 |
|
| home | blog | email to a friend | printer friendly |
Recent Press Releases | 2010 | 2009 | Archive
Media Information: EMBARGO: 00.01 hrs, Monday 9 January 2012
Wind-power: inordinately expensive and ineffective at cutting CO2 emissions
Energy experts warn that unwarranted support for wind-power is hindering genuinely cleaner energy
The focus on wind-power, driven by the renewables targets, is preventing Britain from effectively reducing CO2 emissions, while crippling energy users with additional costs, according to a new Civitas report. The report finds that wind-power is unreliable and requires back-up power stations to be available in order to maintain a consistent electricity supply to households and businesses. This means that energy users pay twice: once for the window-dressing of renewables, and again for the fossil fuels that the energy sector continues to rely on. Contrary to the implied message of the Government's approach, the analysis shows that wind-power is not a low-cost way of reducing emissions.
Electricity Costs: the folly of wind-power, by economist Ruth Lea, uses Government-commissioned estimates of the costs of electricity generation in the UK to calculate the most cost-effective technologies. When all costs are included, gas-fired power is the most cost-efficient method of generating electricity in the short-term, while nuclear power stations become the most cost-efficient in the medium-term.
Media Information: EMBARGO: 00.01 hrs, Tuesday 3 January 2012
EU's flagship green scheme siphons cash from consumers and employers to energy fat cats
Emissions Trading System shrinks economy but not Britain's carbon footprint
The EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) is siphoning billions from industry and consumers to plump up finance and energy fat cats, according a new Civitas report. The report reveals that, via the EU ETS, each EU citizen is effectively subsidising the power industry by £30 a year. [p. 13] In addition, the Government is adding more costs to UK families and businesses via the carbon price floor which sets a minimum price for carbon credits. This carbon price floor is expected to push another 110,000 British households into fuel poverty by 2016. [p. 61]
CO2.1, by David Merlin-Jones, is a comprehensive examination of how the EU ETS fails at its own goal of reducing carbon emissions. It details how carbon traders, banks, energy companies and the government are extracting billions from productive businesses and consumers via the EU ETS, while undermining the vulnerable UK economic recovery.
Media Information: EMBARGO: 00.01 hrs, Friday 23 December 2011
Misleading claims about economic benefits of Equality Act are endangering jobs
Contrary to government assurances, new equality rules will have no economic benefit and questionable impact on real inequality
As unemployment continues to grow, a new Civitas report reveals that new equality regulations threaten further job losses. The Equality Act 2010 introduced new duties on employers to protect disadvantaged groups from discrimination in the workplace and combines existing anti-discrimination law into one act. The Government's official Impact Assessment of the Equality Act claimed that it would produce net economic benefits of £25-£87 million annually and increase access to jobs. But Assessing the Damage, by Nigel Williams, finds that the Government's Assessment relied on a series of spurious assumptions, and that the more probable outcome is job destruction.
Media Information: EMBARGO: 00.01 hrs, Monday 5 December 2011
Rise in STEM subjects disproportionately due to overseas students
Universities are educating 6,000 fewer British engineers a year than 10 years ago
British universities are adding fewer STEM subject graduates to the labour market than total student figures suggest, according to a new Civitas report. The STEM subject push by Stephen L. Clarke finds that the number of overseas students attending British universities to study engineering increased by 12,308 from 1997 to 2007, but that the number of British engineering students declined by 5,769. [p. 3] As a result, the British economy will struggle to find the skills necessary to drive a production-led recovery.
Media Information: EMBARGO 00.01 hrs, Monday 28 November 2011
Equality law's billion pound paper-shuffle
'Equalities industry' undermines true equality
As youth unemployment rises to record levels, a new Civitas report reveals that British workplaces spend up to a billion pounds a year complying with clumsy equality legislation. The costs put particular strain on public sector organisations, as well as making it more difficult for businesses to create and retain jobs. Furthermore, these policies have made jobs less accessible to disadvantaged, marginal workers.
The Rise of the Equalities Industry, by sociology professor Peter Saunders, examines the operation of Britain's equality laws and concludes that they are seriously flawed.
Media Information: EMBARGO 00.01 hrs, Monday 14th November 2011
Why economic growth is faltering and what we can do about it
Government's mistake is to misunderstand the scale of de-industrialisation
The Government wants economic growth as much as anyone. Why isn't it happening? A new report from Civitas argues that growth is faltering because the Government has been solving the wrong problems. The Coalition thinks that the national debt and global warming are the biggest challenges we face, but according to A Strategy For Economic Growth, our main problem is de-industrialisation. The report suggests ten things the Government could do.
