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Time to Say No: Alternatives to EU Membership Evidence is accumulating that membership of the EU imposes a heavy ongoing net cost on the UK economy – possibly in excess of ten per cent of GDP, over £140 billion a year at 2009 prices. Long before the 2010 euro crisis a consensus existed (amongst member-state governments, the Commission itself, NGOs, business and academia) that in the decades to come continental EU’s prospects, as a market and an economy, are dire. That consensus is strengthening. As much as 60 per cent of UK exports already go outside the EU, using the author’s estimates for the effect of distortions on trade statistics. Since 2000 they have been growing almost 40 per cent faster than exports to the EU. Growth in export markets is almost certainly going to occur in the 95 per cent of global population outside EU-26, rather than in the five per cent inside EU-26. That being so, the UK’s first priority ought to be to decide how its trading arrangements with the world outside the EU should be configured. That decision would condition the extent to which the UK’s relationship with the EU Single Market should be changed. Full withdrawal would be one of the options. The author examines these and other questions in some detail, including the three main alternatives (for the UK) to EU membership. He concludes by sketching out the mechanics, timetable, management and consequences of full UK withdrawal. |
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You're on Your Own: How Policy Produced Britain's Pensions Crisis The UK state pension is the lowest in the developed world. From the start, it was intended to prevent absolute destitution in old age, whilst encouraging all those who could do so to make their own arrangements to secure a decent standard of living in retirement. This aim has not changed. Successive governments have encouraged all citizens to join private pension plans, which would guarantee this standard of living. The aim of public policy for the last 30 years has been to encourage saving and to permit more personal choice. In this book the authors show how and why the very opposite has occurred. Saving has decreased and most people feel 'scepticism, bewilderment and confusion' when thinking about post-retirement income. Defined benefit (DB) schemes have declined until they scarcely exist outside the public sector. They have been replaced by defined contribution (DC) schemes which, the authors argue, are not really pensions at all, but only savings vehicles - and very unpredictable ones at that. To call a DC scheme a pension is like calling a tent a house. The authors use the example of hypothetical twin brothers who start work on the same day, one for a company offering a DB scheme, the other making a DC arrangement. The latter will receive a retirement income which will be just one quarter of his DB twin's. More than seven million people over the age of 25 are not contributing to any private pension at all - which means that, given the inadequacy of the state pension, they are on course for an extremely impoverished retirement. Millions of people in Britain are going to retire with no financial assets whatever. Unless effective action is taken to increase the amount people save, and the effectiveness with which those savings are converted into post-retirement income, poverty amongst older people is going to increase on an enormous scale. |
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Small Corroding Words: the Slighting of Great Britain by the EHRC In 2010 the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) produced a 750-page report entitled How Fair is Britain? It examined disparities in such things as life expectancy, wealth, education and employment between the white majority population and minorities. The minorities receiving special attention were defined by race, colour, ethnicity, religion, gender and sexual orientation. Because there are differences in outcome on various measures between the minorities and the majority population, the EHRC suggested that Britain is not fair. In Small Corroding Words, Jon Gower Davies argues that the refusal to make comparisons with other countries - in particular the countries that many members of minority groups come from - robs the report of any claim to non-partisan status, and undermines its moral authority. 'No one who comes to the UK from countries like Somalia or the Sudan, or having come here stays and gives birth, is worse off than where they come from.' The EHRC believes that rights can be claimed against and enforced by the state. Davies compares the EHRC's concept of the state to Rousseau's General Will, 'forcing recalcitrant citizens to realise that they must be free - or else'. However, a world in which rights are derived from or demanded of the state will eventually become intrusive, fractious and subtly oppressive. Duties and obligations are seldom mentioned. Rights remove gratitude: they are a licence to gatecrash the state. Rights demanded by people who haven't earned them and who may not deserve them are diminished by the demanding: and rights demanded of the state will soon enough become obligations and vexatious burdens imposed by the state. 'How fair are our prospects when post-modern subsidised oracles like the EHRC preach and praise rights but not duties, when we are invited by such prophets down an endless series of false and petty claims, demands, loud clamorous and paltry mutterings about "injustice" and the pursuit of hedonism, all with an official face? The EHRC should be abolished.' Available from the Civitas shop and on Amazon Kindle |
