Helping Generation Rent become Generation Buy:
Gerard LyonsThis paper’s contribution to the housing policy debate is to outline the policies that are needed on the demand side. Too often, on the demand side, the Government’s policy interventions have resulted in higher house prices, exacerbating the challenge facing buyers. Now, there needs to be a shift away from direct interventions such as help to buy or temporary freezes in stamp duty, says Gerard Lyons.
Charging Up
Ed Birkett and William NicolleThe UK’s commitment to phase out new petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2030 was at the heart of the Prime Minister’s recent ‘Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution’. This commitment reflects both sharp reductions in the cost of electric vehicles (EVs) and the urgent need to clean up the transport sector, which is now the UK’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions.
A “Washington Strategy” for British Diplomacy
Ben JudahThe UK’s Washington embassy – the flagship for its global diplomatic operation – needs a shake-up to secure British influence with the Biden administration and a Democrat-controlled Congress. A ‘Washington strategy’ for British diplomacy, authored by the journalist and think-tanker Ben Judah, urges the Government to “recognise the need for radical diplomatic change in a post-Brexit and post-Trump world”.
Parliament won’t allow China to bully MPs into silence
Does the Chinese Communist Party understand how our parliamentary democracy works? The evidence of the last 24 hours suggests not. With some of my Conservative colleagues in the House of Commons – Sir Iain Duncan Smith, Tim Loughton, Tom Tugendhat and Neil O’Brien – as well as two peers, a QC and an academic, I have been banned from entering China, had property frozen (not that I have any there) and have had Chinese citizens and institutions prohibited from doing business with me. All because I have voiced well-evidenced concerns about the persecution of the Uyghur Muslim minority by the Chinese government.
Wanted: Two Ministers for the Union
Last week my review for the Prime Minister of UK Government Union Capability was finally published alongside an impressive package of still to be signed off reforms to the way relations with the devolved administrations are managed.
Government action on my recommendations is more important than if or when the report was published. And I welcome wholeheartedly the way the Government is already implementing new policies in line with those recommendations.
The Integrated Review – Policy Exchange’s Reflections
The Government’s Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy is the most important British strategy document since end of Cold War. Its significance comes not only from its unprecedented scope across policy areas; perhaps even more important is the strategic conception, the intellectual armature around which it is designed. At its heart is the idea of strategic competition understood in its genuine geostrategic-military sense rather than as a simplistic sporting-race analogy.
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.
Policy Exchange welcomes Defence Secretary and Chief of the Defence Staff
Policy Exchange welcomed the Secretary of State for Defence, Rt Hon Ben Wallace MP, to introduce a keynote speech by General Sir Nick Carter, Chief of the Defence Staff, on The Integrated Operating Concept.
In this major speech at an important juncture for UK defence, the Chief of the Defence Staff presented a new approach to the utility of armed force and integration of space, cyber and information, alongside the maritime, land and air domains. When speaking of the new concept he said, ‘this Integrated Operating Concept places a premium on operating, it also places a premium on adaptability – the ability to adapt to war fight.’
The event was chaired by General David Petraeus. You can watch the event here
Building a better healthcare system
The COVID-19 pandemic has provoked fundamental questions about our health and social care system. Is the current NHS accountability structure the right one for responding to global pandemics? What is the most effective way of protecting and funding those requiring social care? How can we lock in the technological gains from the pandemic? And how should we build hospitals that better serve the needs of the UK population in the 21st century?
Upcoming Events
- Monday, 11 March, 2019
18:00 - 19:30
The problem of jihadi brides and ISIL fighters has made discussions about reform of the law of treason a matter of high public importance. Policy Exchange is proud to have led the public conversation about this issue, beginning with publication in July 2018 of a major cross-party report on modernisation of the law.
- Thursday, 21 June, 2018
10:00 - 11:30
The UK Climate Change Act went through Parliament 10 years ago with cross-party support – marking a political consensus on climate action that has continued ever since and serving as an international template.
- Thursday, 7 June, 2018
9:00 - 11:00
In his only public appearance on his UK visit, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was interviewed by William Shawcross at Policy Exchange. Deeming the Iran nuclear deal ‘defunct’, the Prime Minister said that a realignment was taking place in the Middle East, with relations improving between Israel and Sunni nations. He also had words of praise for Presidents Trump and Obama.