This week, the IEA published ‘Transgender ideology: A new threat to liberal values’, authored by IEA Head of Cultural Affairs Marc Glendening.

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Childcare is back in the news. This week, Children and Families Minister Claire Coutinho wrote to landlords, developers and housing associations urging them to allow childminders on their properties. This is likely well-intentioned — but, as I wrote on ConservativeHome ([link removed]) this week, our childcare woes go much deeper.

The cost of childcare in the United Kingdom is incredibly high when compared to other developed countries, and is a significant contributor to the cost of living crisis. In what can only be described as a devastating burden on parenthood, the cost of putting an under-two-year-old in full time care has risen by 171% since 2000.

One reason for the higher cost is the lack of childminders. The number of registered childminders has fallen from over 100,000 in the mid-1990s, to less than 30,000 today. But this has pretty much nothing to do with landlords. In the first instance, it is because of greater competition from nurseries, which have significantly expanded over recent years. The primary culprit, however, is the heavy hand of regulation.

Central government and local authorities have increased onerous requirements on the home environment. The Early Years Foundation Stage statutory framework, introduced in the Childcare Act 2006, lays down a detailed specification for the ‘learning, development and care’ of children up until the age of 5.

All regulated early years care providers — including preschools, nurseries, reception classes, and of course, childminders — are required to follow the prescriptive EYFS. This, along with requirements such as child-to-carer ratios and more advanced qualifications, substantially pushes up the complexity and cost of delivering childcare. It is regulation that has led to a mass exit from the childminder sector — not landlords.

The higher cost has led to demands for subsidies, most recently the government announced 15-30 hours of ‘free’ taxpayer-funded childcare. Putting the tremendous cost to the public purse aside, it is unlikely to be effective. It is poorly targeted, meaning that the main beneficiaries will be middle class families. But more fundamentally, it won’t make it any easier to actually deliver childcare at a lower cost.

If we want to reduce the cost of childcare, more radical supply side reforms are necessary.

Reem Ibrahim

IEA Communications Officer
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** Transgender ideology:
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** A new threat to liberal values
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This week, the IEA published ‘Transgender ideology: A new threat to liberal values’ ([link removed]) , authored by IEA Head of Cultural Affairs Marc Glendening. The paper explores the corrosive impact that the rise of political transgenderism has had on free speech.
* Transgender individuals should be entirely free to identify with their chosen gender – and equally, contrary opinions on trans identity and policy should be debatable.
* Proposed laws facilitating gender self-identification have serious implications for single sex spaces, sports, and for the internal functions of businesses and private organisations. They therefore warrant serious discussion and debate.
* Many supporters of transgender ideology do not aim to win the debate but rather to prevent debate from occurring. Influential activist groups like Stonewall and Mermaids advocate for gender critical views to be criminalised under ‘hate speech’ laws.
* Expanding hate speech laws threaten debate on controversial issues such as gender self-identification laws, female-only spaces in hospitals, and single-sex sports.
* Labour MP Graham Stringer says the paper “skewers the authoritarianism and the irrationality of the transgender ideology” while Conservative MP Nick Fletcher says it is a “much-needed wake-up call to libertarians and conservatives”.

Download (PDF) ([link removed])

The paper also received widespread media coverage including in the print and online editions of The Daily Telegraph ([link removed]) , The Times ([link removed]) , The Sun ([link removed]) , The Daily Mail ([link removed]) and The Daily Express ([link removed]) . It was also discussed on GB News and TalkTV.
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Marc recorded an explainer of his paper which was published on the IEA YouTube channel ([link removed]) .

Marc wrote for The Daily Express ([link removed]) and discussed his paper on GB News ([link removed]) .
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Labour MP Graham Stringer endorsed Marc’s paper and wrote an article in The Daily Telegraph ([link removed]) about the threat that political transgenderism poses to free speech.
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Maya Forstater, Executive Director of Sex Matters, also endorsed the paper and discussed its importance on TalkTV ([link removed]) with Julia Hartley-Brewer.

IEA Latest.
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** The better way to get richer isn’t more hard work. It is smarter work ([link removed])
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Director General Mark Littlewood, The Times ([link removed])

Get smart… Tackling Britain’s productivity problem requires smart working, which can be unlocked by much-needed supply-side reform.
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** Britain is regulating itself into a technological backwater ([link removed])
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Director of Public Policy and Communications Matthew Lesh, The Daily Telegraph ([link removed])

Rampant regulation… On Monday, the British chip designer Arm confirmed plans to reject listing on the London Stock Exchange in favour of New York’s Nasdaq. What could have been a success story has proven another policy failure, and the culprit is over zealous regulation.

This was also the topic of this week’s IEA podcast ([link removed]) .
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** Let’s be honest, we don’t need to have bank holidays – no, not even for the football
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Matthew Lesh, CityAM ([link removed])

Bank holiday bankruptcy… While we all love a long weekend, would an extra bank holiday to celebrate the Women’s World Cup Final have been justified, given that it would have cost the economy £1bn?
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** Lower borrowing provides unexpected fiscal wiggle room
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Economics Fellow Julian Jessop, Financial Times ([link removed]) , The Daily Telegraph ([link removed]) , The Daily Express ([link removed])

Give us a break… It was revealed this week that government borrowing was lower than the official forecast anticipated, leaving room for tax cuts.
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** The Rise of The Surveillance State ([link removed])
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Communications Officer Harrison Griffiths interviews Mark Johnson, IEA YouTube Channel ([link removed])

Big brother… In this week's episode of Moral Sentiments, Harrison Griffiths is joined by Big Brother Watch Advocacy Manager Mark Johnson, to discuss the surveillance state.

IEA Insider.


** Freedom Week 2023
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Last week, the IEA and the Adam Smith Institute hosted twenty six undergraduate students for a five day seminar exploring classical liberal perspectives on economics, politics, history and society.

Freedom Week, which took place at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, featured IEA Head of Political Economy Kristian Niemietz, Head of Lifestyle Economics Christopher Snowdon and Communications Officer Reem Ibrahim, who lectureed on healthcare, paternalism, and the morality of capitalism.
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