Great to see the outspoken Martin Lewis being well, outspoken. Centre Right Chancellor Rachel Reeves stymies her own growth agenda by freezing the threshold at which UK students start to pay off the Student Loans of a scale that none of their competitors in Europe have to face. And in spouting Thatcherite nonsense about individuals, it’s apparently “not right that people who don’t go to university are having to bear the cost for others to do so”, she wilfully ignores that fact that graduates benefit society as a whole, not only in higher tax and spend, but doing those jobs that we currently have to look abroad to employ people for.
By her logic it’s ‘not right that people who don’t use local services should have to pay council tax’, etc. etc.
Whilst I agree with Lewis that a unfreezing this retrograde tax is a must, we should go much further and do what our European competitors do to a lesser or greater extent: fund education through taxation, thereby freeing graduates to reach their full potential, and, this is for you Rachel Reeves, push growth and productivity in the UK. Does the cowardliness of politicians to face the elephant in the room, the very wealthy – know no bounds?