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Lee Boyce. And coming up, we

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0:18

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up now. Investment involves risk. But

1:13

first, I imagine ahead of Labour's first

1:15

budget, this is money and getting a

1:17

fair few questions related to inheritance tax.

1:19

Well, we've picked one from a reader

1:21

here where it's actually a couple wanting to

1:23

know how to give away surplus

1:26

income. But what they want

1:28

to know are the rules around

1:30

it. Simon Lee, Simon, as I said,

1:32

it's a little known

1:34

quirk, I suppose, of the inheritance

1:36

tax system. Just explain the story and

1:39

the wider principle we're

1:41

discussing here. So

1:43

before we get onto this niche element

1:45

of inheritance tax, we

1:47

should talk about inheritance tax itself, which is

1:50

something that's quite niche alone,

1:53

because actually most people don't pay inheritance

1:55

tax. Only a very small

1:57

minority of estates pay it. The number is

1:59

rising rapidly. because the thresholds have remained frozen

2:01

whilst people's wealth has been going up, but

2:03

it's still the case that most people don't

2:05

pay it. It is however, Britain's most hated

2:08

tax. And that's because people just

2:10

really don't like the idea of it. It sounds

2:12

quite unfair and 40% is

2:14

quite a large amount to take off people. So

2:18

to go back to inheritance tax, how does it work? Everyone has

2:20

325,000 pounds, which is their nil rate band that

2:24

they can give away on death, inheritance tax

2:26

free. You can pass

2:28

that on your unused element of that if

2:30

you haven't given away any money in your

2:32

lifetime that gets caught in the net to

2:36

your spouse on death or your civil partner.

2:38

So that means that a couple could get

2:40

up to 650,000 pounds. You

2:43

then have this own residence nil

2:45

rate band, which was brought in to

2:48

sort of try to fudge the issue

2:50

where lots of people's homes were being

2:52

caught by inheritance tax. And that

2:54

seemed inherently unfair because ultimately

2:56

a lot of that is just house price inflation. It doesn't

2:58

really benefit people until they

3:01

die. Being dead is not generally seen as a benefit

3:03

and so on and so on. That

3:06

takes up the total amount that a

3:08

couple can give away inheritance tax free

3:10

to a million pounds because there's an

3:12

extra 350,000 pounds worth, 175 each. If

3:17

you pass on your own home

3:19

to a direct descendant, i.e. your

3:21

children or your grandchildren. Above

3:24

that million pounds, everything

3:26

will face tax at 40%. And

3:30

if you hit two million pounds, you

3:32

start having the residence nil rate band

3:34

taken off you until you

3:36

reach a point where it's all gone and your back's

3:38

to 650. Owing

3:41

to the fact that most people don't

3:44

successfully plan for inheritance

3:46

tax in their lifetimes

3:49

if they aren't super rich, there

3:52

is also a situation where

3:54

basically the effective rate of

3:56

inheritance tax goes up in a curve

3:58

and then starts to come back. down

4:00

and I apologize to all the people listening to this. You

4:02

can't see what I'm doing with my finger right now to

4:04

illustrate what a curve going up and coming back down looks

4:06

like. But ultimately, there

4:08

was an office of tax simplification report dates back to

4:11

2018, brilliantly never acted

4:13

on 2018. You don't

4:15

need to be a math genius to realize it was six

4:17

years ago, which illustrated

4:19

that once you got above about 3

4:21

million pounds, the effective rate of tax

4:23

started to decline because people started to

4:25

take advantage of major reliefs, things like

4:27

owning agricultural land and stuff like that.

