CPS calls for skills revolution to grow new generation of UK tech unicorns
Report calls on UK Government to help ensure Britain produces more tech unicorns – high-growth tech companies valued more than £1bn Calls on Government to introduce ‘Unicorn Visas’ to help bring in talent to address UK skills gap Calls for an ambitious skills and mentoring programme to nurture homegrown tech experts Calls for a major… View Article
Raab, Johnson endorse CPS tax plans
“Everyone knows that the Centre for Policy Studies matters, and not just for Conservatives, but for politics as a whole,” said Dominic Raab on Monday. “The team here are producing exceptional work, and Westminster is sitting up and taking note.” Those kind words came at the start of the former Brexit Secretary’s first major speech… View Article
CPS calls for new focus on NHS efficiency
Long-Term Plan provides welcome financial certainty, but improved productivity is required to realise its ambitions The Centre for Policy Studies today welcomed the publication of NHS England’s Long-Term Plan for the NHS, setting out a 10-year strategy to move the health service forward. The plan echoed many of the arguments set out by the… View Article
Britain set for worst decade of housebuilding since WW2
New CPS analysis shows 2010s will see fewest new houses built since Second World War The Prime Minister has described solving the housing crisis as ‘the biggest domestic policy challenge of our generation’. Yet new Centre for Policy Studies research shows the full scale of that challenge. With one year to go, the 2010s will… View Article
CPS proposes major new tax reforms to make work pay
New CPS report proposes £1,000-a-month ‘Universal Working Income’ to boost take-home pay and help ‘just about managings’ ‘Work Guarantee’ should see everyone keep at least 51p in every extra £1 they earn Universal Credit taper rate should be cut from 63p to 50p to incentivise work Polling by YouGov shows huge popularity of this agenda… View Article
CPS welcomes Prime Minister to mark the launch of major new policy programme
On Monday 5th November the Prime Minister will join the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) at an event to mark the launch of its major new policy programme. The programme – part of the CPS’s mission to develop a new generation of conservative thinking – will focus on tax, welfare, business and housing, with significant policies… View Article
CPS responds to Autumn Budget
Robert Colvile, Director of the Centre for Policy Studies, said: “Today’s Budget’s was billed as representing an end to austerity – and the Chancellor certainly had plenty of unexpected goodies in his sack. “It is significant that the Chancellor recognised that the cost of living is now a tax issue. Over the summer the CPS… View Article
How to turbo-charge home ownership via capital gains tax rebates
The Centre for Policy Studies is publishing on Monday a comprehensive report on how to significantly increase home ownership at no cost to the Treasury, by giving tenants and landlords a rebate when a rented property is sold by the landlord to a sitting tenant. The report, which has been shared with key stakeholders including… View Article
New CPS polling shows voters want more houses, lower house prices
New polling by ComRes for the Centre for Policy Studies, carried out to measure the impact of the housing crisis on public attitudes, confirms that Britain has switched from being anti-housing to pro. The survey of 2,036 adults confirmed the shift detected by the British Social Attitudes Survey over the past six years: voters now… View Article
CPS joins US-UK think tanks to draft ideal free trade agreement
11 UK & US Think Tanks Produce Ideal Free Trade Agreement 11 Think Tanks in US and UK draft the legal text of an Ideal Free Trade Agreement; Simultaneous launches in the UK and US stress political and commercial will of securing a deal between world’s largest and 5th largest economies; Key policy innovations include:… View Article
Tories must welcome innovators to ‘reinvigorate capitalism’ says minister
Sam Gyimah MP, Minister of State of Universities, Science, Research, and Innovation, will call on the Conservative Party to “reinvigorate capitalism” by taking advantage of Britain’s position as a “global beacon of excellence” as it exits the EU. In a speech to the Centre for Policy Studies, Gyimah will attack recent announcements from Jeremy Corbyn… View Article
Government must reform pensions tax relief to broaden Britain’s savings base
FIGURES SHOW UK HOUSEHOLD SAVINGS RATIO HAS HIT RECORD LOW Britain’s household savings ratio has plummeted to 4.9%, the lowest since records began in 1963. With savings rates falling and the top 1% of earners receiving double the pensions tax relief of half the working population, the time has come to reform the system. The… View Article
Being a Tory on tax shows you have brains — and the boffins can prove it
CPS Director Robert Colvile writes for the Sunday Times on the correlation between IQ and economic conservatism ‘…Yet the other new study — by Gary Lewis and Timothy Bates, psychologists at Royal Holloway in London, and Edinburgh — not only backs up his conclusions, but makes the causation much more clear. Its central finding is… View Article
Toby Young: Only selection can save Britain’s technical and vocational education system
Across British politics, there is a recognition that technical and vocational education has been badly neglected. The Government has recently made this one of its core priorities, via the introduction of T-levels for students aged 16 and over and new Institutes of Technology. This is particularly urgent, given our imminent departure from the European Union…. View Article
More than two million households support the elimination of mandatory deposits for renters
Think tank calls for alternative to help Generation Rent Polling by YouGov has shown that 43% of renters would support a system of deposit replacement insurance with a small cost rather than the current system of tenants paying large upfront deposits. A new report published by the Centre for Policy Studies finds the average renter… View Article
Royal Mail pensions plans “a risk too far” says Johnson
Royal Mail plans to offers its employees a Collective Defined Contribution (CDC) pensions scheme risk undermining recently-gained pensions freedoms. ‘A Risk Too Far’, published today by the Centre for Policy Studies, also cautions against CDC schemes because of the system risks creating irreversible intergenerational injustice by overpaying pensioners at the expense of current and future… View Article