In The News
News about Policy Exchange publications, staff and policy concepts.
Recent News
£250,000 Wolfson Economics Prize 2021 seeks hospitals revolution
The 2021 Wolfson Economics Prize, launched today in partnership with Policy Exchange, seeks planning and design ideas that will “radically improve” hospital care in the UK and around the world.
The Prize is evidence of a new focus on the long-term improvement in hospital provision in Britain and globally. The UK Government has already announced £3.7 billion of funding towards new hospitals in England for what it calls the “biggest hospital building programme in a generation”.
Health Accountability
Proposals to strengthen ministerial accountability are long overdue, and will complement the changes underway to consolidate various arm’s length bodies into NHS England, said Robert Ede, Head of Health and Social Care at Policy Exchange, in an article for the Health Service Journal on the significance of this week’s Health and Care White Paper on legislative reform. Read his article re-published on the Policy Exchange website here.
Charging Up
The Energy & Environment Unit at Policy Exchange launched a paper warning that the installation of electric vehicle chargepoints would have to be five times faster during the 2020s to make the petrol and diesel vehicle ban workable. The report was authored by Ed Birkett, Senior Fellow and William Nicolle, Research Fellow at Policy Exchange. The release coincided with the Government’s announcement of £20m additional funding for EV charging infrastructure. Read coverage of the report in The Telegraph, Sky News, Bloomberg and BBC News. Read the report here.
UK Digital Identity
This week DCMS set out a new UK digital identity and attributes trust framework to make it easier and quicker for people to verify their identities using modern technology. The framework is in line with recommendations made in Policy Exchange’s 2020 report Verified, which featured a foreword from Matt Warman MP, Minister for Digital Infrastructure.
Online Harms Bill reflects Policy Exchange proposals
A new Online Harms Bill, unveiled this week, includes measures that will force social media companies to delete harmful content or face fines of up to 10 per cent of their turnover and adopt a new code of conduct to protect children on the internet. The legislation builds on recommendations made in Policy Exchange’s 2017 report, The New Netwar, which called for ministers to “put in place a system of financial penalties, administered by the independent regulator, to force company compliance” and urged the adoption of a “more stringent codes of conduct”.
Policy win with MOD’s new Office of Net Assessment
In a recent speech the Defence Secretary, Rt Hon Ben Wallace MP, announced the creation of a “Secretary of State’s Office of Net Assessment and Challenge (SONAC)” encompassing war gaming, doctrine, red teaming and external academic analysis. Standing up a UK Office of Net Assessment reporting directly to the Defence Secretary – modelled on the Pentagon’s ONA – was the main recommendation of Policy Exchange’s 2018 report, A Question of Power: Towards Better UK Strategy Through Net Assessment, authored by Gabriel Elefteriu, with a Foreword by General Lord Richards of Herstmonceux, former Chief of the Defence Staff. The draft report’s reviewers included Air Marshal Ed Stringer, Director General of the UK Defence Academy and Joint Force Development who will now oversee the establishment of SONAC; and Professor John Bew, the Prime Minister’s Special Adviser for Foreign Affairs who is leading a No10 taskforce on the Government’s Integrated Review.
Sir Stephen Laws invited to help review the Human Rights Act
Policy Exchange congratulates Sir Stephen Laws KCB, QC (Hon), Senior Research Fellow in our Judicial Power Project and former First Parliamentary Counsel, on his appointment to serve on the independent panel to review the Human Rights Act 1998. The panel, chaired by Sir Peter Gross, former Lord Justice of Appeal, is to consider the Act’s operation over the past twenty years and the case for structural reform. In a lecture on the day of the panel’s announcement, Sir Peter referred to Policy Exchange’s work on Supreme Court reform, noting the foreword written by Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, former Chief Justice of England and Wales. Sir Stephen’s many publications for Policy Exchange on constitutional matters include this jointly authored submission to the Joint Committee on Human Rights. Read details of the announcement here.
Saving a lost decade
A new Policy Exchange report published this week, Saving a lost decade, argues that ministers must become directly accountable for tackling the inequalities that have been highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper, authored by Richard Sloggett, Health and Social Care Lead, uses modelling to show that the Government is on course to miss a key manifesto pledge to increase healthy life years by five by 2035. Read the report and Foreword by Rt Hon Damian Green MP and Lord Filkin CBE here.
The report featured in The Financial Times, with the recommendations endorsed by Steve Brine MP, former Public Health Minister, during a debate in the House of Commons, which can be viewed here.
David Goodhart joins the EHRC
Policy Exchange congratulates David Goodhart, our Head of Demography, Immigration & Integration, on his appointment as a Commissioner on the board of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. David will sit on the board for a period of four years. This welcome appointment follows the announcement that Baroness Falkner of Margravine has been nominated to serve as the new Chair of the EHRC. David is the author of Head, Hand, Heart: The Struggle for Dignity and Status in the 21st Centuryand has recently edited a Policy Exchange report on the technical skills revolution, The Training We Need Now. Read details of the announcement here.
Policy Exchange hosts the Colin Cramphorn Memorial Lecture
Policy Exchange was delighted to welcome Matthew Pottinger, Deputy National Security Advisor to the President of the United States, for the first of two Colin Cramphorn Memorial Lectures this year. He delivered his lecture, titled “The Importance of Being Candid: On China’s Relationship with the Rest of the World”, in Mandarin, speaking of a “new consensus” in the US, which bridges political divides and unites the whole of society, on the threat posed China’s “technologically enhanced totalitarianism”. Watch the speech here.