4:29

The stuff that the really, really rich

4:31

use to not pay inheritance tax on

4:33

their estates. But there is

4:35

a niche that we are talking about

4:38

here, which the not so really, really,

4:40

really rich can use to also avoid

4:42

inheritance tax. And this relates

4:44

to being able to give away more money than

4:47

the very strict limits that there are on what

4:49

you can give away each year without

4:52

it falling into the inheritance tax net. And before

4:54

I go on to that niche, I

4:56

should mention what these limits are because they're

4:58

really quite special, okay? These

5:01

date back to the 1980s. You

5:05

don't need to be a genius

5:08

to know that life has got quite a lot

5:10

more expensive since the 1980s. So

5:14

you could give away free of inheritance tax

5:16

up to 3,000 pounds per year, three

5:19

grand. Now this

5:21

does technically mean that somebody who bought their

5:24

child a car when

5:27

they reached 18, for example, a secondhand

5:29

car that costs 5,000 pounds would

5:32

have breached their annual 3,000 pound allowance.

5:35

Slightly mad, but you

5:39

do get a higher one though, where you can give

5:41

away a special amount of money if

5:43

your children get married. And that's

5:45

up to 5,000 pounds. Weddings

5:48

are quite a lot more expensive than 5,000

5:50

pounds these days. You can get

5:53

2,500 pounds for your grandparents and you can also get

5:55

1,000 pounds from anyone else. So you could tap up

5:57

your guests. Bear in

5:59

mind that the tax net is $1,000. tax is levied on the

6:01

people giving the money away, not the people receiving it. OK,

6:04

so it's you could give up to a thousand

6:06

pounds to somebody else who's getting married and if

6:08

you but if you gave two thousand pounds to

6:11

two different people who are getting married in the

6:13

same year and you died within seven years, there

6:15

would be a risk that there would be an

6:17

inheritance liability. You can give up small

6:20

gifts up to two hundred and fifty pounds

6:22

each recipient per year. And

6:26

then there's no limit on the gifts you can give to

6:28

political parties. You'll be glad to know and no limit on

6:30

the gifts you can give to charities. But

6:32

there's also this normal expenditure out

6:35

of income rule, which

6:37

means that if the conditions are met and

6:39

you're able to maintain your standard of living

6:41

and it comes out of your income, not

6:43

your capital. So you can't take the money

6:45

out of your savings account. You can't take

6:47

the money out of your investments, so on

6:49

and give it to someone. You can give

6:51

away as much as you want without it

6:53

falling in within the net. And

6:55

just to say that if you do give away more than these

6:57

summits, there's nothing to stop you giving away more than these summits.

6:59

You can give away as much as you want in any given

7:02

year. But in order for it

7:04

not to get caught by inheritance tax

7:06

at all, you have to survive for

7:08

seven years after you've given it. If

7:10

you die within that seven year period,

7:12

tax is charged, but it's charged at

7:15

a sliding scale. So you don't get

7:17

the full 40 percent, for example, in

7:19

year six. It's notched

7:21

down and tapered back. So

7:23

that's the theory. You have this couple.

7:25

They want to know a few

7:27

more details. But what are

7:30

the things that you have to do? You're talking

7:32

about giving money. And this really blows people's mind

7:34

who have never heard of this, that if you

7:36

have spare income, you can just give it away.

7:39

Oh, what about seven years? No, no, no. You

7:41

can just give it away. Well, how much?

