The Centre for Policy Studies today releases a rigorous list of supply-side measures aimed at improving the underlying fundamentals of the UK economy and revitalising productivity.
These 101 recommendations to restore productivity growth and secure the recovery have been submitted to HM Treasury, and when taken together are budget-neutral.
The proposals will be fully published in two weeks in “101 ways to crack the productivity puzzle and secure the recovery”.
CPS Budget Policies
Deregulation
- Update One in Two Out rule to include tax administration changes and EU regulations.
- Adopt sunset clauses for all regulations.
- Continue to cut house building regulations.
- Relax planning regulations on the construction of new garden cities.
- Enforce greater regulatory transparency across Government departments.
- Commit to reducing the total cost of regulation each year.
- Create a new ‘no fault dismissal’ for underperforming employees.
- Strengthen the power of tribunals to strike out claims with no reasonable prospect of success.
- Promote greater use of alternative dispute resolution.
- Encourage flexible working for senior employees by enabling ‘protected conversations’ with workers aged 65 and over.
- Abolish the Working Time Directive.
- EU regulatory reform more generally.
Tax Reform
- Let low paid workers keep performance related pay tax free.
- Business Tax guarantee. No future increases in the corporation tax rate.
- Transport Tax guarantee: No further increases in fuel duty.
- Cancel the introduction of taxpayer funded school meals for children from higher income families.
- Reform Capital Gains Tax through the introduction of rollover.
- Cut Capital Gains Tax rate to the revenue maximising rate.
- VAT simplification.
- Vehicle excise duty simplification.
- Stamp Duty Land Tax reform.
- Allow small business to use cash basis for calculating profit.
- Simplify the taxation of termination pay.
- Abolish the temporary annual investment allowance extension.
- Abolish the temporary retail sector business rates discount.
- Abolish the 12 month extension of Small Business Rate Relief doubling.
- Earlier introduction of abolishment of employer NICs for under 21s.
- Earlier introduction of 20% Corporation Tax.
- Scrap employer NICs for all micro-business in their first year.
- Commit to more radical reform of business rates.
- Dividend Tax simplification.
- ISA reform to promote greater uptake and flexibility.
Competition Policy
- Increase retail banking competition through liberalised licencing.
- Free Challenger Banks to compete with the existing market participants.
- End restrictions on upstream and retail services to increase water industry competition.
- Open water industry competition to households.
- Faster introduction of retail sector competition in the water industry
- Energy market reform: An annual statement showing the tariff charged and total household energy consumption.
- Energy market reform: Annual renewable energy contracts with a fixed tariff.
- Freeze the carbon price floor.
- Build on the progress of the GDS in helping SMEs compete in public sector IT procurement.
- Privatise the Green Investment Bank.
- Establish a Financial Competition Commission.
- Maintain open access to equity based crowdfunding.
- Trade union reform: Introduce a 50% threshold in strike ballots.
- Embark on a new privatisation programme of state owned assets.
- Adopt the ‘Fair Shares’ scheme for the reprivatisation of Lloyds and RBS.
- Encourage greater competition between rail operators.
Skills Reform
- Reinstate the Young Apprenticeships system.
- Reduce the bureaucratic burden on employer led apprenticeships.
- Introduce more sophisticated apprentice performance metrics.
- Abolish the 8 week cap on the Work Experience Scheme.
- Encourage over 50s back into the labour market.
- End restrictions on the provision of shorter employer led courses by universities.
- Extend the deregulation of Higher Education service provision.
- Extend the deregulation of Higher Education financing.
- Exempt strategically important subjects from the equivalent and lower qualifications policy.
- Tear down barriers between enterprise and education through private sector capital investment in schools.
- Extend performance pay for school teachers.
- Promote professional development to improve teacher performance after 5 year periods.
- Give all schools regardless of status the freedom to outsource services.
- Use more varied methods to measure teacher quality. Publish aggregate performance data.
- Include employment rates and average earnings of alumni in school league tables.
- Include data in school league tables on the number of interactions with employers.
- Include data on ICT and foreign language in school league tables.
- Continue deregulation of childcare.
- Simplify visa requirements for the highest value non-EU workers.
- Commit to the extension of the Gulf visa free scheme.
- Further simplify the visa process for Chinese businesses.
- Make more use of payment by results in welfare reform.
- Convert part of JSA into retraining voucher for the long term unemployed.
- End the ban on participants in the Work Programme from being able to use the New Enterprise Allowance scheme.
Innovation Promotion
- Set up new accelerated patents.
- Protect and aim to extend the UK patent box.
- Allow SMEs to postpone the payment of patent renewal fees for the first 10 years.
- Free the Intellectual Property Office to compete with other patenting authorities.
- Tackle non-practicing entities acting as patent trolls.
- Push for improvements to the EU Patent Reform.
- Further tax simplification for employee share ownership.
- Ease restrictions on capital market issuance by SMEs.
- Continue the deregulation of lending by Building Societies.
- Swiftly enact the Saatchi bill to promote medical innovation.
- Push for reform of the EU ‘Precautionary Principle’.
- Extend the New Enterprise Allowance scheme.
Infrastructure Policy
- Allow investors in Superfast Broadband to make use of patent box corporation tax scheme.
- Update cost-benefit analysis of transport infrastructure investments and refocus towards projects with highest returns.
- Support an EU wide push for fracking.
- Quickly implement the recommendations of the Davies Review of airport capacity.
- Carry out short term measures to increase aviation capacity.
Exports
- Push for faster introduction of the EU single market in public sector procurement.
- Push for a lower contract value above which EU public sector procurement is subject to competition.
- Increase accountability within UKTI.
- Give UKTI a new responsibility for advice on productivity enhancing “Smart Importing”.
- China strategy: ensure UKTI staff are adequately trained.
- Lift the cap on General and MBA Endorsements on the Graduate Entrepreneur Scheme.
- Reform Section 7 of the corporate offences clause of the Bribery Act.
- Simplify the UK transit visa rules.
- Simplify the tourist and business visitor visa process.
- New streamlined short stay visa for people visiting for private medical treatment.
- Concerted push for reduction and simplification of EU tariffs on fast growing economies.
- Oppose any attempts to slow down agreements on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and the Trade in Services Agreement.
Date Added: Monday 17th March 2014
