Publications Archive

Environmental Affairs is Policy Exchange’s quarterly journal, which explores the implications of the growing role of environmental policy. In this edition, Unleashing Climate Capital, our contributors consider policies promoting green investments, including the Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) investment agenda.

The Lord Chancellor introduced the Judicial Review and Courts Bill to Parliament on 21st July this year. This paper, which draws on submissions to the Independent Review of Administrative Law and the Government Consultation on Judicial Review Reform, sets out a number of amendments that Parliament may wish to consider making to the Bill.

Policy Exchange’s History Matters project was established in June 2020 to address widespread national concern about the growing trend to alter public history and heritage without due process. Through the regularly updated History Matters compendium, we have been documenting attempts at historical re-interpretation and re-invention, gathering evidence about the processes by which changes to the national teaching and display of history have been made.

This is the tenth edition of our rolling compendium, which attempts to draw together a range of recent developments that turn on the place of history in the public square – including the removal of certain statues on public display, the renaming of buildings and places, and changes to the way history is taught in educational curricula. In cataloguing these examples, we do not offer any judgment on the actions of the individual or institution in question, today or in the past. Our aim is simply to provide a clear documentary record of what is happening – which can help inform public debate on these issues. At present, the evidence confirms that history is the most active front in a new culture war, and that action is being taken widely and quickly in a way that does not reflect public opinion or growing concern over our treatment of the past.

It is time for a new approach to social mobility. For the past 20 years it has focused too much on the “long” mobility of sending people from disadvantaged backgrounds to elite universities and into the higher professions. That is a desirable goal but for social mobility to be fit for the levelling up era it needs to be relevant to a much more broader group of people, and needs to focus on the supply of decent jobs for a range of talents and aptitudes and not just reorder the queue for entry into the professional elite.

Policy Exchange’s report, Knife Crime in the Capital , reveals the real injustice that at least four out of five gang related homicide victims and perpetrators in London are black or ethnic minority.

A decade on from the enactment of the Equality Act, it is time to consider whether it needs reform to meet the challenges of the new millennium. Discussions about reform should be informed by what has happened during the ten years of the Equality Act, which in some cases is tied up with developments of interpretative trends and approaches that had begun even before the Act. This report aims to contribute to that discussion.

Central banks face a range of questions, some of which relate to their actions during the Covid crisis and the dislocation of economies as a result of the pandemic, some reflect the continuing challenges of unexpectedly low inflation, interest rates and growth over the last decade and some arise directly out of their own policy actions, such as their loose monetary policy and Quantitative Easing.

This paper seeks to consider the question of the relationship between Islamism (in all its forms) and parts of the Left, not just in France but more broadly. It proceeds from the assumption that such a relationship exists and is not simply tactical.

Two of the Government’s top priorities for reforming the planning system are: to deliver more and more- beautiful homes, and reducing carbon emissions so that Britain is emitting no more carbon than it is absorbing (‘Net Zero’). Though each of the priorities affects the other substantially, they are often considered in isolation. Due to a lack of published and timely work analysing this interaction, Policy Exchange convened a variety of experts in July 2021 for a roundtable discussion on the interactions between climate, environment and planning.

The waiting list for elective treatment in the NHS in England has reached an unprecedented level. It is likely to become the defining NHS issue as we approach the next general election, and brings a very real human cost as millions endure a long and uncertain wait. So what can be done?

This new paper by Policy Exchange’s Head of Industrial Strategy, Sir Geoffrey Owen, sets out how the U.K. can pursue a new direction in innovation policy.

This paper is the text of Policy Exchange’s response to the Government’s Consultation on Judicial Review Reform. It builds on submissions made by Policy Exchange’s Judicial Power Project to the Independent Review on Administrative Law (one written by me, the other by Sir Stephen Laws), which were quoted in the Panel’s report and in the Government’s Response.

The sheer number of new wind farms now planned in the UK means that there is increasing local concern over the number of new ‘grid connections’ required to connect offshore wind farms to the onshore electricity network. Without more coordination between projects, the impact of this new infrastructure on local communities and the environment risks similar local backlash to onshore wind farms and fracking.

This paper examines some of the criticisms offered against part 3 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. It finds, in summary, that most of these are misplaced or overblown. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill can certainly be improved and even if it does not prove, if enacted, to be the boon hoped for, it is certainly not the instrument of repression conjured up to alarm us.

Transgenderism is the focus of vigorous public debate at present. Questions as to the relative significance of gender identity and physical sex and what it means to be trans are at the heart of arguments about whether transwomen should compete as women in sports, whether medical intervention is appropriate for young teenagers who don’t identify with their sex, who should be in women’s prisons and how public debate should be conducted. The courts are increasingly asked to grapple with these questions. However, guidance produced by the Judicial College is surprisingly committed to some of the ideas and claims that are in dispute.

This report launches Policy Exchange’s new programme, Beyond COP26, in the run up to the COP26 climate conference that the UK will host in Glasgow later this year. The programme is co-chaired by two former Energy Secretaries, Rt Hon Andrea Leadsom MP and Rt Hon Amber Rudd.

