Category Archives: Thinktanks

Central banks ‘risk tipping UK and other developed countries into recession’

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Stance on inflation poses threat to ‘soft landing’ forecast for global economy, says OECD

Continued tough action by central banks to tackle stubborn inflation risks tipping Britain and other developed countries into recession next year, the west’s leading economic thinktank has warned.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said the chances of policymakers getting it wrong were “pretty high” and posed a threat to its central “soft landing” forecast for the global economy.

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Let boardrooms look beyond shareholder returns to drive productivity, report urges

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Adapting business laws to include benefits other than profit in decision-making could add £149bn to UK economy, says Demos thinktank

Britain’s economy could receive a £149bn boost from a change to UK business laws that would ensure companies put social, economic and environmental benefits at the heart of their decision-making, according to a report.

With the UK on course for the second lowest growth rate in the G7 group of leading economies in 2023, the study by the thinktank Demos said it was clear that cutting taxes or raising public spending had not been effective at driving economic growth.

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Jeremy Hunt faces red wall revolt if he delivers ‘a budget for the rich’

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The chancellor’s potential inheritance tax cut in Wednesday’s budget would aid millionaires amid a cost of living crisis

Jeremy Hunt faces a backlash from “red wall” Tory MPs if he uses a fiscal windfall of up to £20bn to deliver tax cuts for the rich rather than to help ordinary families with the cost of living, the Observer has been told.

The chancellor and Rishi Sunak are this weekend finalising an autumn statement on Wednesday that could include a major reduction in inheritance tax – four-fifths of which would benefit those with more than £1m at their death, according to a new report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS). Each person with more than £1m would receive an average tax cut of £180,000, the IFS states.

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Scotland wasting time on constitutional disputes, says thinktank

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Gordon Brown’s Our Scottish Future says reforms and investment hampered by focus on referendums

Scotland’s devolved government has been beset by poor decision-making for the past decade because of an obsession with constitutional disputes, a thinktank says.

The report, by Gordon Brown’s Our Scottish Future thinktank, which has close ties to Labour, says much-needed reforms to public services and economic investment have been hampered by short-term decision-making and an unrelenting focus on referendums and elections.

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UK needs Dragons’ Den approach to investing in net zero, says thinktank

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IPPR wants government to take a stake in green technology firms to help Britain keep up with EU and US

The UK risks losing out to the US and EU in the global race to a net zero economy unless the government increases green investment by taking a stake in the companies of the future, a thinktank has said.

The left-leaning Institute for Public Policy Research said Britain needed a “national investment fund” (NIF) that would back new firms and secure a share of any future profits for the public as it called for the state to adopt a “Dragons’ Den” type approach to supporting enterprises.

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Scottish public spending deficit falls as oil revenues hit record high

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Both sides of constitutional debate use Gers data to argue case for and against independence

Scotland’s public spending deficit has fallen from a record peak last year, as oil and gas revenues reached their highest-ever level after a global rise in oil prices.

The government expenditure and revenue Scotland (Gers) report calculated a per-person deficit – the gap between the amount raised through all tax and spending on all public services – as £1,521 in the 2022-23 financial year, down from £2,184 the previous year.

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Nearly 4m fewer UK working days in past year due to strike action, study says

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Resolution Foundation report says much of industrial action ‘fuelled’ by public sector workers’ anger over falls in real-terms pay

About 3.9m working days have been lost to industrial action in the past year, more than at any point since the 1980s, according to a new analysis.

The Resolution Foundation, which focuses its research on low- to middle-income households, said many of the strikes were “fuelled” by anger among public sector workers over real-terms pay declines, which amounted to an average cut of more than 9% since 2021, adjusted for inflation.

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Landmark NHS recruitment plan in danger from applicant shortfall

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The huge increase in students needed to fill medical training places, and supplying the staff to teach them, may not be feasible

A “once in a generation” NHS recruitment plan requiring an extra 50,000 clinical training places in less than a decade risks being derailed by difficulties in finding enough applicants and a shrinking number of staff to teach them.

A new analysis seen by the Observer reveals the sheer scale of the proposed increase in NHS staff implied by the government’s long-awaited workforce plan, unveiled at the start of the summer and given a broad welcome across the NHS.

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England ‘4,700 years from building enough onshore windfarms’

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Thinktank says effective ban on planning permissions means country is way behind on much-needed renewable energy

It would take almost 4,700 years for England to build enough onshore windfarms to help meet the UK’s clean energy needs unless the government lifts an effective block on new turbines, according to the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR).

Only 17 small-scale onshore windfarms have been approved in England since 2015 when the government changed planning laws to create a de facto ban on onshore windfarms, according to the thinktank.

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One in five workers will be higher-rate taxpayers by 2027 – IFS

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Jeremy Hunt’s freeze on allowances and thresholds will put a quarter of teachers and one-eighth of nurses in 40% income tax bracket

One in four teachers and one in eight nurses will be higher-rate taxpayers by 2027 as a result of the government’s record freeze on income tax allowances and thresholds, according to a leading thinktank.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies said better-paid public sector workers will be among the almost 8 million people – one in five of all taxpayers – who will pay income tax at 40% or above as result of the Treasury’s attempt to reduce the UK’s budget deficit.

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NHS workers expected to be offered one-off payments worth up to 6% as part of revised pay offer – UK politics live

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Health secretary expected to announce a formal pay offer to key unions later today

Sinn Féin’s US fundraising arm has caused a row by calling for a referendum on Irish unity in adverts in the New York Times, Washington Post and other US publications.

