Better Childcare
Connor MacDonald and Ruth KellyChildcare costs in the United Kingdom are some of the highest in the developed world, and they have been persistently so. This is a major factor driving cost of living pressures, and has a variety of deleterious consequences.
Taxing Families Fairly
Professor Philip Booth and Andrei E. RogobeteBritain is an international outlier in not making proper provision in the tax system for the extra costs of child-raising carried by families. The result, as this paper shows, is that families with young children in the UK pay significantly more in income tax than comparable families in countries like Germany and France. Politicians are finally beginning to wake up to this anomaly and the issue has been raised by Liz Truss in the Conservative leadership election. But it is time that a full beam of light was shone on this bias against family formation and that is just what Philip Booth and Andrei Rogobete have done in this paper.
Re-engineering Regulation
Stephen BoothA new report from Policy Exchange argues the United Kingdom has a unique opportunity to streamline and modernise regulation to deliver the high environmental and social standards citizens desire, while also giving the British economy the competitive edge it needs in the post-Brexit age. Re-engineering Regulation: A Blueprint for Reform calls for a rethink in approach to regulation, putting forward a number of recommendations to create a more agile and accountable regulatory system.
Unveiling a truer likeness of John Hume
What is best practice when writing about a Nobel Prize winner (John Hume) who shared it with another Northern Ireland leader (David Trimble)? Surely the best approach, while accepting the humanity and great achievement of John Hume, is not to suppress all serious questions about his career in favour of an actual caricature of the Northern Ireland problem.
Police forces must undergo a serious change to attract the best and brightest out there
On his first day in office, Boris Johnson stood on the steps of Downing Street and committed to recruiting an additional 20,000 police officers by 2023. The commitment was central to the Conservative Party’s manifesto at the 2019 election.
What the government is attempting to achieve is no mean feat. As well as recruiting the additional 20,000 police officers, they must also replace those who leave. That’s an additional 6,500 – or 5 per cent – of the workforce every year. Across the three and a half years of the programme that means recruiting and training 42,500 new police officers.
Forty-eight hours that proved the UK’s unwritten constitution is fit for purpose
With dreary predictability, constitutional reform enthusiasts have begun calling for a codified constitution right after Boris Johnson’s announcement that he was stepping down from the premiership.
The well-rehearsed arguments all turn around the idea that the events leading up to his removal had constituted some sort of constitutional crisis, the result of the country’s uncodified political constitution, and that all of it could have been avoided had the United Kingdom’s constitution been codified (viz. set out in legally enforceable rules).
Ab Rogers Design wins £250,000 Wolfson Economics Prize
The winner of this year’s Wolfson Economics Prize, which has invited proposals to “radically improve” hospitals for patients and staff in the UK and around the world, was announced at a Gala Dinner in Central London last night.
New poll: America believes in Special Relationship more than Britain
Americans believe more strongly that the UK-US alliance is a “Special Relationship” than Britons, according to new polling commissioned by Policy Exchange.
Among 1712 British voters, YouGov found that only 28 per cent believe the US-UK alliance is a “special relationship” with a much bigger group – 52 per cent – saying no, the US-UK alliance is not really a “Special Relationship”.
£250,000 Wolfson Economics Prize Shortlist published
The five finalists of this year’s Wolfson Economics Prize on how to “radically improve” hospitals for patients and staff are announced today.
Since the deadline for primary Submissions in June, the Judging Panel have marked entries from more than 250 organisations representing 15 countries across the world, including submissions from NHS trusts, architectural practices, clinicians and patients, seeking planning and design ideas that could improve the NHS hospitals of the future.
Upcoming Events
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Monday, 11 July, 2022
18:00 - 19:15
Data saves lives. Yet at least one in ten trusts in the NHS in England operate on ‘paper-based’ systems. This is likely to be inhibiting staff – who can only do their best when they have the right information to provide the best possible care. In this panel event, we will consider the opportunity to modernise IT infrastructure and data architecture across the NHS estate, the potential for this to tackle our big challenges; from the backlog to health inequalities, and considering the opportunities created by the Government’s commitment to build 48 new hospitals by 2030. This event follows the Wolfson Economics Prize 2021, hosted in partnership with Policy Exchange, which invited radical new proposals for hospital planning and design.
Venue: Policy Exchange
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Wednesday, 6 July, 2022
17:30 - 18:45
Reporting from the frontline of the struggle to ‘level up’, Jamie Driscoll, Mayor of the North Tyne Combined Authority, spoke at Policy Exchange on why the current funding arrangements between HM Treasury and local authorities need to be transformed if success is to be scaled up. Local leadership, knowledge and presence are essential to achieve (more…)
Venue: Policy Exchange
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Wednesday, 6 July, 2022
13:00 - 14:00
Christopher Luxon MP, New Zealand’s Leader of the Opposition, gave a speech this week at Policy Exchange. He set out a compelling vision for the renewal of public services and economic reform through high standards and best practice, learning from the best in the world. At a time when governments are toying with (more…)
Venue: Policy Exchange
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