Welcome to the IEA Weekend Newsletter!

• Rules Britannia
• Throwing out the baby…
• End of his Teather…
• A steer on the future
• In the name of Liberty

Rules Britannia

Far from ‘taking back control’, the innate stickiness of the regulatory state means we risk losing the opportunity for meaningful change post-Brexit.

This warning comes from the the IEA’s Head of Regulatory Affairs, Victoria Hewson, in her new report ‘Rules Britannia’.

This is the first paper to be published as part of Regulatory Affairs - a new IEA programme dedicated to analysing regulation and regulators in the UK.

The report, which warns that regulations are being judged on their “intentions” rather than their results, was trailed exclusively in the Sunday Telegraph and Victoria’s comments were quoted at length by the Express.

Victoria wrote an article for the Telegraph in which she argued that  “escaping the dead hand of Brussels will count for little if we don’t tackle the amount of red tape generated here in Britain.” She also wrote for CapX on the topic.

Referencing Victoria’s paper, IEA Director General Mark Littlewood argued in The Times Business that the government should focus on adopting a more “practical and proportionate response to regulation”.

You can watch Victoria's explainer video here. 

Throwing out the baby... with the budget measures

Chancellor Rishi Sunak used his first Budget to announce huge increases in spending to cope with the Covid-19 shock, as well as a massive £600 billion plan to “boost Britain”.

Director General Mark Littlewood warned that while ‘fiscal loosening’ to cope with Covid-19 is understandable the “hit to the public finances from the coronavirus is, as the Chancellor was at pains to stress, temporary and not structural, so there are no grounds for changing fiscal strategy – merely a need for some short term fiscal tactics.”

Mark appeared on BBC Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine show to give his reaction to the Chancellor’s speech whilst our Digital Manager Darren Grimes gave his thoughts ahead of the Chancellor’s speech on talkRadio.

Elsewhere, IEA Editorial and Research Fellow Prof Len Shackleton warned that big increases in minimum wages will “raise employer costs disproportionately in those poorer regions of the country the prime minister wants to help”.

Quoted by the Guardian, Len said “Already, the ratio of minimum wages in Northern Ireland, Yorkshire and Humber, the East Midlands and Wales is higher than the 66% target the Conservatives have set.”

Meanwhile, our Head of Transport Dr Richard Wellings welcomed the decision to keep the freeze on fuel duty as “the right one”. 

Richard added that “the government would do well to look at further reductions to boost economic activity in the longer term.

End of his Teather...

The Chancellor also signalled plans to reform entrepreneurs’ relief - which was the subject of an IEA blog this week.

Taxation expert Richard Teather argued that approaching this as a single measure - whilst leaving the rest of our tangled tax system unchanged - would end up making things worse, not better.

A steer on the future

The 2020s will see the introduction of one of the most profoundly transformative technologies for decades - the driverless car. 

Whilst this is likely to have a profound effect on the way we live, it also poses a host of public policy questions across a wide range of areas. 

On our podcast this week, Digital Manager Darren Grimes discusses ‘The Road Ahead?’ with Andrew Lilico, Executive Director and Principal of Europe Economics.



You can subscribe to our podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Podbean.

In the name of Liberty

LibertyCon, a gathering of 800 liberal students from across Europe, took place in Madrid last week - featuring Dr Stephen Davies, our Head of Education and Adam Bartha, the Director of Epicenter, our network of nine leading European think tanks.

Steve addressed the challenges in modern economies posed by automation and artificial intelligence - outlining how robots taking over some professions can be a benefit to all.

You can read more on the impact of AI - and why we shouldn’t panic about it - in our paper Robocalypse now? by Len Shackleton.

Adam talked about the future of the EU and whether it’s possible to create a federal system based on classical liberal principles.

And during the conference, the IEA distributed hundreds of books and publications from past and present day authors, such as F.A. Hayek, Bastiat, Eamonn Butler, Christopher Snowdon and many more.