7:44

How often? When you said it has to

7:46

be regular, I mean, we're talking about every

7:48

week, every month. If you sell a property,

7:50

presumably and you have a lump sum, that

7:52

doesn't count. But could you just drip feed

7:54

it? And

7:57

this is where this starts

7:59

to get really. really murky,

8:01

okay, because this exemption

8:05

is called normal expenditure out

8:07

of income. I

8:09

mean, what in God's name does that

8:12

mean? Normal expenditure,

8:14

right? Coffee? I mean, are we talking

8:16

that sort of limit? Yeah,

8:18

exactly. You know, you could buy someone a coffee

8:21

every day and it's fine. Yeah, but because

8:23

we hear this being mentioned with school fees. But

8:25

whatever you do, don't buy them more than 250

8:27

pounds worth of coffee in a year, otherwise you'll

8:29

be in trouble. So, right,

8:31

in order to qualify, okay,

8:34

HMRC says taxpayers

8:37

must satisfy the following for the

8:39

gift. It formed part

8:42

of the transfer as normal

8:44

expenditure, was made

8:46

out of income, left

8:48

the transfer with enough income for

8:50

them to maintain their normal standard of

8:53

living. So let's work backwards,

8:55

right, left the transfer with enough income

8:57

for them to maintain their normal standard

8:59

of living. So basically, you

9:01

can't be giving away so much money

9:04

that you're all of a sudden not

9:06

able to heat your

9:08

home, feed yourself, go

9:10

to the shops and so on, or suddenly

9:13

there's a noticeable sudden kind of like, you

9:15

know, raining back of

9:17

your existence. So I mean, it's

9:19

quite difficult to establish what is

9:21

someone's normal standard of living. But

9:24

I think you could probably set a reasonable baseline. We could

9:26

all think about what's the baseline, you know, if I, it

9:29

doesn't mean that like, just because you went on holiday last year,

9:31

you have to go on holiday this year and so on, but

9:33

it is like keeping that kind of normal

9:36

kind of level, right, was

9:38

made out of income. What's income? Income

9:40

is money you've got coming in. Now,

9:44

income could, for

9:46

example, be a

9:48

pension. It doesn't have to be earned

9:51

income. It could be pension. It

9:53

could be savings interest. It could be

9:55

dividend income. What it can't

9:57

be is investment bonds that

9:59

you're cashing in. in. Okay, so you

10:01

can't be selling your investments to do

10:03

this. Now, there's a, again, a slightly

10:05

gray area talking about this, because if

10:08

you've got your pension invested,

10:11

which most people will do nowadays, and

10:13

this illustrates it again, why, you

10:15

know, so many of these things are outdated, you've

10:18

got to find contribution pension that you then kept

10:20

invested in your drawing on through your retirement, which

10:22

you're doing through the own pension freedom stuff that's

10:25

been around for quite some time now. It

10:28

might be that rather than drawing dividend

10:30

income from your pension pot for your

10:32

income, you're doing what many financial advisors

10:34

recommend that you do. And

10:36

you're actually potentially taking some capital gains

10:38

as well, that you're selling investments and

10:40

then taking that out because there's no

10:42

capital gains tax charge within a pension.

10:45

It might be that actually, you're

10:47

being really quite canny with your

10:50

retirement investment income strategy.

