Paul Sellers
A new study published today reaffirmed the link between long working hours and depression. As the evidence of serious health risks continues to pile up, why on earth do the Government and the CBI continue to oppose strengthening the Working Time Directive?
It seems to have become like an article of faith, making their stance difficult to shift with even the most rational argument.
Owen Tudor
The World Economic Forum (best known for hosting this week’s Davos conference) plays host to a number of Global Agenda Councils which bring together experts in a particular field to produce reports summing up the best available wisdom on what to do next. There’s a GAC on Employment and Social Protection which has produced a report for Davos 2012 snappily titled “The Case for an Integrated Model of Growth, Employment and Social Protection“, introduced by a blog from the Chair and Vice Chair. But it makes some very pertinent recommendations for the global leaders gathered in Davos, and is part and parcel of the growing intellectual argument for growth and jobs to have a higher priority than debt and deficit reduction (see recent posts on ILO, IMF and OECD reports).
Duncan Weldon
Following yesterday’s poor growth figures, talk amongst the Coalition parties and their supporters is once more turning to finding a ‘growth strategy’.
Amid from the usual barrage of cutting the 50p rate, slashing capital gains tax and further deregulation (not so much a growth strategy as the usual shopping list of free-market policy demands) Nick Clegg is once again talking about raising the personal income tax allowance to £10,000.
Paul Sellers
It has not been widely reported, but in last night’s keynote speech Mervyn King argued that the economy has been held back by a combination of high inflation and weak wages growth. Take note, ye pay-rise naysayers!
King’s argument was that inflation had been kept high by the rise in VAT, higher import prices and soaring energy costs.
“The consequence has been a ferocious squeeze in the purchasing power of take home pay. That led to a fall in consumer spending which accounted for much of the weakness in growth in 2011″
Nigel Stanley
Pensions Minister Steve Webb has just announced the new detailed timetable for pensions auto-enrolment. This provides the small print for the delay announced in the Autumn Statement following lobbying by the small business lobby and the Beecroft review.
My strong impression is that this delay was forced on the DWP, and could even be seen as a victory over a strong push for the permanent exemption of small firms from pensions auto-enrolment. But it is still bad news.
Duncan Weldon
I wrote this morning, before the GDP figures were released, that they were unlikely to tell us anything we didn’t already know. The quarter-on-quarter contraction of 0.2% was a little worse than expected but not especially surprising. It’s always important not to over-analyse one data point – especially one subject to revision – but the key trends have been clear for some time.
The two key facts were already evident before this morning’s release – this is the worst ‘recovery’ in modern British economic history and GDP per capita is not expected to regain 2007 levels until 2016. In other words, on the OBR’s numbers we are already in a ‘lost decade’.
Today’s numbers though do tell us something. The five key points, as I see them, are:
Duncan Weldon
At 9.30 this morning we’ll get our first look at the Q4 GDP figures. They will almost certainly be very close to zero – and whilst the political debate will be shaped by whether they are just about negative or just about positive, they won’t (barring a really unexpected result!) tell us a great deal we don’t already know.
The expectation of both the OBR and independent economists (as surveyed by the Treasury) is that 2012 will be a year of very low growth overall. The simple fact is that the current recovery is historically weak – as best demonstrated by the below chart from NIESR:
But one often missed fact is that 2012 (on the OBR’s numbers) is, in one important regard, set to be a year of economic contraction. Whilst headline GDP growth is forecast to come in at 0.7%, the ONS forecast that the population of the UK will grow by 0.8%.
In other words per capita GDP (GDP per head) is set to fall this year.
Helen Nadin
In October the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) published the consultation ‘Response to Call for Advice on the review of Directive 2003/41/EC: second consultation’. The consultation covered EIOPA’s draft advice to the European Commission on the review of the Institutions for Occupational Retirement Provision (IORP – Directive 2003/41/EC). The Directive applies to occupational pension schemes, which unlike insurance-based pension schemes do so on a not-for-profit basis.
EIOPA will give their final advice to the Commission in mid-February on the reform of the IORP Directive, with a view to publishing a draft Directive later in the year. While this may sound very technical, the outcome of the consultation could be pivotal – and extremely adverse –for UK defined benefit (DB) pension schemes and the wider European Union economy. It is an issue that significantly concerns the TUC.
Richard Exell
Today the Department for Work and Pensions published the latest statistics on the results of the Work Capability Assessment – the eligibility test for Employment and Support Allowance (which is replacing the old Incapacity Benefit). The newspapers today are full of stories about social security after the government’s defeat in the Lords, but I can’t find any mention of these figures.
Which is strange – these figures come out every three months and previously the tabloids have had a field day with them.
Philip Pearson
The Global Warming Policy Foundation is facing a Freedom of Information request this Friday to reveal its sources of funding, reported to be £500,000 a year. The GWPF declined to open its books to the Request Initiative, which is leading the FOI appeal. In November, GWPF founder and chair, Lord Lawson, accused the Environment Secretary of failing “to provide any empirical evidence” for man’s influence on global warming, which Chris Huhne had said was getting stronger every year.
The GWPF has routinely challenged the climate science community for a lack of evidence, openness and accountability. What’s sauce for the goose…