Peter Clarke, Senior Fellow at Policy Exchange, who previously served as HM Chief Inspector of Prisons and Head of Counter-Terrorism Command at New Scotland Yard, has warned that the Fishmongers’ Hall terrorist attack was “a preventable tragedy”. In a new paper for Policy Exchange, Fishmongers’ Hall: A Preventable Tragedy, he argues that the relevant police and probation officers lacked the expertise to deal with an Islamist extremist who was ‘one of the most dangerous terrorists to be released from a British prison in recent years’. Clarke urges the Government to move control of prisons from the Ministry of Justice to the Home Office, to improve public safety and security, among other policy proposals.

Policy Exchange has convened a distinguished Reform of Government Commission, chaired by Dame Patricia Hodgson DBE, to determine how government can be modernised and equipped for the modern world. Each Commissioner brought their particular expertise and experience to the Commission’s discussions, and this report reflects a broad consensus of views on how to improve the capacity and capabilities of government. The Commission took both informal and formal evidence from a range of figures from academia, politics, business, arms-length-bodies and the Civil Service to inform its work.

A policy of ‘benign neglect’ towards the City and the UK’s financial services sector since 2016 is no longer enough to maintain its competitiveness in the face of an aggressive EU and intense global competition, warns Gerard Lyons. But the former Chief Economic Adviser to Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP during the Prime Minister’s London mayoralty argues that with the right policy approach, the City can play a critical role in levelling up and delivering more balanced domestic growth.

The Law Commission intends to report later this year with proposals in relation to what are, incorrectly, called ‘hate crimes’. This follows a consultation which closed on Christmas Eve 2020. This paper argues that the consultation was flawed and there are reasonable grounds to conclude that it breached the Cabinet Office Consultation Principles 2018. In addition, analysis of the consultation’s failings raises issues concerning the role of the Law Commission in the process of general policy-formation, as opposed to technical law reform.

Environmental Affairs is Policy Exchange’s quarterly journal, which explores the implications of the growing role of environmental policy. As environmental questions are increasingly felt in other areas, from economics, to security, to foreign affairs, we look at what these overlaps will mean. Our contributors are world leaders, distinguished thinkers and experts in their fields, drawn from the UK and around the world.

This is the ninth edition of our rolling compendium, which attempts to draw together a range of recent developments that turn on the place of history in the public square – including the removal of certain statues on public display, the renaming of buildings and places, and changes to the way history is taught in educational curricula. In cataloguing these examples, we do not offer any judgment on the actions of the individual or institution in question, today or in the past. Our aim is simply to provide a clear documentary record of what is happening – which can help inform public debate on these issues. At present, the evidence confirms that history is the most active front in a new culture war, and that action is being taken widely and quickly in a way that does not reflect public opinion or growing concern over our treatment of the past.

Place matters profoundly to people. We invest more resources in our homes than in anything else, and by some measures we spend more time gardening than we do on any other pastime. This is no less true of our shared home. Protecting the countryside from suburban sprawl has substantial costs in terms of foregone economic growth, but green belts are widely supported, and were introduced only after a huge grassroots campaign for them.

This paper traces the history of several judicially demanded or created obstacles to preventing unlawful entry or removing illegal migrants. The decisions to create these obstacles, it argues, were well-motivated but unauthorised and even unprincipled. This is a story in which European courts and our own courts all have a part.

Since the height of the Black Lives Matter protests in June 2020, a number of councils across England and Wales have stated their commitment to reviewing local street names and—where these are deemed to have a contentious history—to considering renaming them. In several instances, the decision-making process with regards street name alteration has excluded residents and locals, in spite of the immense direct impact street renaming has on a street’s residents.

The Independent Review of Administrative Law has been established because of a breakdown of trust between the political institutions of the constitution, namely Parliament and Her Majesty’s Government, on the hand, and the judiciary on the other. This is a serious situation that must be addressed.

This paper draws together analysis from the range of Policy Exchange’s experts – in Law & Constitution, Trade & Economics, Immigration & Policing, Energy & Environment, Health & Social Care – of the new freedoms and opportunities open to the United Kingdom under the terms of the new relationship with the European Union.

This is the eighth edition of our rolling compendium, which attempts to draw together a range of recent developments that turn on the place of history in the public square – including the removal of certain statues on public display, the renaming of buildings and places, and changes to the way history is taught in educational curricula. In cataloguing these examples, we do not offer any judgment on the actions of the individual or institution in question, today or in the past. Our aim is simply to provide a clear documentary record of what is happening – which can help inform public debate on these issues. At present, the evidence confirms that history is the most active front in a new culture war, and that action is being taken widely and quickly in a way that does not reflect public opinion or growing concern over our treatment of the past.

In 2021, the UK will host the G7 and COP26 and take a key part in other major summits, giving it a unique opportunity to lead the global diplomatic agenda. This report argues that he UK should use its position to drive a programme of green finance reforms that will enable a fundamental shift to a sustainable global economy.