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The Green Mirage: Why a Low-carbon Economy May be Further Off Than We Think The move towards a low-carbon economy has been described as the second industrial revolution. As state mandates drive the adoption of renewable energy sources, we are assured that multiple benefits will result. New 'green collar' jobs will be generated; energy supplies will be secured; climate change will be averted; and social inequalities will be removed. In The Green Mirage, John Constable challenges this optimistic scenario. Green energy will remain much more expensive than energy from other sources for the foreseeable future, and the subsidies required to meet renewables targets will have net economic impacts that are unlikely to be significantly positive and may well be negative. The UK's renewable electricity targets alone require subsidies that will put almost GBP100 billion on consumer bills in the period 2002 to 2030, a substantial barnacle on the hull of the UK economy. Of this sum consumers have already paid GBP5 billion in the period 2002-2010, with subsidy per wind industry worker in the year 2009/10 already amounting to GBP54,000, which is greatly in excess of the median earnings in either the public (GBP29,000) or the private sector (GBP25,000). Burdens of this level imply a significant effect on international competitiveness, with higher energy costs forcing companies to close or relocate to other countries. Even the European Union's own analysis of the macro-economic effects of its renewables policies suggests that negative employment effects will outnumber new 'green jobs' in the UK in 2020. Only technological breakthroughs in the green energy sector can make renewables fundamentally competitive, but current target-driven policies are almost certainly counterproductive, frustrating rather than encouraging invention and innovation, and in any case entail levels of state management unacceptable in free societies except in wartime situations. Indeed, the analogy of armed conflict is omnipresent in the literature of the 'Green New Deal', but Constable argues that it is gravely misleading, as measures taken to defeat an external enemy are short-term, necessarily use the weapons near at hand, and have little or no regard to cost. However, climate change presents an entirely different kind of problem, requiring cost-effective and sustained technological advance over long periods. The historical record does not encourage the view that economic planning can deliver such an outcome. On the contrary, Constable marshals evidence suggesting that target-led, state-managed and subsidy-driven clean energy policies are likely to cause the remature adoption of costly technologies exhibiting low productivity, with resulting net economic contraction and wealth destruction. Eventual consumer resistance is inevitable and will become politically salient, thus further delaying the hoped-for green transition. |
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Reviving British Manufacturing: Why? What? How? Britain is running a massive and growing balance of payments deficit. From a position of near-balance in the early 1990s, the 2010 deficit for goods and services - GBP46.2 billion - was the highest ever. For many years we have relied on the success of our service sector (especially financial services) to make good the deficit. However, the financial crash of 2008 suggests we would be unwise to continue placing our trust in this method of plugging the gap. Alan Reece, an academic-turned-successful-manufacturer, argues that we must revive our manufacturing industry. However, the problems are enormous. Between 1997 and 2008 manufacturing output remained flat at around GBP150 billion a year. Allowing for inflation, this represents a real reduction of around GBP3.5 billion a year. The decline in manufacturing has been so steep that important links have disappeared from every chain. Manufacturing in Britain becomes harder as more and more components have to be imported. On top of this, the Coalition Government's policy of ramping up energy prices beyond competitor nations makes it all the more attractive for industrialists to move their enterprises abroad. Once the workshop of the world, and the cradle of the Industrial Revolution, Britain now ranks around 20th in international league tables of manufacturing output per head, below South Korea and Taiwan. Alan Reece argues that we need to increase our output of goods by GBP10 billion a year for ten years, increasing the workforce employed in manufacturing by 200,000 a year. Exports are vital to our economy, but difficult to increase substantially, given the weaknesses of the British manufacturing base now. A more realistic policy for fixing the balance of payments is to import less, by producing more goods, food and energy for the home market. Alan Reece calls for a Minister for Economic Growth, with Cabinet rank, whose sole purpose would be to ensure that each quarterly trade deficit in goods should be smaller than the last one. The aim should be to reduce the balance of trade to -1 per cent of GDP in ten years. As Cambridge economist Ha-Joon Chang concludes in his foreword: 'If you have thought that Britain could "muddle through" this crisis, read this paper and think again.' Available from the Civitas shop. |
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Chain Reactions: How the Chemical Industry Can Shrink Our Carbon Footprint The British chemicals sector is our largest exporting industry, contributing GBP £9bn in trade revenue and supporting 600,000 jobs. All this is now threatened due to the misguided methods the Government is using to reduce the UK's carbon footprint. In Chain Reactions, David Merlin-Jones argues that the current set of 'green' policies, whereby levies and taxes are used to punish the greatest energy users like the chemical sector, will prove to be economic suicide. Existing policies are based on short-termism, expecting too large a carbon reduction in too short a time. While the EU's Emission Trading Scheme raises the cost of production all over Europe, the British Government is set on adding more charges, reducing our competitive edge. Combined with overbearing regulations and falling skill levels, this is a recipe for disaster. Drawing on interviews with experts in the chemical industry, Merlin- Jones provides an alternative view, arguing that the chemicals sector is the key to reducing UK carbon emissions and ensuring economic prosperity. Britain needs a policy that ensures an even footing for chemical firms competing internationally, by keeping the UK's energy costs attractive. Only this will allow chemical firms to provide the products vital to combatting climate change. David Merlin-Jones concludes that chemical firms must be seen in a new light, which recognises that they are not the heavy polluters of past decades and are part of the solution, rather than the problem. The UK must realise that within the chemical industry lie the foundations of the low-carbon economy. This requires nurturing, not annihilation. |