10:52

And you're not drawing on your pension

10:55

above the amount that is your personal tax

10:57

free allowance every year. And you're taking money

10:59

out of an ISA instead. And

11:02

when you're taking that money out of an

11:04

ISA, you're withdrawing it either from cash ISAs,

11:06

you're taking out cash ISA savings accounts, or

11:08

you're selling investments to do it. So

11:11

is that income? I

11:14

mean, and also people don't take the same amount

11:16

every month is quite lumpy. I think though, this

11:18

is where we're going to get on to this

11:20

in a minute, like the really important bit of

11:22

keeping records comes in, you need

11:24

to keep the records that proves it, right? If

11:26

you just randomly sell some investments and take the

11:28

money out there and give it someone not going

11:30

to work, if you can show that this has

11:32

been your retirement income strategy, going

11:34

to work, and then we get to the

11:36

formed part of the transfer as normal expenditure,

11:39

or your normal expenditure doesn't usually involve

11:41

giving sums of money to other people,

11:43

does it your normal expenditure, like we

11:46

just joked about your parent is things

11:48

like coffee, and your bills,

11:50

and your food shopping and stuff like

11:52

that. But HMRC

11:54

refers to a pattern of giving

11:56

in its notes. And Look,

12:01

I'm going to read this out,

12:03

okay? This is not riveting. I'll

12:05

warn you. Okay. This is

12:08

from the HMRC website. Lifetime

12:11

transfers conditions for normal out of

12:13

income expenditure normal expenditure. The

12:15

dictionary definition of normal

12:17

includes standard, regular, typical,

12:19

habitual or usual. For

12:22

the purpose of this exemption, normal means

12:24

normal for the transferr and

12:26

not for the average person. In most

12:28

cases, it will be clear whether or not there is

12:31

a pattern of giving, but it is not always that

12:33

simple. It is possible that a

12:35

number of gifts made by one person may not

12:37

qualify. It is also possible for

12:39

a single gift to qualify if it is or

12:41

is intended to be the first of a pattern

12:43

and there is evidence of this. You

12:46

will need to analyze all the facts in case of doubt

12:48

to see if a pattern can be found. Factors

12:50

to take into account in looking at any pattern

12:53

of gifts include the frequency and amounts, the nature

12:55

of the gifts, the identity of the donies and

12:57

the reasons for the gifts. Clear

12:59

as mud, isn't it?

13:02

No. But where

13:04

there is something that is that vague, you might

13:06

get caught out by the vagueness, but you could

13:08

also potentially drive a bus through it. There

13:11

are people who are using this who

13:13

have got surplus income, okay? They are

13:16

people who are lucky enough to have

13:18

large amounts of pension income. They've got

13:20

savings. They've got investments. They're having a

13:22

comfortable retirement. They're not scraping around, okay?

13:25

And they are able to use this in

13:27

order to give money regularly to

13:29

members of family, most likely, or other

13:32

people. It doesn't have to be

13:34

monthly. It doesn't have to be quarterly.

13:37

It could potentially even be

13:39

annually. The

13:41

normal expenditure and they're giving it to

13:43

people and it means that it

13:45

falls outside of the inheritance tax net. And

13:47

there's some examples that are given by financial

13:49

advisors when you start

13:51

looking into this. And people are

13:53

managing to give away really quite

13:55

large sums of money, but away

13:57

above those extremely strict and outdated.

14:00

limited limits, the 3,000 pounds a year

14:02

and stuff, because, you know, there are

14:04

people out there listening to this podcast,

14:07

or parents of people listening to this

14:09

podcast, grandparents of people listening to this podcast,

14:11

who could probably give away tens of thousands

14:14

of pounds a year, still maintain their standard,

14:16

their normal standard of living, and it would

14:18

be out of their income. Me,

14:22

in your experience of, you know, being an

14:24

editor of a publication, etc, some said you

14:26

can either drive a bus through it or

14:28

can get really caught out. What are you

14:31

seeing the majority of here? I get people

14:33

getting away with stuff more often than who

14:35

gets to decide, presumably HMRC, on what criteria?

14:38

Oh man, we need an office for

14:40

tax simplification, don't we? God rest its

14:42

soul. To

14:45

help unravel some of this, I think first of all,

14:47

just to point out here, some of this is

14:50

just so outdated, it's just, it

14:53

is ripe for reform, it is

14:55

ripe to be shaken up and

14:57

sorted out once and for all,

14:59

because there is so much confusion

15:01

around inheritance tax, and quite often

15:04

what happens is people leave it

15:06

too late, panic, and kind of

15:08

never end up sorting it out, and it

15:10

just means lots of money ends up going

15:12

to the tax man when it might necessarily

15:15

not have needed to, and

15:17

could have gone to your children, grandchildren,

15:20

other family members, friends. It becomes one

15:22

of those things when people bury their

15:24

head in the sand and go, it's

15:27

just all fiendishly complicated. I'll

15:29

think about it next year, you know, if you

15:31

are someone in that, or your

15:33

parent, or your grandparent, or someone in that boat, you

15:35

know, just go and get paid for one off financial

15:37

advice is what I would say, and go and

15:40

find out, you know, how to

15:42

actually navigate some of this. Now,

15:44

in terms of you get

15:46

caught out, I mean, we receive

15:48

hundreds of emails from readers every

15:51

single week, and I'm yet to

15:53

hear from anyone that has been

15:55

massively caught out by using the

15:57

rules that Simon was talking about.

