Reform’s triple lock pledge would kick the pension time-bomb further down the road
Responding to Reform UK’s announcement on retaining the pension triple lock, CPS Head of Economic & Fiscal Policy, Daniel Herring said: ‘Reform’s commitment to the triple lock is disappointing for a party that promised radical change. By 2070, the OBR projects that pension spending will have risen from 5.1%% to 7.8% of GDP. Spending on… View Article
New analysis reveals alarming decline in UK innovation
Britain prides itself on being a world leader in science, research and innovation. But that reputation is increasingly hollow New research published today by the Centre for Policy Studies shows that the average number of patents filed with the UK Intellectual Property Office has fallen from 29,000 a year in the 1990s to 21,000 a… View Article
Robert Colvile to step down as CPS Director
The Centre for Policy Studies has today announced that its Director, Robert Colvile, will be stepping down in the coming months. Robert joined the Centre for Policy Studies team in September 2016 as Editor of its CapX media arm, becoming Director of the CPS and Editor-in-Chief of CapX in October 2017. During his tenure the… View Article
Spring Forecast’a disappointment to match Britain’s economic performance’
Responding to the Chancellor’s Spring Forecast, CPS Director Robert Colvile said: ‘The Spring Forecast was, like Britain’s economic performance, an overwhelming disappointment. Indeed, a Chancellor can rarely have sounded so excited to announce a downgrade in growth. ‘The Chancellor may well be right to limit policy changes to the autumn Budget – although the Government’s… View Article
Energy price cap falls – but Britons are still paying over £100 in subsidies
Today Ofgem has announced the energy price cap for 1 April to 30 June 2026 will be £1,641, down from £1,738 in Q1 Despite the fall, over £100 of the average annual bill will still go towards subsidies and policy costs, Ofgem’s own figures put this at £106 after today’s changes Earlier this week the… View Article
Britain can still have cheap energy – if the state steps back
Britain is being crippled by high energy prices – our industrial power prices are 90% higher than the European average, and household bills 20% higher A new report from the Centre for Policy Studies argues that a huge part of the problem is that the power market has become ever-more dominated and dictated by the… View Article
Failure to tackle productivity crisis costing Britain billions
Britain has a productivity crisis. But a new CPS paper by John Redwood argues that it is at its worst in the public sector, and is costing Britain billions as a result Spending plans in the recent Budget are predicated on productivity growth three times what we are currently seeing. Failure to reach these levels… View Article
London facing ‘worst housebuilding challenge’ since Second World War, new analysis shows
Planning reform’ was mentioned a record 520 times in Parliament in 2025, according to Hansard However, new analysis shows the Government has not met talk with action In the last financial year, every English region started fewer homes than in the previous financial year In London – where the housing crisis is most acute –… View Article
Labour set to break infrastructure pledge after ministers delay half of major projects
Labour pledged to decide on 150 major infrastructure projects within five years, but half (52%) of all such decisions in 2025 have faced a delay by ministers Across 14 delayed projects, ministers have been responsible for 1,333 days of dithering beyond the initial three-month decision period At current rates, the Government is set to miss… View Article
Lee Rowley joins CPS as Research Fellow
The Centre for Policy Studies is delighted to announce the appointment of Lee Rowley as a Research Fellow. He was most recently Chief of Staff to Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch and was previously Member of Parliament for North East Derbyshire. While in Parliament, he served as Minister for Housing, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in… View Article
Cost of hiring young workers rises by over £4,000, CPS analysis shows
A combination of tax rises and minimum wage rises, in successive Budgets, has drastically increased the cost of employing low-wage workers Between 2024 and 2026, the cost of employing a full-time worker on the minimum wage has risen by £3,414 Increases in minimum wages for young people entering the workforce mean that the rise for… View Article
Budget ‘bad in every way’ says CPS
Responding to the Chancellor’s Budget, Centre for Policy Studies Director Robert Colvile said: ‘This was a bad Budget in every way. Bad because it raises tax to post-war highs. Bad because it puts off difficult decisions until the final years of the forecast period. And bad because it avoids any attempt at reforming and simplifying… View Article
Further minimum wage rise will lock more people out of work, says CPS
Responding to today’s minimum wage announcement, Daniel Herring, Centre for Policy Studies Head of Fiscal and Economic Policy, said: ‘Businesses and workers are still grappling with the impact of the previous Budget, in which the Chancellor increased the cost of hiring a minimum wage worker by £2,367 per year as she increased employers’ National Insurance… View Article
Britain’s Budgets are broken, argues new CPS briefing
The 2025 Budget process has been absurd. But absurdity is built into the system, driven by a narrow obsession with hitting a particular level of headroom in five years’ time Britain has now had 10 sets of fiscal rules since Gordon Brown introduced the concept, none of which survived the Chancellor who imposed them Over… View Article
Revised migration data shows extraordinary scale of UK population change
Updated data from the ONS shows that population growth since 2021 has been higher than previously thought, with 4.80 million people arriving in 2021-4 and net immigration of 2.55 million, equivalent to population growth of 3.8 per cent The net inflow of non-British nationals – 2.9 million people – is equivalent to around 4.4% of… View Article
Half-hearted asylum reforms won’t secure Britain’s borders
Responding to the Government’s asylum system reforms announced today, Centre for Policy Studies Research Director Karl Williams said: ‘As the CPS argued in ‘Stopping the Crossings’ in 2022, a radical overhaul of asylum is needed to diffuse deterrence throughout the system. While the measures announced by the Home Secretary today represent a small step towards… View Article