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Strasbourg in the Dock: Prisoner voting, human rights & the case for democracy The ruling that convicted prisoners have the right to vote has put the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg at loggerheads with the UK Parliament and, hence, the will of the British people. This was reinforced in 2011 when backbenchers of all parties rejected enfranchising prisoners in a free vote. In this forensic examination, Dominic Raab, MP for Esher and Walton, explains how the infamous Hirst ruling undermines the express terms of the Convention agreed in 1950. Contracting states agreed that holding free elections was a human right, but reserved for nation states the right to decide who was eligible to vote. As a result,the Strasbourg Court is acting beyond its legitimate powers of interpretation. It is now making law too! Prisoner voting is just one of many areas where the European Court is engaging in judicial empire building. Its judges are usurping the role of legislators, and disrupting Britain s fine-tuned separation of powers crucial for maintaining the rule of law. Raab sets out how to deal with the human rights contagion. He proposes to enable the UK Supreme Court to overrule Strasbourg, allow the will of Parliament to supersede human rights claims, and enshrine the power of free votes to block adverse decisions. This will ensure that the democratic majority can check the will of unelected judges. |
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Women, Islam and Western Liberalism Few policy topics arouse as much contention as those at the nexus of women, Islam and western liberalism. The issues involved are amorphous and prone to misunderstanding and entrenched positions. As a result contemporary public debate too often postulates its own set of beliefs about what constitutes liberalism and what Islam represents. To date this has rarely proved to be a good topic for sober assessment. Women, Islam and Western Liberalism is a new collection of essays which brings together leading thinkers among British Muslim women to consider the convergences and challenges between liberalism and Islam on the topic of women. The contributors discuss a wide range of issues, from the status of women in Islam and Muslim women's involvement in public life, to forced marriage, polygamy and domestic violence. For Muslim women, these are living, not abstract, questions. Too often these issues are discussed by people speaking for Muslim women. Women, Islam and Western Liberlism attempts to help redress that by allowing Muslim women to speak for themselves about the challenges, as they see them, of living in a liberal society. No one collection of essays can provide straightforward answers in such a complex discussion. But they can contribute to sharpening the questions, focusing them into a form that can stimulate analysis and lead to more informed debate. That is the goal of this collection. |
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Refusing Treatment For the past 20 years, the healthcare policies of successive governments have focused to a large extent on developing a market within the NHS in England. |
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Licensed to Hug Since the establishment of the Criminal Records Bureau in 2002, millions of adults have had to be vetted to say they are safe to be near children. When Licensed to Hug was first published in June 2008, this system of vetting was barely a public policy issue. The predominant response to the licensing of adults was a pragmatic acceptance that this was an attempt, however imperfect, to protect children from abuse, and as such it was better than nothing. How that has changed!The vetting system has faced a severe backlash and is now firmly on the political agenda. In this fully updated and extended edition of Licensed to Hug, Frank Furedi and Jennie Bristow identify recent developments in child protection policies, providing examples of absurdities caused by the vetting scheme to demonstrate why these issues must continue to be debated in the public domain. Frank Furedi and Jennie Bristow argue that the growth of vetting has created a sense of mistrust. The generations are becoming distant, as adults suspect each other and children are taught to suspect adults. Vetting also gives a false sense of security as it can only identify those who have offended in the past and been caught - not what people will do after they are passed as fit to be near children. Licensed to Hug argues for a more common-sense approach to adult/child relations, based on the assumption that the vast majority of adults can be relied on to help and support children, and that the healthy interaction between generations enriches children's lives. |
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A New Inquisition Open societies in which we try to settle our differences without violence have been a great human achievement. However, because freedom of speech is the prevailing view in Britain, we are not as alert to the risk of its overthrow as we should be. In A New Inquisition, Jon Gower Davies, former Head of the Religious Studies Department at the University of Newcastle, examines the new legal concept of religious hatred and provides striking examples from recent legal cases to reveal the oppressive and bizarre nature of judicial attempts to regulate such things. Hate legislation removes an increasing quantity of matters traditionally dealt with in civil society, to the domain of the state and the courts. Furthermore, the exercise of such legislation seems to create the very atmosphere it was designed to prevent - hatred. Jon Davies warns against developments which will make traditional public debates about religion and its critics impossible. He hopes for a British culture which validates a public seeking for religious truth and is more or less at ease with jokes and ribaldries, and he is profoundly ill at ease with censorship of them or with threats made against their authors. The freedom to speak our minds without fear or favour is worth fighting for. In A New Inquisition Jon Davies shows why the liberal majority needs to reassert the convention that the law should be used not as a weapon to suppress unpopular opinions, but rather as the protector of free speech. |