42:00

shares. And if you create extra demand

42:02

for UK listed shares, that

42:05

then trickles down into,

42:07

you know, boosting those companies' share

42:09

prices. Boosting a company's

42:11

share price doesn't involve directly giving it money,

42:13

but it does benefit the company when it

42:15

comes to, you know, it's kind of its

42:17

own capital position and stuff like that. And

42:19

it is generally seen as good. And it

42:21

would also then encourage maybe more companies from

42:23

overseas to come here and go, hey, look,

42:25

the UK really backs investment in its own

42:27

companies, and so on and so on and

42:29

so on. It creates a little bit

42:31

of a halo and a positive effect. It

42:34

is very nebulous. But

42:36

that is the idea behind it. Well, as

42:38

we discussed last week, creating a halo effect

42:40

around Britain at the moment doesn't seem to

42:42

be on the agenda. Doesn't seem to be

42:44

on the go. Creating a halo effect. No,

42:46

for some bizarre reason. I'm

42:48

increasingly, you know, as you

42:51

go around meeting up with people, talking

42:53

to them, having a coffee, having

42:55

lunch, catching up with them. I'm meeting

42:58

and increasing a

43:01

wall of incomprehension amongst

43:04

people as to what on

43:06

earth this gloom laden

43:08

plan is and why they're doing

43:10

it. And this is coming

43:12

from people who didn't vote

43:14

Labour, did vote Labour, you know, all the

43:16

other things of like, what on earth are

43:19

they doing? Everyone was quite positive in July

43:21

and they've totally killed it off. Lee,

43:25

whilst Simon was talking there, I

43:27

can see he was setting up his soapbox. Onto

43:30

it now he steps. Lee's

43:33

chosen subject this week is

43:35

the death of the high street. Lee,

43:38

the floor is yours. I

43:40

won't be setting up my soapbox on the high street because they

43:42

want to be there to listen to me. Touché. I

43:45

don't think. Yeah, I did a column

43:48

this week. I've had actually quite a lot of quite

43:51

nice reader emails, actually, which is a nice

43:53

turn up for the book. So people saying

43:55

that sort of agreed with the tone of

43:57

the column. So, you know, the

43:59

high street has been in a kind

44:02

of decay, I would say, over the last

44:04

10, 15, 20 years anyway. But

44:07

I think there's a couple of further nals into

44:09

the coffin here that are just making

44:11

it. We should just accept that the high street

44:13

is as good as dead and

44:15

that we should do something else with them,

44:18

AKA just make them residential hubs the way

44:20

things are going. Now, the reason why I

44:22

say this is because number one,

44:24

the rise of these Chinese retail

44:27

websites, we spoke about these a

44:29

little while ago, actually, which I

44:31

didn't move, AliExpress. But AliExpress, Xian

44:33

and Tmoo, I'm being

44:35

surprised by the amount of people that

44:38

have told me that they shop on

44:40

these Chinese websites, people I would never

44:42

expect, people that are basically paying rock

44:44

bottom prices for dubious quality items,

44:47

but seemingly don't really care

44:49

at all that

44:52

that's the case. And the other

44:54

one is there's been a real

44:56

rise in the out of town

44:58

retail parks, those soulless places where

45:00

you get most of the retail

45:02

big boys now setting up shop

45:05

in giant car parks with a

45:07

one in one out car sort

45:09

of system onto a road.

45:11

So these are these are kind of being

45:13

built on land next to a roads. Right.

45:16

And they're vast. They're

45:18

kind of taking over from

45:21

what would be people going into the high street.

45:23

And the reason for that is a couple of

45:25

things that play here. So I think that firstly,

45:29

it's fiendishly difficult now

45:31

to park in your local

45:33

high street. There's all sorts

45:35

of restrictions as parking charges.

45:37

Councils have just been ramping it up and ramping it

45:40

up to a point where people have just fed up

45:42

and the vote with their feet, the

45:44

fiddly apps, all of that kind of stuff.