Media Information: EMBARGO 00.01 hrs, Monday 17th October 2011
EU holds back UK economic recovery
Britain must plan exit strategy from failing EU, but should keep trade links
As Europe's leaders gamble their nations' finances on saving the Euro, a new Civitas report reveals that the European Union is damaging Britain's economic recovery and sapping job growth. Time to Say No, by Ian Milne, shows that a break with the EU need not represent a drastic break with Europe itself. Instead, it will permit a pragmatic reform of trade and immigration relations. Existing international institutions can achieve this without the current burdens of bureaucracy in the EU. It will also revive democracy at home.
Media Information: EMBARGO 00.01 hrs, Monday 12th September 2011
Government has abandoned private pension savers to predatory financial sector
End of defined benefit pensions a tragedy for prudent savers
Millions of pensioners will have their retirement incomes stripped of between 20% and 75% of their value, reveals a new Civitas report. You're on Your Own, by Peter Morris and Alasdair Palmer, outlines how the collapse of defined benefit pension schemes, which guarantee savers a fixed annual retirement income, has resulted in less saving. But it permitted new anti-consumer practices to emerge amongst pension providers. The result is that, despite conscientiously saving during their working years, millions of Britons will be far worse off in retirement than they should be.
Media Information: EMBARGO 00.01 hrs, Friday 2nd September 2011
Cash-strapped London health services must consolidate HIV specialist provision
Lansley missing cost savings that could also benefit care quality
The Coalition Government is failing to realise productivity gains that are crucial for protecting the quality of NHS services, according to a new Civitas report. Andrew Lansley has wasted time by trying to force through wholesale changes to health commissioning, reforms which are now widely accepted as unworkable. But the Government could save millions of pounds by focusing commissioner attention on reconfiguring specialist services that have been inefficiently managed for years.
Commissioning London's HIV Services uses the case study of HIV care in London to show how specific health services could be reformed without the costly overhaul of NHS commissioning as a whole. Unless these genuine savings through increased productivity are made, patients will face poorer health services with longer waits as budget cuts begin to bite.
Media Information: EMBARGO 00.01 hrs, Monday 8th August 2011
EHRC refuses Britain a fair hearing
Equality and Human Rights Commission should be abolished
The Equality and Human Rights Commission contributes very little to meaningful equality in Britain today and should be abolished, according to a new Civitas report. Added to the Government's much trumpeted 'bonfire of the quangos', the EHRC would save the Treasury tens of millions of pounds at no obvious cost to the general public.
Small Corroding Words, by Jon Gower Davies, is a systematic critique of the philosophy, research and practice of the EHRC. It reveals serious flaws in the EHRC's 'triennial review', How Fair Is Britain?, that was used to demonstrate unfairness in Britain. What the research actually shows are the statistical differences between some groups. This line of thinking entails, for example, taking the fact that men are more likely to die in work-related accidents than women as a sign of unfairness. (pp. 8-9) The EHRC inaccurately blames Britain for differences of this kind.
Media Information: EMBARGO 00.01 hrs, Friday 5th August 2011
Government mis-selling green economy as job creator
Contrary to Government claims, EU green energy policies are predicted to destroy tens of thousands of British jobs
Green economic policies mean more pain than gain for Britain, according to a new Civitas report. The Green Mirage, by John Constable, finds claims that the low-carbon economy can deliver so-called 'green collar' jobs are staggeringly far-fetched and unsupported by official measures.
Media Information: Immediate release, Tuesday 26 July 2011
Coalition neglect blamed for slow economic growth
Today's anaemic 0.2 per cent second-quarter GDP figure is not just the result of the international financial crisis. It is also the result of the Coalition's failure to play its part in promoting economic growth.
A new report from independent think tank Civitas argues that the Government should demonstrate its loyalty to its own people instead of standing helpless on the sidelines. The Bombardier trains contract would have been secured for British workers by a competent government. Instead, ministers claimed to be powerless, insisting 'the EU made us do it'.
