Nigel Holder is a management consultant, quondam RAF fighter pilot and a supporter of the TaxPayers' Alliance. Just because there is a public interest in funding a service from tax revenue, it does not follow that the state should operate and run that service. Where the state controls a service it... Read more...
Our Chief Executive, John O'Connell, co-signed a letter with Benny Peiser of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, Mark Littlewood of the Institute of Economic Affairs and David Green of Civitas calling for a better way to cut fuel bills. It was published in this morning's Daily Telegraph (£). SIR... Read more...
The influential Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Select Committee has today endorsed a number of our recommendations in their report on financial disclosure in the public sector. The report, entitled Accounting for Democracy, extensively cites our submission, recommending a major overhaul of the way public bodies present their accounts, in... Read more...
Theresa May’s decision to call a snap election does not just give her the opportunity to gain a working majority. It frees her from the manifesto commitments made by David Cameron in 2015, and gives her the opportunity to set out an agenda of her own. But what should that... Read more...
Election season is now upon us, and one pledge rumoured to be a key feature of the Conservative party manifesto is a cap - the details of which still unclear - on energy tariffs. If this sounds familiar, it’s because back in 2013 Ed Miliband, then-leader of the Labour Party,... Read more...
Bill Gates has hit the headlines today by warning the prime minister not to abandon the government’s 0.7 per cent spending commitment to overseas aid. This morning, I spoke to Julia Hartley-Brewer on TalkRadio about why Bill Gates is wrong. Mr Gates is an exceptionally generous philanthropist and plans to... Read more...
John O'Connell writes for The Times Read more...
If it looks, sounds, feels and tastes like a tax, then sure enough it is a tax no matter what the Ministry of Justice wants to call it. In its latest report, the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments dealt a major blow to the planned increases in probate fees... Read more...
I attended an event in Parliament in December, where an associate fellow from Chatham House was speaking at a debate on the role of biomass in the energy sector. Duncan Brack is a former Special Advisor for Chris Huhne when Mr Huhne was the Secretary of State at the Department... Read more...
With almost everyone’s focus on Brexit yesterday, it could have easily been missed that CH2M, one of HS2’s engineering firms, had to withdraw from part of the project due to conflict of interest concerns raised by the TPA and others. CH2M have been working with HS2 Ltd since 2012 and... Read more...
The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee (“the PAC”) has yesterday published its findings on the management of the defence estate – land belonging to the Ministry of De-fence (“the MoD”) estimated to cover 1.8 per cent of UK’s landmass and currently valued at £31 billion, making it one of... Read more...
Last night we hosted a panel discussion on an issue that has dominated the news agenda for the past few weeks: business rates. It was a thought-provoking evening, as our chair, Alex Wild, conveyed quite aptly when he wrapped the night up with "well, this has been an interesting discussion... Read more...