45:46

And then you've got the kind of poor

45:48

transport links and people just heading for the

45:50

cheaper prices online and also to these retail

45:53

parks. If you've got a car because you

45:55

don't have to pay for parking and

45:58

it's just what you would say is a simpler. experience.

46:00

Now I'm not saying I'd

46:02

never ever visit these out of town

46:04

retail parks but I'd much rather go

46:06

to a vibrant, buzzy high street than

46:08

one of these identical kind of retail

46:10

parks. I would say you know I've

46:12

been a real, really

46:15

pushed by companies like Nex and

46:17

M&S. They've gone quite hard on this and

46:19

then you've got places like McDonald's and Gregg's

46:21

that are in these places and

46:23

people are just heading there rather than the high

46:25

street and I think that there's a real shame

46:28

and if that is the case

46:30

then as I say I think we should

46:32

just rethink about what

46:34

we're doing with the high street because you

46:37

can't build homes on this land that's

46:39

the A-Roads because you know they're noisy, they're

46:41

not ideal for either residential estate so they're

46:43

building these retail parks so then you

46:45

could argue that high streets are

46:47

away from sort of busy A-Roads on the

46:50

whole, not always but quite often and just

46:52

say instead of all these boarded up shops

46:54

or yet another charity shop or coffee shop

46:56

or betting shop you

46:59

know they just need to be kind of

47:01

we just need to accept that what we

47:03

know is the high street is dead, it's

47:05

dead and buried. I still visit my high

47:08

street you know I do but definitely

47:10

over the last 12-18 months shops

47:12

have been disappearing, banks have been

47:15

disappearing. I think that that has

47:17

a big effect because

47:19

you know people might be less likely

47:21

to head into town to go to

47:23

the bank and shops, retailers find it

47:25

difficult to then deposit money that their

47:27

earnings and takings and it's

47:29

all kind of building up into this kind

47:31

of way in which I feel like the

47:33

whole high street shopping experience is done for

47:35

and then not even factoring in things here

47:38

like business rates, overhead

47:40

costs, you know, and you just

47:42

build that are still high and

47:44

then it all just goes back into if I go round

47:46

the roundabout we just go back to the car park charges

47:48

as well and that's what lots of people have

47:51

kind of got in touch with that basically car park

47:53

charges have done it for them and their road is

47:55

just going to retail park because they're less likely to

47:57

get done, you know, less likely to get fined.

