by Ben Ramanauskas, Policy Analyst Last month, under cover of Brexit, the government published its clean air strategy. In a nutshell, the strategy sets out the government’s plans for dealing with air pollution. The basic premise is commendable. Air pollution is bad for our health, particularly for children, the... Read more...
By Policy Analyst, Jeremy Hutton. Writing for the Sunday Express recently, Baroness Cox highlighted a relatively unknown conflict in Nigeria. Since the 1980s, semi-nomadic herdsmen called the Fulani have sporadically locked horns with settled Christian farmers, as the former seek to graze their herds in the lands of the latter.... Read more...
by Harry Fone, Grassroots Campaign ManagerReaders born before 1990 will likely remember a series of adverts by the Inland Revenue (as HMRC used to be known) that professed, “Tax doesn’t have to be taxing”. Well unfortunately it is, very taxing. In fact, our recent research crunched the numbers and revealed... Read more...
by Ben Ramanauskas, Policy Analyst Parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee recently published a report on food security in the United Kingdom. It makes grim reading, highlighting a number of issues in the UK such as households having limited access to food, undernutrition, and obesity. The Committee said that the government has... Read more...
by Ben Ramanauskas, Policy Analyst at the TaxPayers' Alliance The Consumer Electronics Show is well under way in Las Vegas. The Show will feature the latest gadgets that are set to be launched from technology firms. As these companies show off their latest wares which include everything from shape shifting... Read more...
by Jeremy Hutton, Policy Analyst In 2017 the UK’s foreign aid budget hit an all-time high of £14.1 billion, an increase of £682 million on the previous year and approximately £6 billion more than was spent in 2012. Ever since David Cameron pledged that the UK would meet the UN’s... Read more...
by Ben Ramanauskas, Policy Analyst The Health and Social Care Secretary, Matt Hancock, has ordered a review into overprescribing in the NHS. This is welcome news as NHS spending on medicines in England has grown from £13 billion in 2010-2011 to £18.2 billion in 2017-2018. This move by Hancock follows... Read more...
by Jeremy Hutton, Policy Analyst 2018 has been a testing year for those residing in Britain. We've had 365 days of Brexit front page and centre near enough every day of the year. You could be forgiven for being ignorant about what else government has been doing the past year.... Read more...
By Erin Few. Chancellor Philip Hammond’s 2018 budget brought news of yet another unnecessary tax on UK businesses. This newly proposed levy, the Digital Services Tax, will be implemented by April 2020. Following the lead of some European countries, such asItaly and Hungary, which have adopted similar taxes in... Read more...
By Victor Haggard. We have lost a quarter of our pubs in the last decade and with one in every £3 spent in pubs going to the taxman, this is hardly surprising. Beer duty is the tax on the production and sale of beer and is calculated on alcoholic... Read more...
By Jeremy Hutton, Policy Analyst. On Tuesday the Labour Party released a report on how to tackle excessive executive pay. It recommends a number of key reforms to curb salaries at large companies (any company with more than 250 employees) that its authors would dub disproportionately high. Yet there... Read more...
By Erin Few. On Monday, the National Audit Office (NAO) released a report entitled “Improving government’s planning and spending framework” critiquing the spending of HM Treasury and providing recommendations to improve accountability and better serve taxpayers. The NAO has been keeping track of the Cabinet Office and Treasury’s progress... Read more...
By Jeremy Hutton, Policy Analyst Since September, the BBC has been deliberating over how to cover the cost of free television licences for over-75s, which from 2020 it will have to fund directly. Recently, Broadcasting House has published a report into what to do about the perk, launched a... Read more...
by Matt Gillow, TPA Local Coordinator With a limited business case, no environmental case, and inflated costs hitting over £90 billion, it’s no wonder that even celebrities have recently come out in opposition to the government’s current vanity project. I’m wary of a Boris ‘red bus’ moment — but you’d be forgiven for... Read more...
by Victor HaggardIncreased NHS funding has signalled to some that an end to eight years of austerity is in sight, but this is a fallacy. Presented as a result of the government’s fiscal prudence, the £20 billion ‘deal’ comes instead from the desertion of the chancellor’s commitment to eliminate the... Read more...
by Nathan White The cost of strikes Since the Metropolitan Railway’s inauguration in 1863, the Underground has existed as an iconic and an integral feature in the city’s political, economic and cultural identity. Technological advances, such as the world’s first partially-automated trains operating on the Victoria Line in 1968,... Read more...
by Richard Mason - Research Fellow at Consumer Choice Center I’m probably about to lose a fair bit of my rep with the classical liberal community: I don’t necessarily see it as an issue for the state to take an interest in public health. If we accept the classical Smithian... Read more...
Following a recent office discussion about Sunday trading laws our local coordinator Charles Amos has written below why he believes they should be abolished.The case for abolishing Sunday trading lawsby Charles AmosReform of Sunday Trading laws has divided the nation for decades. Indeed the current laws, which only allow shops... Read more...
By Jeremy Hutton, Policy Analyst Yesterday the iconic red Budget Box again returned to the House of Commons as Chancellor Philip Hammond set out government spending plans for the coming year. The chancellor was right that ‘ending austerity’ doesn’t have to mean tax hikes and taxpayers rightly won’t be further... Read more...
by Jeremy Hutton, Policy AnalystFollowing our recent research into the costs of mayoral cars, which revealed that £4.5 million has been spent on the ceremonial vehicles since 2015, Scarborough Borough Council is launching a review into their use of chauffeured hire cars. The review will scrutinise the council’s current care... Read more...
by Ben Ramanauskas, Policy AnalystThe Tax Foundation in the United States has published this year’s International Tax Competitiveness Index. It is a quality, comprehensive piece of work showing that many countries from around the world have seen the importance of reforming their tax system. A tax code which is simple... Read more...
The Labour Party has recently announced new plans to impose a levy on holiday homes, with the proposed money generated used to give a cash boost to councils. Although shadow housing secretary Simon Healey has described this as a move to address families living in “hostels and BnBs” the Communities... Read more...
Andy McDonald, the shadow transport secretary, has suggested introducing a higher ‘windfall’ tax (a tax on profits) made by train operating companies (TOCs), supposedly to pay for a fare freeze for commuters. This will punish both those commuters (who tend to be wealthier than the average Brit already), as well as all... Read more...
Today, the TaxPayers' Alliance was asked by a reporter with a blog called 'Open Democracy', about reports of a fortnightly meeting, alleging coordination between groups with similar (and different) agendas. We responded to the reporter in full, but as we cannot be certain that our response will be printed in... Read more...