I would be very concerned with recent reports of Russian Fighter Jets provocatively encircling our air space and with tensions building up in the Ukraine if our defence systems were mothballed. They are very necessary even if only as a deterrent Malcolm.

Beryl, we are no longer a world power and maybe should accept that. I don’t think Trident and aircraft carriers with the wrong sort of aircraft are the answer. None of this worked in Iraq or against Isis as the Americans demonstrate We need a European defence force to which all contribute. Britain should not try to do more than its share. I agree about building the economy – let’s hope the present government build on the last 5 years to increase prosperity, jobs in manufacturing and industry, improve productivity and hence get a bigger tax take.

The most important consumer items are water food and clothing. The UK has for over 100 years been unable to feed itself due to over population. Our industrial production has been used to pay for the importation of extra food during that time. We were nearly starved into submission in World War II when merchant shipping was sunk on a large scale. Our island nation needs a functioning Conventional Royal Navy to protect our lines of supply be it for food or raw materials such as oil or platinum etc. Irrelevant nuclear weapons play no part in this defence. We are still an European Great Power. The next twenty years will see wars over the issue of water and food such as those in the Middle East. Countries such as China and Vietnam amongst others have already colonised large tracts of Africa to grow food destined for their own peoples. Increasing world Droughts and floods have decimated food production leading to rapidly increasing food prices in our shops – This will become much worse. Historically our defence spending as a proportion of GDP is now at an extremely low level. There is no excuse for this whatsoever, not even austerity. The NHS cannot service the needs of starving people – food is needed before medicine. It is a question of balance. Rationing by price is already here. Rationing of food (as in WW II) will probably return as well. The European mainland (apart from the Netherlands) does not suffer from over population, and can feed its own population from the land mass. They might give us some food in the UK, but only after exerting powerful political leverage. Does that sound familiar? Future availability of imported food for the general population should be high on the political agenda, but it has been marginalised. Historically, Russia and France suffered destabilising revolutions over food shortages. We all need to wake up sharply!

Sadly, I think that making it a bit quicker to get to London will only mean that people are tempted to commute to the capital from further away (not a very green solution!) thus further increasing the pressure on the south east. If the government is serious about creating a northern powerhouse it would improve cross-pennine travel links and also move at least some government departments from London to Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool. This would be a great statement of intent and would inevitably bring private sector jobs with it. Will the government do it? Hmmmm.

HS2 is simply a swindle – or to put it more politely a mechanism for priming the economy in a particular way and incidentally making London even more accessible to suck more money into the South-East.

The Government would be far better to take on more infrastructure projects that actually will pay their way such as the Severn barrages and also the alternative Northern sites, This schemes have a 120 designed life for producing electricity – how green and cash positive is it possible to be.

If one wanted to generate a northern powerhouse the best solution would be to make travel to the North much more difficult from London and improve links between the Northern cities.

What you propose can be done by clever timetabling of the trains on HS2, and the present route, so that no one can arrive in London before 10:30 am. Judicious management of the motorways could complement such action.

I think the overall budget for HS2 is somewhere north of £37b and it’s due to arrive in Leeds by 2033 [that’s the date, not hrs/mins!]. London and the south east, however, is having a new multi-billion pound north-south Thameslink railway through the capital putting Peterborough on the Brighton line, and a new east-west Crossrail route going under London for around £26b making it easier for Reading people to get to Shenfield – if that’s their idea of a good time. After that there is a proposal for a second Crossrail underground regional railway from Wimbledon in south London to Southgate in north London at a back-of-the-envelope cost of >£27b. Since, if all this occurs, L&SE would have twice as much rail investment as the Northern Powerhouse, a further scheme is being touted by the Chancellor and the Big Cities of the North to build a trans-Pennine HS3 to go from Liverpool to Leeds [date not stated]. Meanwhile the government spends roughly >£3b every year on trunk roads and motorways. Since the Department for Transport is not one of the ring-fenced government depts that will have its spending allocations protected it is likely to face some pretty massive cuts over the next Parliament’s term and I can’t imagine all these pipe-dreams will survive; expect the programme to slide slowly towards the right-hand side of the page.

In February 2014 it was reported that consultancy costs on HS2 had gone 86% over budget to £188 million. How much more will be spent before it is even built and starts taking revenue? And if the business case has been suppressed by the government I wonder how much subsidy the taxpayer will have to provide to allow the well-off to get to and from Birmingham a little quicker – instead of just starting a journey half an hour earlier.

George Osborne has outlined plans to devolve more power to northern cities. See @bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-32726171- George Osborne outlines city devolution plan for England – BBC News

A northern powerhouse will inevitably need more efficient infrastructure which has to be paid for. The alternative is economic stagnation. We need to get this country’s manufacturing wheels turning again if we are to enjoy the benefits of better healthcare and welfare benefits.