48:00

or whatever from whatever route it

48:02

is they're taking. And,

48:04

you know, kind of find

48:06

it easier to park there. And

48:10

this is the direction it feels like

48:12

it's all going. And there was some

48:14

research from his e-commerce marketing platform called

48:16

Omnesen saying that three and five shoppers

48:19

rising to four and five Gen Z have bought

48:21

goods from a Chinese shopping website in the past

48:23

year. So that's anywhere near true. I

48:25

mean, that is a huge amount of money that's

48:27

been sucked away from our high

48:30

street shops. And if you're someone

48:32

that shops on these websites and you're happy with

48:35

the choice and the cheaper cost and don't worry

48:37

about it, the high streets use it, lose it

48:39

mentality, it's gone. It's done. And

48:41

that's what the whole point of this kind of, this

48:44

article is really, you know, if

48:46

you haven't been to your local high street

48:48

for a while and, you know, they are

48:50

getting a bit more down to it in Georgia,

48:53

I don't think there's any way you can master

48:55

and perhaps your local high street is better than-

48:57

Mine's all right. I'll be honest with you, Lee,

48:59

mine's all right. But if I didn't live within

49:01

walkable distance of my high street, I wouldn't go

49:04

because there is nowhere to park apart from a

49:06

Waitrose car park, which probably says the sort of

49:08

area that my street is in. I

49:10

generally, I just think we should all stay at

49:13

home. You know, work from home, stay at home,

49:15

go into the metaverse, you know? You're gonna go

49:17

and have experiences. No, Lee, metaverse, that's where it's

49:19

all up. No, man, no, man, no, man, no,

49:21

man. Anything

49:24

positive from this story, though, Lee? You want us to

49:26

all read it, it sounds a bit miserable. Well, we

49:28

have a- Lovely. That local high

49:31

street here, right? It has actually quite ample

49:33

parking. And what happens is- Okay, positive. On

49:36

a Saturday after 1 p.m. and all

49:38

day Sunday, the parking is free. And

49:41

you can just see the

49:43

change when that parking gets free. And

49:45

I think that the council, I think

49:47

councils need to rethink their strategy over

49:50

parking costs and how complicated

49:52

they're making it for shoppers. And I think

49:54

that something needs to happen in

49:56

terms of things like business rates to give the

49:58

high street a shot on the arm. start making

50:00

it a more vibrant place again to go. And

50:03

I say, this is not all high streets,

50:05

Georgie, but if you're building an out of

50:07

town retail park, it's gonna

50:09

naturally suck away a lot of

50:11

the high street footfall. And

50:14

it's a kind of chicken and

50:16

egg scenario, isn't it? It's also just a

50:18

downward spiral effect on the high street because,

50:21

you know, a few people are gonna be

50:23

visiting. And as I

50:25

say, do we care? Do you care? You listen to this guy, no,

50:27

I don't care if the high street I

50:29

don't use it, I do just do more

50:31

on shopping online. I do just go to

50:33

these retail parks. I really, I couldn't care

50:35

less. And if that's the case, it's kind

50:38

of fine, isn't it? Because they won't be

50:40

around in their current shape or form for

50:42

much longer because they'll just be gone. And

50:44

this is not negative, Georgie. This

50:46

is just the kind of the shape and

50:48

flow of how the country's going. It's going

50:50

very kind of American, I would say, in

50:53

this regard, you know, this kind of feels

50:55

like it's a bit of a US. I

50:57

think it's negative though. I rarely go to

50:59

these mall things, but I go to my

51:01

local high street and I know Greg who

51:03

owns the coffee shop and I like to

51:06

have a croissant in the morning. You know,

51:08

I know the people in town and it

51:10

would be an absolute shame if I had to go

51:13

to some sort of soulless retail park, which serves

51:15

me up. Not what I want and

51:18

sort of delectable delights that I'm not

51:21

sure is gonna be there. Like the little gift shops you

51:23

get and you think, I'll just take a little look around

51:25

and whatnot. You're never gonna get that sort of thing. That's

51:27

why I want the high streets to survive. That's why when

51:29

the high streets are survived for that very reason, you know,

51:31

I could be anywhere in the world when

51:34

I go into those retail parks, you know,

51:36

another Costa. I think there's a

51:38

good point there. I think that actually the, you

51:40

know, the high street, be

51:42

that a small high street or a bigger high street,

51:44

I think arguably you can make an argument that it's

51:46

good for people's mental health and

51:49

it's better for their mental health than going to an out of

51:51

town retail park. And it's better for the mental health for the

51:53

people working there. What's not good for their

51:55

mental health is the hassle of actually trying to be

51:57

able to go there. what

52:00

makes people go to out of town retail

52:02

parks. And

52:05

I think that the councils need to

52:07

be held responsible for this in

52:10

many cases, because if you wander around

52:13

and you ask shopkeepers, you

52:15

know, what is your main issue? They

52:17

always say parking. That's the one number one that

52:19

always comes up number one. And

52:22

if you ask people, you know, why don't

52:24

they visit the shops, you know,

52:26

their high street, they often say parking, but there

52:28

is an attitude from

52:31

councils comes down, you know, from also from,

52:33

you know, from civil servants and governments sometime

52:36

that while you're just wrong, you shouldn't be driving to the shops.