The half-page ads were paid for by Friends of Sinn Féin and ran on Wednesday urging support for unity referendums in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. “It is time to agree on a date,” it said. “Let the people have their say.”

They’re ads from Irish American organisations whose view on reunification is well known and held for a very long time and they take out ads every year. So, the focus now needs to be on getting back to work [at Stormont].

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FTSE 100 bosses paid more in three days than average UK worker for whole year

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CEOs pass milestone nine working hours earlier than last year, with pay up 39% on January 2022

The bosses of Britain’s biggest companies will have made more money in 2023 by Thursday afternoon than the average UK worker will earn in the entire year, according to analysis of vast pay gaps amid strike action and the cost of living crisis.

The High Pay Centre, a thinktank that campaigns for fairer pay for workers, said that by 2pm on the third working day of the year, a FTSE 100 chief executive will have been paid more on an hourly basis than a UK worker’s annual salary, based on median average remuneration figures for both groups.

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Disabled people among hardest hit by cost of living crisis, finds study

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People with disabilities more likely to cut back on energy use and food, Resolution Foundation says

Disabled people in the UK are much more likely to struggle to heat their homes and cut back on food this winter, according to a report highlighting “massive” income gaps amid the cost of living squeeze.

Research from the Resolution Foundation found people with disabilities had an available amount to spend that was about 44% lower than that of other working-age adults, exposing them hugely to the rising cost of essentials.

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How the autumn statement brought back the ‘squeezed middle’

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IFS and Resolution Foundation say Jeremy Hunt’s policies will shock middle England, with higher taxes here to stay


Traditionally elections in Britain are decided by swing voters in a relatively small number of seats. Parties go to considerable lengths to tailor their policies to the perceived demands of those getting by on average incomes. Pollsters have even coined names for the archetypal electors that need to be wooed: Basildon man and Worcester woman.

So it will be of some concern to government strategists that the post-autumn statement analysis by thinktanks focused heavily on how the measures announced by Jeremy Hunt had an effect on those not particularly poor but not especially rich either. Both the Resolution Foundation and the Institute for Fiscal Studies highlighted the return of the “squeezed middle”.

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Hunt’s budget will mean 19 years of wage stagnation, warns thinktank

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Resolution Foundation says had wages grown at the same rate as before 2008, pay would be £15,000 a year higher by 2027

Jeremy Hunt’s autumn statement will result in extending wage stagnation for Britain’s workers to two decades as the chancellor’s tax-heavy budget piles more pressure on the nation’s “squeezed middle”, a thinktank said.

The Resolution Foundation said on Friday that the dire economic outlook meant that real wages were not expected to return to 2008 levels until 2027.

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Energy bills: older Britons will pay more but youngest will struggle most, report finds

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Cost of living crisis affecting different generations in very different ways, says Resolution Foundation

Older people face a bigger income hit from surging energy costs this winter but younger households are more at risk of being unable to pay their bill or getting into debt amid the cost of living crisis, according to a report.

As households across Britain turn their heating on, the research by the Resolution Foundation thinktank found that older generations, in particular the over-75s, will spend a bigger share of their income, up from 5% to 8%, on their energy bills. For those under 50 the proportion is 5%.

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Minority ethnic Britons’ educational success not reflected in pay, study finds

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‘Clear evidence’ of discrimination in terms of salary and careers despite academic progress, IFS study finds

Most minority ethnic groups in the UK have made remarkable progress in educational achievement but “clear evidence” of discrimination remains in their pay and careers, according to a study published by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

The IFS report found that most of the largest minority ethnic groups obtain English and maths exam results at least as good or better than those achieved by white British students in England, and are more likely than white teenagers to go on to university.

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Starmer ‘should bring in workplace pension for the self-employed’

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Fabian Society also says Labour needs to be radical and introduce better provision for the lowest paid

Sir Keir Starmer should promise that a future Labour government would introduce a new workplace pension for self-employed workers and more generous retirement provision for the low paid, a leading left-of-centre thinktank has said.

Calling for the biggest shake-up of the pensions’ system in two decades, the Fabian Society said Labour needed to copy the radical approach of the Turner Commission two decades ago, which encouraged saving through opt-out schemes.

Increasing the minimum contributions for workplace auto-enrolment pensions to 12% of total earnings from the current 8%. This would be done by phasing in higher contributions from employers over time.

The introduction of new pension credits for carers, who are primarily women, to reduce the “gender pensions gap”

Changes to how people access pensions at retirement so that separate pensions are automatically consolidated into a single fund and then converted into new whole-of-retirement pension plans designed to increase with inflation.

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Public sector job losses could pass 100,000 if government refuses pay rises, says IFS

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Chancellor must top up budgets or face industrial action and further recruitment issues, thinktank warns

More than 100,000 public sector workers would lose their jobs this year if the government refuses to fund higher than expected pay awards for nurses, doctors, teachers and care workers, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

The IFS said the chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, faced a choice of either topping up public sector budgets or accepting the likelihood of industrial action, further problems recruiting and retaining staff, and a decline in quality of services already under extreme strain.

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IFS: Millions in Britain ‘face stealth tax raid’ under Liz Truss’s plans

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For every £1 given workers by cutting tax rates £2 was being taken via freeze on income tax thresholds, thinktank calculates

Millions of households are facing a “stealth” tax raid under Liz Truss’s government despite her promise to support workers through the cost-of-living crisis by lowering their tax bills, Britain’s leading economic thinktank said on Wednesday.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has calculated that for every £1 given to workers by cutting headline tax rates, £2 was being taken away through a freeze on the level at which people begin paying tax on their earnings.

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