FEATURED PUBLICATION
How Many Homes Does the UK Need?
Decades of lacklustre housebuilding and recent record migration have left the UK with a shortfall of more than 6.5 million homes. The debut research by Head of Housing Ben Hopkinson shows how the UK has fallen dramatically behind comparable European countries, with British families paying the price through unaffordable homes.
Breaking the Cycle
The UK has a low-growth, low-productivity, low-wage economy – but a high-spend, high-tax, high-borrowing state. Before the 2008 financial crisis, a 21-year-old would have seen the economy double in size by the time they were aged 47 and their living standards rise accordingly. Now they would have to wait until they are at least 64,… View Article
Wealthy Nation, Healthy Nation
Scotland must focus on policy delivery over constitutional debate for the next decade to become the wealthiest, healthiest and best-educated part of the UK, according to a new essay collection spearheaded by former Scotland Office Minister Malcolm Offord. The analysis in ‘Wealthy Nation, Healthy Nation’ brings together senior medical professionals, education experts and economists to… View Article
Rail’s Last Chance
Britain’s railways are bleeding £1.4 billion annually despite passenger numbers returning to near pre-pandemic levels, with the Government’s radical overhaul to create Great British Railways risking catastrophic failure without urgent course correction, according to new research from the Centre for Policy Studies. The research by Tony Lodge sets out a four-point plan to save Britain’s… View Article
Britain and the ECHR: Past Myths, Present Problems and Future Options
The myth that the European Convention on Human Rights was a British creation enthusiastically adopted by Churchill and Attlee is fundamentally false, according to explosive new research from the Centre for Policy Studies that reveals the true scale of Britain’s constitutional crisis. The comprehensive analysis by Rt Hon Lord Peter Lilley, who served in Cabinet… View Article
How Many Homes Does the UK Need?
Decades of lacklustre housebuilding and recent record migration have left the UK with a shortfall of more than 6.5 million homes, according to new research from the Centre for Policy Studies that reveals the devastating scale of Britain’s housing failure. The debut research by Ben Hopkinson, the CPS’ new Head of Housing and Infrastructure, shows… View Article
The Cost of the British State
In the wake of the Spending Review, public spending is still on course to reach almost £1.5 trillion in nominal terms and £1.4 billion in today’s money by 2028/29 – representing a real-terms increase of 23% on 2019/20. This means that Government spending per adult is set to reach around £24,190 in today’s money by… View Article
Welfare Reform: Why Labour Must Go Further
New research from the Centre for Policy Studies outlines the scale of the challenge facing the Government in its goal of bringing welfare spending down and getting more Britons into work. The recent reforms announced by Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall aim to make £4.1bn in savings by 2029/30. But the overall bill for… View Article
Here To Stay? Estimating the Scale and Cost of Long-Term Migration
NOTE: The Office for Budget Responsibility fiscal data contained within this report is the subject of dispute, meaning that the overall cost estimates should no longer be used. We will be publishing an updated estimate in due course. This does not impact on the visa data or projections for the numbers likely to gain ILR… View Article
Punching Down
Businesses employing low-wage workers will see a massive hike in their tax bills in 2025 The Chancellor’s decision to raise employer’s National Insurance has led to a whopping 60% tax increase for businesses employing the lowest paid In 2024, an employer paid £1,617 in NICs for each full-time employee on minimum wage. In 2025 they… View Article
Common Ground Conservatism
How can the Conservative Party recover from electoral catastrophe? A new report from the Centre for Policy Studies, built around an extensive programme of quantitative and qualitative research led by James Frayne, argues that the party needs to return to the ‘common ground’ first identified by Margaret Thatcher and Keith Joseph in the 1970s. Built on… View Article
The Great Grid Gamble
Ed Miliband hailed a recent report from the National Energy System Operator (NESO) as vindicating his plan to decarbonise the grid by 2030. But new analysis shows that the NESO report is built around a series of assumptions designed to cast Miliband’s plans in the best possible light, rather than reflecting the reality of the… View Article
Budget Briefing: The Age of the Super-State
New analysis from the Centre for Policy Studies shows that, as a result of changes announced in this week’s Budget, state spending is set to increase to an astonishing £1.5 trillion by 2029/30. The briefing paper argues that the measures announced by Rachel Reeves show Labour reverting to its traditional view that the state can… View Article
The Politics of AI
‘The Politics of AI’ is a new report from New Zealand-based academic David Rozado which examines the political bias within popular AI-powered Large Language Models (LLMs). The report found left-leaning political bias displayed in almost every category of question asked by 23 of the 24 LLMs tested. The only LLM which did not provide left-wing… View Article
Capital Losses: Why increasing CGT will deter investment, slow growth and reduce revenue
The Chancellor is reportedly considering hiking capital gains tax (CGT) in next week’s Budget, as part of plans to find £40 billion in spending cuts and tax rises CGT is widely accepted to be a damaging tax – hampering investment and economic growth and raising relatively little Recent modelling by the Centre for Policy Studies… View Article
The UK’s International Tax Competitiveness: 2024 Update
The UK ranks a dismal 30th out of 38 OECD countries in the 2024 edition of the International Tax Competitiveness Index, published today by the US-based Tax Foundation This extremely poor ranking – below countries like Hungary (7th), Czechia (8th), and Germany (15th) – undermines the UK’s attractiveness to investors, and the Government’s stated aim… View Article
Accelerating Infrastructure
One of Britain’s most pressing problems, as the new government has acknowledged, is how difficult it is to build the infrastructure we need. Infrastructure in Britain is much harder to build than it was historically or than it is today in continental Europe Notoriously, the Lower Thames Crossing has spent 15 years in planning, at… View Article
