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Recent Blogs
Thing to cut before the school curriculum: Call for Evidence
School budgets are now a matter of urgent concern — but in seeking savings, are schools making the best choices? Are school and system leaders thinking radically enough about how their organisations can change to meet the core needs of children in education? John Blake and Mark Lehain of Policy Exchange’s Education Unit — former teachers with two decades of front-line experience between them — offer suggestions, and seek the views of parents, teachers, governors, and other interested parties.
What is the American economy’s trend rate of growth, and how can it realistically be raised?
Warwick Lightfoot — Policy Exchange’s Director of Research and Head of Economics and Social Policy — reflects on ongoing debate in the States about the trend rate of growth and the relative performance of the US economy. He argues that while America retains great relative strengths, it is ‘not immune from the structural impediments that hinder other advanced economies with developed welfare states’.
Only Parliament can decide the law on assisted dying
Richard Ekins — Head of Policy Exchange’s Judicial Power Project — responds to news that the question of whether assisted suicide should be legalised is back before the courts, in an article for The Spectator. Ekins contends that the argument in the High Court this week is likely to focus on whether it is possible to design a system that permits assisted suicide without endangering the vulnerable, which he claims is ‘not a sensible question for a court to be asked to decide’. He conclude that ‘this continuing attempt to use the courts, with the encouragement of some (but certainly not all) judges, to usurp Parliament’s freedom to decide what the law should be is a constitutional travesty’.
Clean Growth: How can we improve business energy efficiency?
Policy Exchange’s Energy and Environment unit announces the launch of its new project looking at the opportunities for and barriers to boosting business energy efficiency. Richard Howard and Joshua Burke set out the context for this project, and identify the important questions they will seek to answer.
Brexit economic opportunity from the perspective of the Minneapolis Fed
Warwick Lightfoot — Policy Exchange’s Director of Research and Head of Economics and Social Policy — reflects on recent research from the economics department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Different scenarios are considered regarding potential EU and UK approaches to foreign direct investment, leading Lightfoot to conclude that ‘being open to such investment will be the key to improving the UK’s economic well-being’.
‘Free schools should be valued – they are changing education for the better’
Responding to comments by former Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, John Blake — Policy Exchange’s Head of Education and Social Reform — discusses the intention and impact of the free school programme. In an article published by the TES, he argues that ‘seeking innovative practice was not an afterthought, but a core aspect of the programme, and one that has yielded enormous dividends for not just those children attending the new free schools, but the whole system’.
What has been missed or misunderstood in this week’s Euratom debate?
Matt Rooney — Policy Exchange’s Energy and Environment Research Fellow — reflects on the way in which the Government’s view that leaving the EU must also mean leaving Euratom has made this previously obscure treaty into a ‘political battleground’. Calling for a national discussion about how to withdraw from Euratom smoothly, he posits that this will be the ‘first real test of the UK’s ability to leave the EU and open up to the world’.
The Charter of Fundamental Rights gives judges too much power, and is bad for accountable government
Richard Ekins – Head of Policy Exchange’s Judicial Power Project — considers the Labour Party’s objection to the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill’s provision that the Charter of Fundamental Rights will cease to have effect on ‘exit day’. He finds the party’s newfound enthusiasm for the Charter hard to square with its nature or history, arguing that its ‘removal from our law should be welcomed, regardless of one’s views on Brexit’.
There is an opportunity to reform how public sector pay is managed
Policy Exchange’s Economic & Social Policy Research Fellow, Jonathan Dupont, writes about the debate within the Cabinet about the cap on public sector pay, for The Times’ Red Box. He suggests that, while the cap ‘should come to an end soon’, this ‘should be done in a systematic manner, taking into account the many difficult trade-offs involved, and what is affordable’.
Our roads are the arteries that fuel the UK – time to revolutionise how we fund them
Ahead of the 2017 Wolfson Economics Prize winner announcement tonight, prize director Julian Glover makes the case that – while glamorous multi-billion pound projects like Crossrail and HS2 tend to get all the attention – none of them matter as much as our roads.