Media Information: EMBARGO: 00.01 hrs, Monday 11th July
Opportunity locks
As Parliament begins to scrutinise the Punishment of Offenders Bill, a new Civitas report reveals that Government plans to cut re-offending and public expenditure by rehabilitating prisoners fail to deal with key problems. Bars to Learning, by Carolina Bracken, argues that the Government's confused priorities mean that the prisoners most likely to re-offend on release are deliberately excluded from the reforms. The report shows that promises of penal reform have been made, and broken, many times before, and that current proposals will fail while the Government focuses on immediate cost savings.
Media Information: Immediate Release, 02 June 2011
North Eastern industry to be decimated - and for what?
The government's green taxes will spell the end for Britain's chemical industry, which employs 200,000 directly, an additional 400,000 indirectly, and accounts for 15% of UK exports. The sector, much of which is found in North East England, will be the victim of the race to cut emissions by 34% from 1990 levels by 2020: more than any other country's target. Moreover, this approach by the 'greenest government ever', will actually undermine the UK's ability to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and will smother the emerging low-carbon economy at birth.
Media Information: EMBARGO: 00.01 hrs, Tuesday 17 May 2011
Sacrificing jobs for no green benefit:
Huhne's blinkered and dogmatic policies are self-contradictory
The present government’s approach to climate-change policies will actually undermine the UK’s ability to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. By pricing energy-intensive industries out of the UK via green levies and taxes, the ‘greenest government ever’ is actually smothering the emerging low-carbon economy at birth. The new plans for a 60% reduction in emissions by 2030 are too much, too soon.
Chain Reactions, a report released next week by independent think-tank Civitas, draws on the example of the economically vital but energy-intensive chemical industry: it produces a myriad of environmentally-beneficial products such as catalysts and insulation. Author David Merlin-Jones argues the best way to tackle climate change is not through the hasty decimation of industry but the long-term nurturing of existing low-carbon innovation as found in the chemical sector.
Media Information: EMBARGO: 00.01 hrs, Thursday 21 April 2011
Strasbourg Court flouting democratic self-government
Following Parliament's rejection of votes for prisoners, a new Civitas report calls for urgent reform of human rights legislation to keep European judges from deciding British law.
Strasbourg in the Dock, by international lawyer and Conservative MP Dominic Raab, argues that judges have gone beyond their legitimate powers of interpretation in their now infamous Hirst ruling. He finds some of the European judges are 'woefully lacking in experience' and, as a consequence, 'are undermining the credibility and value of the Court'.
- Full press release
- Strasbourg in the Dock: Prisoner voting, human rights & the case for democracy is available from Amazon.
Media Information: EMBARGO: 00.01 hrs, Wednesday 16th March 2011
That's not a growth plan - this is a growth plan!
'Rebalancing the economy' and 'promoting growth' have been flagship phrases for the new Government. On Budget Day its strategy for growth will be announced, but a report by independent think tank Civitas shows that current plans do not go far enough. In Economic Growth - Could the Government do more?, David Green and David Merlin-Jones argue that some of the Government's own policies are major obstacles to recovery.
Media Information: EMBARGO: 00.01 hrs, Monday 14th March 2011
Police squeeze could 'encourage' criminality, warns economist
Government claims that police cuts will be made without endangering the public are dealt another blow this week. A new Civitas report finds that sudden police cuts could potentially trigger a vicious cycle of crime and disorder. In An Analysis of Crime and Crime Policy, Birmingham University economist Siddhartha Bandyopadhyay finds "a strong and negative relationship between [police] detection rates and crime". (p. 4)
Media Information: Immediate Release
'Modern miracle' needed for NHS White Paper to succeed - Sir David Varney
Gordon Brown's former head of public service transformation, Sir David Varney, today writes in a piece for the independent think-tank Civitas that risks in the NHS White Paper, to be cemented in the Health Bill released today, have been underestimated or ignored. In Risk, ‘Equity and Excellence’, Varney writes:
Media Information: EMBARGO: 00.01 hrs, Friday 7th January 2011
2011: the start of a great decade for criminals?
Police reductions could see crime rate surge
The Government has announced a 20% real terms reduction in police funding over the next four years, starting with a 6% cut in the national funding grant this year. Satisfying this proposal is likely to involve dramatic staff reductions, including of frontline police officers. Policing and Criminal Justice Minister Nick Herbert has admitted the cuts will be 'challenging' for police forces. But what will be the impact on the general public? In this briefing, we show that there is a strong relationship between the size of police forces and national crime rates. As a result, this cut might turn out to be costly for the British public.