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British Energy Policy and the Threat to Manufacturing Industry As the British economy struggles to emerge from the economic crisis of 2008-09, it is widely assumed that the manufacturing sector will contribute positively to the general recovery. Therefore, the Government must ensure that manufacturing industries are supported by policies that help rather than hinder their competitiveness. In British Energy Policy And The Threat To Manufacturing Industry, Ruth Lea, Economic Advisor to the Arbuthnot Banking Group, and Jeremy Nicholson, Director of the Energy Intensive Users Group, examine the impact of government policy on energy prices. The recent Labour Government aimed to reduce carbon emissions and to increase the proportion of energy generated from renewable sources; these policies, Lea and Nicholson argue, remorselessly drive up energy costs, thus risking the migration of manufacturing plants to economies where the costs are lower. Furthermore, Lea and Nicholson cite evidence that the increased costs of energy arising from such policies are set to increase significantly by 2020. Lea and Nicholson present a powerful case for ensuring that British energy policy does not threaten Britain s industrial competitiveness. They demonstrate why British authorities must not neglect the significant implications of their policy decisions for British businesses in a rush to appear 'green'. |
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Social Mobility Myths In a 'meritocratic' society, people's achievements mainly reflect their own efforts and talents - if you are reasonably bright and motivated there is little stopping you from succeeding in life. In Social Mobility Myths, Peter Saunders, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Sussex, sets out to convince the political class that much of what they believe (or say they believe) about social mobility in this country is either false or more complicated than they think. According to Saunders, modern Britain is a much more open and meritocratic society than most of us realise and talent and motivation are the key drivers of success and achievement. Saunders examines the political circumstances in which the social mobility debate is now being played out and identifies four specific 'Social Mobility Myths':
According to Saunders, most politicians across all parties accept these myths. They wrongly assume that social mobility in Britain is very limited and that class origins count for much more than personal effort and talent in shaping people's destinies. Furthermore, they commonly express their sense of outrage that a class-ridden, closed society is becoming even more class-ridden and even more closed - thus the scene has been set for yet another bout of ineffective but expensive social engineering aimed at dismantling the imagined inequities of the British class system. In Social Mobility Myths, Saunders investigates the link between intelligence and social class using empirical sociological models. He argues that by ignoring intelligence, current thinking is in danger of spawning policies that will not work, and which might even make things worse. The bottom line is this: we cannot hope to develop good policies if we ignore the key influence on the phenomenon we are hoping to change. |
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Prosperity with Principles: Some Policies for Economic Growth In Prosperity with Principles, David Green presents new thinking on how to encourage economic growth without compromising our commitment to free enterprise. He advocates 'prosperity policy', which does not dismiss all state aid, but instead builds in safeguards to prevent its abuse. At a time when we need economic growth more than at any point since the war, policy makers across parties are paralysed by doctrinal non-interventionism. A general hostilityto government action in relation to industry results from a confusion between freedom and doctrinal non-interventionism. Policy makers take it for granted that governments can't 'pick winners', but formulaic non-interventionism gets in the way of pragmatic evaluation. David Green challenges this non-interventionist stances by illustrating the value of measures which allow space for both infant-industry protection and for the recovery or adjustment of established companies which get into difficulties. In short, effective industrial policy should prevent short-term fluctuations from bringing whole industries down. To do so, government should foster the conditions consistent with productive enterprise - from taxation and regulation, to the cost of energy. As competition is the safeguard against economic power, at times active intervention to uphold competition is necessary. Whilst protectionism is associated with monopoly - whether in the form of excessive political power or economic might - if it leads to greater competition, it is justifiable. Ultimately, David Green argues, at the same time as adhering to liberal principles, nations should adopt the policies that work for them. The only important question is whether a policy achieves the economic results expected of it. If theory does not work in practice, then try something else. |