52:39

It's just, you're morally wrong to be driving to the

52:41

shops. You know, well, you say parking, but like we're

52:43

gonna ignore that bit where you're a shopkeeper and you

52:45

told, you've been a shopkeeper here for 40 years and

52:47

you've said your biggest problem is parking. We're gonna ignore

52:49

that because you shouldn't think that. You're

52:52

wrong thinking. And,

52:54

you know, the reality is that

52:58

they get ignored and then the parking charges come in

53:00

and then you wonder why people don't go to the

53:02

high street and they drive to the out town retail

53:04

park where they can park for free and it's easier

53:06

to get to. The council, you know, you talk to

53:09

the councilors when they come around to the doorsteps about

53:11

this. And this is what's really galling about this for

53:13

people is we had local elections. When

53:15

they came around to people's doorsteps, they were challenged.

53:18

You're gonna bring in paid for parking. And there was

53:20

loads of stuff being put in, you know, the letters

53:22

being written to the local newspaper, stuff going up on

53:24

the local Facebook group. And the Lib Dem councilors who

53:26

were standing for election were quite angry. They're like, no,

53:28

this is mud slinging. This is the Tories mud slinging.

53:31

We're not gonna bring in paid for parking. We don't

53:33

plan to do that. There's no plans to, there's no

53:35

plans to do that, but we're not intending to do

53:37

that. We're not just gonna get elected and do that.

53:40

And the Tories are like, yes, you are, and so on. So

53:43

they get elected. Few weeks later,

53:45

outcomes of consultation bringing in paid for

53:47

parking. So people are quite rightly up

53:50

in arms about this. There's an argument, oh, well, you

53:52

know, you have to pay for parking and say, oh,

53:54

but then there was a shopping destination in a way

53:56

that like the smaller town isn't. But

53:58

also it, the thing

54:00

where basically the

54:03

answer is then well you should use public

54:05

transport or you should walk to the shops,

54:07

you shouldn't drive to the shops. But it's

54:09

like for the people who live within walking

54:11

distance to the shops that is fine. People

54:13

who live within walking distance to the shops

54:15

should walk to those shops. There

54:18

is no public transport. There

54:20

aren't any buses. There are some buses but

54:23

they are really

54:25

really poor, really really inferior and most parts

54:27

of the town don't have a bus. I

54:30

would say people should cycle but there's no off-road cycle

54:32

routes. There's no cycle

54:34

routes and people don't want to cycle because they don't feel

54:37

safe. You should cycle by the way. I cycle all the

54:39

time. I cycle to work every day. It's much safer than

54:41

you think. Get on your bike, it's really good for you

54:43

and it's also good for your mental health. But people won't

54:45

cycle because they don't feel it's safe. They don't feel they

54:47

have any choice but to drive to the town centre. Things

54:51

like this I just I'm baffled by.

54:54

I look at it and I go why

54:56

if you were lucky enough to have

54:59

one of the few places in the

55:01

country that still has a relatively thriving

55:03

high street would you make

55:05

a decision that is ultimately going to

55:07

kill it off? Baffles me. Indeed.

55:10

Right Simon you've thrown a few numbers in there

55:12

but I want your uh stat

55:15

of the week. It's back.

55:17

Do you have one for me? My

55:19

stat of the week. Out

55:22

of a litre of petrol which

55:24

costs on average at the

55:26

moment £1.42.17. So £142.17p. How much of that do

55:28

you think is fuel duty? Of

55:39

how much? £1.42. Let's call it £1.42. How much

55:41

is it? £1.19. How

55:48

much? £1.19. Oh no actually it's much lower

55:50

than that. Oh sorry I was a bit

55:53

over excited there. It's £2.95p.

55:56

So but then you have to add on the VAT on top

55:59

of that that's another 24.7p. So

56:01

the total tax out of

56:03

your litre of petrol is 76.65p. So

56:07

more than half, 54% in

56:10

fact, of every litre of petrol that

56:12

you buy is tax. And you will

56:14

have paid tax on the income you used. God, I

56:16

don't rule the country because it will be a lot

56:18

more. Right, that is it. Thank you

56:21

very much, Simon. Thank you very much, Lee. You can

56:23

keep up to date with all the latest breaking money

56:25

news just go to thisismoney.co.uk or download the app. And

56:27

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56:29

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56:32

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