Richard Exell
Press reports today say that the Department for Transport’s list of cuts includes an accelerated timetable for raising the qualifying age for the English bus passes scheme.
-
Richard Exell
-
Owen Tudor
One of the things we believe a Robin Hood Tax could do is pay the bill for tackling climate change announced at Copenhagen last December – around $100 bn a year, globally – pretty much exactly a quarter of what the Robin Hood Tax is likely to raise globally. And it seems we’re not the only ones thinking like this. According to a news wire report (you have to subscribe), Sir Nicholas Stern told Ministers on Monday that the UN Secretary-General’s High-level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing (AGF) is looking at a range of ways of funding the $100 bn a year pledge, including ”auctioning of allowances, taxes on carbon in some shape or form, possible taxes on international aviation and maritime, financial transaction taxes and, of course, general public revenue.”
The AGF, which consists of 19 experts and politicians including Britain’s Climate Change Minister Chris Huhne MP (who replaced Gordon Brown on the AGF after the election), and is due to report to the Climate Change Conference (COP 16) in Mexico in December.
-
Tim Page
Sometimes, two separate news stories are presented in the same news bulletin and, taken together, make a wonderful statement about the world we live in.
This was my experience this morning as I watched BBC Breakfast. Today’s programme contained the worrying news that, according to figures from the university admissions service, Ucas, universities have received more than 660,000 applications and a record 170,000 students are thought likely to be denied a place this autumn.
-
Owen Tudor
Two reports out this week at international level indicate that the campaign for a Robin Hood Tax on financial transactions is beginning to pile up support. First, the Leading Group for Innovative Financing to Fund Development (a body of 55 national governments including the UK) has published a report saying that a currency transactions tax of 0.005% would raise $33 bn a year. Second, the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), a tripartite body of employer, union and consumer/NGO representatives, has called for an EU level financial transactions tax of around 0.05% to control speculation and raise money for combating global poverty, tackling climate change and reducing deficits. So the pressure is mounting internationally for the Robin Hood Tax, and the next key pressure point will be the meeting of EU finance ministers on 7 September where France and Germany have insisted on a discussion.
-
Richard Exell
Today One North East announced that £2.7 million of day-to-day funding for 20 local business organisations has been cut, with tourism organisations especially hard hit. Larger cuts will be announced in September and voluntary redundancies are expected at the agency itself.
-
Here are some videos from today’s employment regulation debate at Congress House. Brendan Barber and Howard Reed (independent economist) debated the cases for and against deregulation with David Frost (British Chamber of Commerce Director General) and Professor Francis Chittenden (Manchester Business School), with Christine Buckley in the chair. We’ve video of all four speakers’ opening arguments:
-
Richard Exell
Directors of major cultural organisations have written to the Prime Minister to say that cuts could threaten “irreparable damage”. Led by the Arts Council England, the letter was signed by the Directors of the Tate, the National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Serpentine Gallery, Sadlers Wells theatre and the South Bank Centre.
-
Richard Exell
The Guardian reports having seen the Crown Prosecution Service’s draft submission to the Treasury. It says that a 25 per cent cut would “damage frontline services” and a 40 per cent cut would cause “a fundamental change in the government policy on prosecution of criminal offences.” A “business transformation” that would cut 1,820 staff (22 per cent of the total) would still only deliver 86 per cent of the lower target.
-
Richard Exell
Thousands of police jobs could be lost as a result of government cuts, according to independent research. The study, by Tim Brain (the former chief constable of Gloucestershire, now an academic at Cardiff University) for Police Review Magazine (subscription needed) forecasts that, if the police service received ‘average cuts’, somewhere between 11,500 and 17,000 jobs could be lost.
-
Tim Page
Pat McFadden, the Shadow Business Minister, made a thoughtful speech to the Fabian Society this morning. He resolutely defended the last Labour Government’s economic record, questioned the Con-Lib decision to “cut faster and deeper than we (i.e. Labour) would”, rubbished the idea that the UK was in a similar economic position to Greece and made the case for active industrial policies in pursuit of growth. It’s well summarised by Sunder at Next Left.
It was all good stuff. The controversial bit came in the following two sentences: “‘Fight the cuts’ is a tempting slogan in Opposition, and there are indeed some that must be fought. But if that is all we are saying the conclusion will be drawn that we are wishing the problem away.”