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Prospects for the UK Balance of Payments University of Cambridge economists Ken Coutts and Robert Rowthorn present a previously unseen projection of what will happen to the UK current account balance over the next decade. The picture revealed is bleak: they fear that the UK's current account deficit could steadily deteriorate from under 2% of GDP to almost 5% by 2020. Coutts and Rowthorn argue that the UK economy has become dangerously unbalanced as we have put too much faith in finance at the expense of manufacturing and other activities and, they assert, if unchecked, it will lead to painful economic adjustment involving lost output and higher unemployment. A relentless deterioration in the balance of payments is unsustainable and, Coutts and Rowthorn assert, the costs of being over-concerned about the UK's balance of payments may well be less than the costs of being under-concerned. They recommend tackling the deficit with policies designed to boost UK trade performance: in particular assigning a central role to manufacturing. |
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Liberal Education and the National Curriculum In a remarkable piece of detective work, Professor David Conway traces the history of proposed school curricula from the liberal reformers of the 1860s to modern times. The common thread has been the idea that all children, whatever their backgrounds, should be introduced to 'the best that has been thought and said'. The reactionary and anti-progressive demands from some contemporary educationists to abandon the attempt to provide a liberal education to children from less advantaged backgrounds is both unjust and unwise. To limit the enjoyment of the riches of culture to a small elite who attend independent schools would be to create a divided society, with negative consequences for all. The National Curriculum has attracted criticism from different quarters: some claim that it stifles the creativity of teachers by putting them in a timetabled straitjacket; others say that the National Curriculum is too focused on traditional academic subjects that working-class children cannot relate to. Professor Conway argues that the overly prescriptive and politicised National Curriculum that we have now is not necessarily an argument for not having one at all. He cites educationists going back to Matthew Arnold whose concern for the education of the majority of the nation's children through the state system has led them to call for a national curriculum of some sort. Arnold's curriculum was designed to provide a liberal education, that is to say, an education of which the primary purpose is not training for work. Rather, by introducing children to the work of the world's greatest artists, writers and thinkers, a liberal education would help them to self knowledge (through the humanities) and knowledge of the world (through science). |
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Markets in health care: the theory behind the policy In its current state, the NHS functions on the basis of what has been variously called a quasi, mimic or internal market, where providers - NHS, voluntary and private - are theoretically competing and placed on an even footing. With debate around this principle intensifying, this paper revisits the anticipated benefits of the use of market mechanisms; asks on what theory they rest; and where the NHS currently stands. We conclude that the central challenge for policymakers in health care is best framed less as a choice between markets and the alternatives; more as to the optimum balance between them. Markets can deliver real benefits- efficiency, innovation, responsiveness to need, equity and customer service - but only in an environment that is both committed to letting them work; and carefully regulated in order to correct for market failure and uphold certain collective choices. Currently, the NHS is in the throes of experimenting with such principles. The potential should not be ignored. But the question remains: is there either the political appetite or necessary apparatus to realise it? |
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Nations Choose Prosperity: Why Britain Needs an Industrial Policy After years of being seen as outmoded, industrial policy is back on the political agenda, this time renamed 'industrial activism'. There is a widespread concern, fuelled by the crisis in the financial sector, that we have been too complacent about the decline in UK manufacturing, assuming that service industries would guarantee continuing prosperity with or without a vibrant manufacturing base. The shift against manufacturing in Britain's economy has been dramatic. Manufacturing accounted for over 30 per cent of Gross Value Added (GVA) in 1970, but by 2007 it accounted for less than 13 per cent; whilst services made up just over half the economy in 1970 but now represent around three-quarters of economic activity. This has had a serious impact on the balance of payments, as import growth has outstripped export growth. In 1997 the current account was almost in balance. A modest deficit in visible trade (goods) of GBP12.3bn was almost totally offset by healthy surpluses on services and in investment income. But by 2008 the visible trade (goods) deficit had soared to nearly GBP93bn. Nevertheless, the idea that 'we don't make anything now' is false. Manufacturing industry remains a very major contributor to the British economy. It represents nearly 13 per cent of GDP, 75 per cent of business research and development (R&D), half of UK exports and 10 per cent of total employment. Britain is the sixth largest manufacturing nation in the world after the USA, China, Japan, Germany and Italy, larger than France. The manufacturing sector is still over one-and-a-half times larger than the financial sector. The contributors to this volume, the first publication of the Civitas Manufacturing Renewal Project, consider the consequences of the decline of manufacturing and how they could be reversed. No one argues for protectionism: free enterprise and competitive markets are vital, and the primary causes of economic prosperity are the talent and energy of the individuals who make up a nation. However, there needs to be a constant effort to ensure that laws, regulations and public policies provide people with the best possible conditions for free enterprise. Certainly low taxes and the avoidance of over-regulation are vital, but positive policies are also needed in transport, ports, energy and monetary policy, public procurement and much more if we are not to fall behind. |
