Politicians on the left often talk about how happy people are to pay taxes. Half of voters have even said that they would be happy to pay more tax if it went to the NHS. Even after discounting for virtue signalling, figures, suggest this not the case. Today the Times... Read more...
New research from the TaxPayers' Alliance (TPA) reveals that the total amount of tax paid by the average household increased by 2.7 per cent in 2014-2015 on the previous year. Politicians of all stripes lament the high cost of living in the UK yet fail to address one of the major... Read more...
Further spending reduction plans in the NHS have been reported today as NHS England, which needs to find £22bn in efficiency savings by 2020-21, said reorganising local services is essential to improve patient care. The draft sustainability and transformation plans (STPs) include proposals for ward closures, cuts in bed numbers... Read more...
For some, the National Health Service is more than just a healthcare system - it is a sacred cow moulded in our national identity. As a consequence there is precious little debate about how it functions or how it is funded. And the lack of such debate and consequential reform... Read more...
The TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA) is today announcing that Jonathan Isaby, the TPA’s serving Chief Executive, is leaving to take up the post of Editor of the soon-to-be launched BrexitCentral.com. Taking his place as Chief Executive of the TPA will be John O’Connell, who has been with the TPA since 2009. As... Read more...
Last week a new government initiative, the Shale Wealth Fund, was announced in a bid to get fracking firmly back on the UK energy agenda. The project, unveiled by Theresa May, is estimated to be worth around £1 billion of funding, which will initially consist of up to 10 per... Read more...
Last year our Public Sector Rich List revealed the staggering pay packets received by some NHS dentists. 30 dentists received more than £300,000 from the NHS, 11 more than £400,000 and five more than £500,000. Those who earned more than £500,000 received an average of £690,572 It’s hard to believe... Read more...
Our Chief Executive, Jonathan Isaby, has a letter in The Times today: Sir, James Sproule, of the Institute of Directors, and David Blanchflower make sensible suggestions for tax changes (“Hammond under pressure to slash VAT and delay tax”, Aug 5). A VAT cut would reduce prices for consumers while increased... Read more...
Guido Fawkes reports that Southwark Council have spent £15,400 on a new logo which is almost indistinguishable from the old one. Despite complaining about funding cuts, the council found £6,819 for designing the new logo and a further £8,581 to spend on implementation. Justifying the project, the ‘Branding Refresh’ report claims... Read more...
An Investigation by the BBC has revealed that a charity receiving taxpayers’ money has links to a strange group which has been likened to a cult. Development Aid from People to People (DAPP) runs charity projects in Africa with programmes ranging from farming to health to education. However, the investigation... Read more...
The Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) had previously decided that only BBC staff earning over £450,000 should have their salaries published, a decision that we at the TaxPayers' Alliance were quick to condemn as not going far enough. However yesterday a report by the DCMS Committee suggested that... Read more...
The “triple lock” promise – that pensions will always rise by whichever is higher out of inflation, earnings growth or 2.5 per cent – made by the Conservatives before the 2010 election was irresponsibly profligate. In 2015 a report published by the Government Actuary Department estimated that the pension triple lock would... Read more...
Today the government was widely expected to sign contracts with French utility giant EDF to build two nuclear reactors at Hinkley Point. The board of EDF had (reportedly narrowly) voted to approve the project but Greg Clark, the new Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy announced a... Read more...
A Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report released yesterday has highlighted how the incompetence of HMRC has harmed taxpayers. According to the report, the tax-collecting organisation released 5,600 staff from its personal tax division in 2014-15 in order to ‘live within its budget’. Though a reasonable aim, this led to a... Read more...
Earlier today, an article published in the Telegraph highlighted a number of new controversies surrounding the topic UK’s inheritance tax. The article reported that campaigners are calling for a compensation for nearly 30,000 families paying inheritance tax in the two years from April 2015 because the Government “has taken too... Read more...
The NHS faces a compensation time bomb as provisions for hospital clinical negligence claims have almost doubled since last year to £56 billion - almost half of the NHS’s annual budget. The provisions, a pot of money set aside for paying compensation claims for medical blunders, has increased by an... Read more...
On the 4th July, Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council introduced a new £2.4 million recycling service. The vehicles bought would have enabled weekly collections to take place where there were once fortnightly ones. However, there was one major problem with this plan: the vehicles which the council purchased were too wide for... Read more...
In response to a written question from Valerie Vaz MP in 2013, health minister Norman Lamb revealed that in 2012 there were more than 55.7 million general practitioner registered patients in England, 104.2 per cent of the population. These 'ghost patients' are individuals who are registered at their local surgery but... Read more...
With a vote on the principle of renewal of Trident set to take place in Parliament today, it is essential that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) learns the lessons of past failures in defence procurement to ensure the costs of the Successor Programme (which will replace the 4 Vanguard submarines) does not... Read more...
Prime Minister Theresa May set out her stall yesterday by merging two Whitehall departments into a giant new office that promises to deliver an “industrial strategy” for Britain – City AM reported this morning. The Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy will replace the departments of Business, Innovation and... Read more...
In 2014/15, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) placed new contracts worth £11.5 billion. Of these, £5.4 billion were “single source” or non-competitive contracts for military goods works and services. There are some contracts that can only realistically be given to one company (eg the Successor Programme) so in the absence of competition to... Read more...
Yesterday’s release of the ‘Infrastructure and Projects Authority’s (IPA) annual report on major projects 2015 to 2016’ provided a startling insight into the inefficiency of government spending on infrastructure projects. The report, which shows how government-funded infrastructure projects are progressing, revealed that for only 7% of infrastructure projects ‘successful delivery appears highly... Read more...
The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) have this week given a nod, if a cautious one; to plans to begin fracking for shale gas in the UK. While they stress the need for emissions to be strictly monitored and limited during development, production and even decommission, they have put forth... Read more...
The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC) has today published a damning report on the changes to the process of making public appointments. In 2015, the Grimstone review suggested several changes to the process including the watering down of the Commissioner for Public Appointment’s powers. These were subsequently accepted... Read more...