In November, the Centre for Policy Studies launched its New Generation initiative, to provide a platform for new faces and fresh policy thinking. We are delighted today to announce the launch of a major new effort to support that work.
With a year to go until Brexit, we want to develop a new generation of radical policy ideas for post-Brexit Britain, which speak to voters’ needs and aspirations and offer them a more prosperous future.
To that end, we are launching four major policy programmes, focusing on some of the key issues affecting people’s lives and futures: tax and cost of living; business and enterprise; housing and planning; and welfare. The aim is to produce policies that give people a genuine sense of ownership and control of their lives.
The four programmes will be overseen by Alex Morton. Alex joins from his post as a director at Field Consulting, but before that was responsible for housing and planning in the No 10 Policy Unit, including working on key policies in the 2015 manifesto. He was previously head of housing at Policy Exchange.
Tom Clougherty will be head of tax. Tom was executive director of the Adam Smith Institute, before moving to the US to become managing editor at the Reason Foundation, and then a senior editor at the Cato Institute, the leading Washington think-tank. His focus will be on how to reform and simplify the tax system to put more money in people’s pockets.
Rachel Wolf and Public First have been commissioned to work with Alex and the rest of the CPS team on welfare, exploring how to remodel the welfare system and welfare state to make them fit for the 21st century, and more responsive to the public. Rachel is the founder of the New Schools Network, and another veteran of the No 10 Policy Unit, who co-founded Public First with James Frayne.
On housing, Graham Edwards will be joining us as Chairman of our new Housing Policy Group and a CPS Research Fellow. Graham is CEO of Telereal Trillium, which he has built into the UK’s largest privately owned property company. In addition to his duties there, he will work with our in-house experts to develop policies that turbo-charge both housebuilding and home ownership.
A new head of business will be announced shortly. Their work will focus on promoting enterprise and entrepreneurship at all levels of the British economy.
On each of these areas, the CPS will be building a Policy Group to inform and advise on its research work.
The CPS is also delighted to announce the appointment of Emma Barr as its head of communications. Emma was until recently a key member of the media team at CCHQ, and will be overseeing the CPS’s media efforts as well as its outreach to MPs and others. This follows the recent recruitment of Rosie Lyburn as head of development and Declan Pang as head of external engagement.
Both in its own policy work, and its work with MPs and other authors, the CPS will bring forward ideas that speak to modern Britain and its condition. Its goal is to produce policies that maximise the prosperity of post-Brexit Britain, and share that prosperity most widely.
Lord Saatchi, chairman of the Centre for Policy Studies, said:
“This is a vitally important political moment for our country. I am delighted that the Centre for Policy Studies is taking the lead in developing a new generation of policies for post-Brexit Britain.”
Robert Colvile, director of the Centre for Policy Studies, said:
“In putting together our new team, I have been hugely impressed not just by their expertise but by their passion to get to grips with the challenges we face. I can’t wait to see the new policies they develop.”
For media enquiries, please contact Emma Barr at [email protected] or on 07876 161196
Date Added: Thursday 29th March 2018
