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Opinion and Editorial from the Policy Exchange team.
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Recent Blogs
Is it the end of the road for the combustion engine?
Richard Howard — Policy Exchange’s Head of Energy and Environment — responds to Volvo’s announcement that it will only sell electric and hybrid vehicles from 2019 and the news that France is to ban the sales of new petrol and diesel cars by 2040. He asks whether this marks the beginning of the end for the combustion engine.
Only taking politics out of Grenfell will solve housing crisis
Susan Emmett — Policy Exchange’s Head of Housing and Urban Regeneration — reflects on the country’s housing situation following the Grenfell tragedy. Having pointed out that ‘decades of insufficient housebuilding have left us with an undersupply of housing’, she concludes that ‘it is only by looking beyond partisanship and adopting a pragmatic and practical approach, that we will deliver lasting solutions to the housing crisis’.
The mechanics of the DUP deal
Dr Graham Gudgin – Policy Exchange’s Chief Economic Adviser, former Director of the Northern Ireland Economic Research Centre, and Special Advisor to the Northern Ireland First Minister from 1998-2002 – examines the deal signed this week between the Conservative Government and the DUP, and argues that Scottish nationalist criticism of extra spending in Northern Ireland is hypocritical and misplaced.
Cutting road transport emissions could cost billions in lost taxes
In a major new report released today, Driving Down Emissions, Richard Howard — Policy Exchange’s Head of Energy and Environment — argues that the Government must take more assertive action to tackle the twin problems of greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution from road transport.
Is it time to think about spending EU-funded science money better?
Warwick Lightfoot — Policy Exchange’s Director of Research and Head of Economic and Social Policy – reflects on the way in which science policy exemplifies both Brexit’s ‘practical challenges and its genuine opportunities’. He concludes that Europe is ‘lagging in terms of innovation and areas of rapid technological progress’, and that proposed commitments to increasing science spending and the number of scientists working in the UK ‘should give the British science community the best of both worlds’.
Gunnar Beck: Beware of Germany’s proposal for a new EU-UK transnational court
Dr Gunnar Beck — a Visiting Scholar at Policy Exchange’s Judicial Power Project — responds to German Vice Chancellor and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Sigmar Gabriel’s apparent signal that the EU might be willing to ‘relax some of its more extravagant demands’ in the Brexit negotiations. Beck concludes that while Gabriel’s proposal for a transnational EU-UK court is a ‘promising starting point for the negotiations’, the UK ‘needs assurance that its future legal relationship with the EU [will be] governed by the greatest possible legal certainty and overseen by a court which ensures that words mean what they say and not simply whatever it may be that best suits the European Union’.
Customs Union: A soft option with a dead end
Geoff Raby, Policy Exchange’s Head of Trade Policy, welcomes the latest pronouncement of Philip Hammond’s in favour of the UK still leaving the Customs Union — but notes that the Chancellor hinted that there might be a transitional arrangement to remain inside it. Raby points out the potential perils in this stance, not least of which is that transitional arrangements could solidify into permanent ones.
EU citizens’ rights after Brexit: The EU’s demands for extra-territorial jurisdiction by the CJEU and reverse discrimination
The rights of EU citizens in the UK will be at the forefront of Brexit negotiations. Writing for Policy Exchange’s Judicial Power Project, Dr Gunnar Beck critically considers the EU’s demand that the rights of EU citizens after Brexit should be directly enforced – in perpetuity – by the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU). Sovereign states do not agree to treaties that are adjudicated by the courts of the other party. The EU’s demand for continuing CJEU jurisdiction is demeaning and would impose very heavy constraints on future policy-making in immigration.
Trojan Horse: ‘If anyone is still in any doubt that the practices uncovered were inappropriate, just listen to the pupils’
Hannah Stuart (Co-Head of Policy Exchange’s Security and Extremism Unit) and John Blake (Head of Education and Social Reform) look at the latest developments on the Trojan Horse affair.
Euro Clearing Proposals reveal real European Commission Intent
Michael Taylor — Policy Exchange’s Economics Research Fellow — explains why the recent European Commission proposals on euro clearing ‘may well be the first shot in the battle for European financial services post-Brexit’. He concludes, however, that the proposals, ‘appear to have less to do with addressing market failure and more to do with the failure of any other EU city to develop a financial centre anywhere near comparable to the City of London’.
