CPS Budget 2016 Reaction by Head of Economic Research Daniel Mahoney
“George Osborne’s commitment to further spending cuts along with changes to the personal allowance and 40p tax thresholds is welcome. Some of the Budget’s tax proposals will also undoubtedly help boost British enterprise, particularly announcements on business rate relief, corporation tax and tax cuts for the offshore oil and gas industry. It is also welcome that a new… View Article
Budget 2016: Time to reduce complexity of UK tax system
David Martin’s new Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) paper “A new, simple, revenue neutral tax code” highlights the ever-increasing complexity of the tax code, which now has over 12 times as many words as the King James Bible. Our Budget 2016 ‘wishlist’ seeks to reduce the uncertainty created by tax complexity, but also appreciates that the Chancellor’s… View Article
Lord Owen: A suggestion to President Obama ahead of his visit to the UK
THE RT HON LORD OWEN SPEAKING AT THE CENTRE FOR POLICY STUDIES LAUNCH OF HIS NEW BOOK, ‘THE UK’S IN-OUT REFERENDUM: EU FOREIGN AND DEFENCE POLICY REFORM’: “There has been a long tradition that US Presidential visits to this country do not take place close to General Election periods. The reasons for this are obvious and hitherto… View Article
Press release: Pursue aggregation and introduce a “pensions dashboardâ€
Michael Johnson describes why the Government should pursue aggregation and introduce a “pensions dashboard” in next week’s Budget. During the last Parliament, the automatic consolidation of pension pots and other sources of retirement income attracted much debate, with two different models proposed: “pot follows member” and aggregation. This prompted Michael Johnson to write Aggregation is the… View Article
Tony Lodge writes for Conservative Home on rail competition
Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) research fellow Tony Lodge wrote for Conservative Home on the campaign for open access rail competition, Friday 11 March 2016. “Last month, Britain went train-mad. The return of the iconic 1923-built Flying Scotsman after a £4 million restoration reignited Britain’s fascination and sometimes obsessive interest in trains and the railways. There are… View Article
Michael Johnson letter in The Times
CPS research fellow Michael Johnson wrote to The Times newspaper on pensions and the budget, Friday 11 March 2016. “Sir, The pensions industry has persuaded the chancellor to drop the “pension ISA” for now (report, Mar 7). But what is it, exactly? Unfortunately its lack of definition has allowed industry lobbyists to sow confusion. Consequently,… View Article
Polly Toynbee on radical CPS pension proposals (The Guardian)
Polly Toynbee, columnist for The Guardian newspaper, wrote on Michael Johnson’s pensions proposals in her article on Tuesday 8 March 2016. “Where did Osborne’s initial pensions radicalism come from? Michael Johnson is pensions expert at the rightwing thinktank the Centre for Policy Studies, an unlikely source of social justice reform. He has been camped out in the… View Article
Michael Johnson CPS research on pensions in Daily Mail
CPS pamphlet “Costly and Ineffective: Why Pension Tax Reliefs Should be Reformed” by Michael Johnson was referred to in a Mail column by Senior Editor of The Economist Anne McElvoy, Sunday 6 March 2016. “But the truth is that pensions tax relief is really a sweetener for higher earners, who have a much bigger incentive… View Article
Peter Oborne previews CPS report in Daily Mail
Upcoming CPS report “A New, Simple, Revenue Neutral Tax Code for Business” by David Martin was previewed by Daily Mail columnist Peter Oborne, Saturday 5 March 2016. “Indeed, a devastating pamphlet by the Centre For Policy Studies — due to be published on Monday — is expected to outline many examples. Typical is the fact that under… View Article
Michael Johnson: pension ISAs are the most effective way forward
Suggested Treasury pension reforms are needed to end unaffordable tax arbitrage Michael Johnson comments: “Recent media announcements indicating that the Chancellor is preparing to announce “pensions ISAs” in his Budget later this month are, of course, speculative. But, coupled with an up-front “bonus”, it would mean the end of tax relief on pensions contributions…. View Article
Press release: Britain’s borders are propped up with obsolete and outdated technology
Affordable and effective solution requires transferring risk to private sector The Centre for Policy Studies welcomes the PAC report published today on e-borders. The announcement that the Home Office must get a grip on a scheme to secure the UK’s borders echoes the findings made in the Centre for Policy Studies report Harnessing Entrepreneurship to Secure Britain’s Borders published… View Article
Listen to Daniel Mahoney discuss EU threat to UK ports on ShareRadio
CPS head of economic research Daniel Mahoney was a guest on ShareRadio’s Morning Money to discuss the upcoming CPS Economic Bulletin on the EU threat to UK ports, Thursday 4 March 2016.
UK ports under threat from EU rules overhaul (City A.M.)
The Centre for Policy Studies Economic Bulletin on UK ports under threat from EU regulation, due for release at noon on 4th March 2016, was reported on by City A.M. “The UK’s thriving ports could be threatened by new EU regulations to be debated next week. The Ports Services Regulation will end the UK ports industry’s… View Article
Has Ofcom done enough to ensure broadband competition? (City A.M.)
CPS head of economic research Daniel Mahoney wrote for City A.M.’s debate section, answering the question “BT Openreach ruling: Has Ofcom done enough to ensure broadband competition?”, Friday 26 February 2016. “Ofcom has rightly drawn attention to the anti-competitive nature of the UK broadband infrastructure market, but it should have done more. The current set-up gives… View Article
BT Openreach: a quasi-monopoly in the last chance saloon?
Ofcom has today published the initial conclusions of its Digital Communications review into the role of Openreach in the UK’s broadband infrastructure. Ofcom has highlighted a number of problems with the current broadband market, not least that BT’s current structure gives BT Openreach “an incentive to make decisions in the interests of BT, rather than BT’s customers”. For… View Article
Daily Telegraph: Ofcom doesn’t have the power to split BT and Openreach, think tank warns
CPS economic bulletin “Break BT’s Monopoly on Broadband Infrastructure” was featured in the Daily Telegraph, Tuesday 17 February 2016. “BT is facing fresh calls to split with Openreach, its broadband infrastructure division, ahead of a landmark review into the telecoms industry. Ofcom is set to unveil next week a widely anticipated set of proposals for the… View Article