You could certainly have a lot of hospital consultants for that sort of money. We must have one of the most lucrative consultancy professions in the world pro rata to population! I expect a lot of it has been going to the usual suspects in the law firms who have been doing the legal and parliamentary work on the bill [pleading, no doubt, that the level of objections has forced up the cost . . .], and to the land agents surveyors and conveyancers as parcels of land and access rights are being acquired ahead of construction. I don’t suppose much engineering design has actually started yet, and have they worked out where HS2 is going to terminate in London yet?

Unbelievably I can go from my home station in Norfolk, without changing, to Liverpool via Peterborough, Nottingham, Sheffield, and Manchester on lines laid down in the mid-19th century across some challenging terrain. The current costs, timescales and resources deployed put into perspective the work of the great Victorian railway pioneers. Their lines were not built with high speeds in mind yet many of their structures are today carrying very heavy or very fast trains. Extremely scenic too, unlike HS2 which will be in tunnels or out of sight most of the way I believe.

It’s interesting that there was cross-party support for HS2 in the last Parliament and I presume the same prevails now but with added SNP who want the new lines to start north of the border and progress southwards.

I certainly agree with your comments above Beryl. It is essential that we enrich the economy so we can pay for better health care and other essential services, and improved connectivity between regional cities is vital for that. I suspect the economic point of no return has now been reached on HS2 and only phasing is open to variation. Effort should now be focussed on how we optimise the yield from the investment in terms of jobs, skills, technology, communications, energy conservation, urban renewal, development potential, and metropolitan viability independent of London.

John, I remember the days when your surgery had a doctor on call at night in case of emergency. It worked then. You don’t need the surgery to be open.
HS2 is on borrowed money? Somehow is that not “real” money that costs us in the end. The case for HS2 was concealed because it showed grave deficiencies. Make of that what you will.
However proper health care might cost money, but it will also save money – a healthier population not having delayed treatment with consequent time off work is going to improve productivity isn’t it?

Mental Health Hospitals are mostly now focussed on acute care. Patients are admitted, assessed, stabilised with medication and either sent back home or into privately run care hospitals or homes which charge, at the taxpayers expense, an enormous amount but unfortunately only a percentage of that goes on actual patient care. The remainder goes on profit and to their shareholders. As long as this practice continues the NHS will continue to struggle to pay off its debt and the private sector will continue to profit at the taxpayers expense.

I am very much in favour of preventative health care and regular medication reviews to minimise drug use, the latter offering a considerable cost saving as well as avoiding the side effects of unnecessary drugs. Knowing the suffering that both undiagnosed and uncontrolled diabetes can cause and the costs of management of those with serious problems, I am surprised that routine screening has not been a standard feature of routine blood tests until the HbA1c test was introduced.

Not all testing is worthwhile, in my view. I am expected to have a regular asthma check despite the fact that my asthma has been extremely well controlled for nearly 30 years and little has changed in that time.

Rather than devoting money to HS2 I would prefer a focus on getting people living within walking/cycling distance from where they work. We managed in the days before cars and public transport and could do so again if the will was there.

The alternative is simply not to use companies that do not show an address and landline phone. I never deal with people with only a mobile number.

I nearly always check out a company before buying from them online and the company I am talking about has at least 4 High Street shops. I found the one I was dealing with on Goggle maps and another which only opened a couple of months ago is pictured in a local paper so they are a legitimate company.

They just seem to have abysmal customer service when it is needed. Although when I looked at their facebook page a very unhappy customer has posted that they hadn’t received their goods and that their phone number and email was fake. So perhaps the company has a major staff problem that the owner knows little about.

Putting proper contact details on websites can only be good for everyone.

So many retailers believe that trading on-line has complete customer-avoiding potential so that they have depleted their customer-facing presence almost to extinction. It looks like HMRC has joined this club as well! I would rather pay more to deal with a trader who has some permanent visible presence.

For many home service firms their van and their mobile phone are their entire physical existence – and if it’s not in their van they haven’t got it and they want you to pay for it first.

And if it is a physical address it is not Luxembourg or similar. As you are aware the Guardian calculated Amazons tax “management” as costing the UK £33m a year – which would pay for a lot of nurses. However it is not just tax that creates a danger to UK society it is the loss of jobs and the collapse or weakening of the High St.

There is an interesting infographic showing how few staff per $1m of sales that Amazon uses compared to big box stores or small stores. ilsr.org/amazon-infographic/

Essentially it is one employed at Amazon. five at a superstore, and eight at independent stores to generate the $1m sales. And Amazon sales are around $49 billion dollars. If you look at this as permanent job losses you would think the Government might stop giving tax breaks and planning assistance to a hugely profitable company and realise that declining HIigh Streets and loss of jobs – other than zero hour contracts – is actually a major problem.

Not employing people in the High St. means they in turn do not spend money there either just ratcheting the effect. The profits on the transactions carried out at a distant warehouse will in a large part disappear to the USA further weakening the national economy let alone the local economy.

Perhaps the Government when talking of the balance of trade payments problems will actually ‘fess up to its assistance to firms who are repatriating vast amounts of money out of the country.

Consumers think short term and at a basic level of value, Governments are meant to look long-term and at the state of the nation. Can they start doing that.