Back to school

Well, it’s nearly over. As if to make sure we were in no doubt that summer is coming to a close, or just because it’s a bank holiday weekend, the weather turned wet this week with rain and thunderstorms (thank goodness). Tomorrow also marks six weeks since Andy Burnham swept into Downing Street - yep, we’re only six weeks in… But while MPs have been enjoying a long summer break, the TPA haven’t skipped a beat, showcasing our hard-hitting research with our signature local campaigning.

We kicked things off with the 2026 edition of the NHS Rich List revealing 574 senior NHS managers had higher salaries than the prime minister in 2024-25 and that the number with total remuneration of at least £300,000 doubled to 292 compared to 2023-24.

Next up, we put the national debt front and centre as our debt clock showed what Britain owes ticking past £3 trillion. Shocking as that headline was, our Real National Debt paper put the figure at almost four times that amount at £11.7 billion (check out this week’s episode of a nation of taxpayers for more on that).

Our Town Hall Sickness research showed people working for councils took twice as many sick days as their private sector counterparts, costing local taxpayers £667 million every year. Elsewhere we had releases on the tax on holidays, debt interest, and the growing burden of income tax. Check out our full research archive here.

Amongst all this, we’ve been busy doing something no other Westminster think tanks or campaign groups do - taking our message across the country. Our ongoing campaign against plans for a holiday tax in Conwy has received huge support from local businesses worried about what the scheme would mean for them and their communities.

Politicians might have been taking it easy this summer, but the TPA never stops standing up for taxpayers. As parliament returns, we’ll continue holding politicians’ feet to the fire. 

You can support TPA research and campaigning by clicking here to donate.

The Lies About Britain's Real National Debt

In this week’s episode of a nation of taxpayers, podcast host Duncan Barkes is joined by the TPA's William Yarwood and Anne Strickland to discuss new TaxPayers' Alliance research into the real national debt, which highlights the government's true liabilities at £11.7 trillion, or almost four times the size of the UK economy.

They examine why headline debt figures fail to capture the full scale of state pension promises, public-sector pensions, PFI commitments, and nuclear decommissioning costs. They also discuss how debt interest is swallowing ever more public money, why welfare spending is becoming impossible to ignore, and how political cowardice has left future taxpayers with an enormous bill. 

Listen to the latest episode of a nation of taxpayers on Apple Podcasts and Spotify or watch now on YouTube.

See you in Birmingham?

The commons might only just be returning to work after a lengthy summer recess but they’ll soon be off again when the house rises for the conference recess on 15th September. Before then, Reform will be kicking things off with their conference in Birmingham on Friday.

For the third year in a row, members of the TPA team will be decamping to the party’s annual get-together in the NEC, and speaking up for taxpayers. If you’re going too, why not come along and meet the team at our stand in the exhibition hall.

Detention costs

We learnt this week the eye-watering costs of detaining illegal migrants and moving them around the country. The Home Office is spending more than half a million pound every day transporting and housing people in immigration detention or Border Force custody who have come here illegally.

Speaking to the Sun, John O’Connell cut straight to the heart of the matter: “The Home Office needs to pull the handbrake on this eye-watering waste immediately.” Before long, William popped up on Talk with Ian Collins and couldn’t have been clearer, telling listeners: “This is money we wouldn’t need to spend if our borders were secure. So it all stems from that original point that we haven’t for years, both under this Labour government and indeed under the previous Conservative government, been able to stop the boats… If you do not control your borders, if you do not control migration, these costs are going to go up.” Check out William’s full appearance here.

The end of pensioner poverty?

There was a bit of good news this week as it emerged that pensioner poverty has halved over the last 30 years. In 1994-95, 28 per cent of pensioners were deemed to be living in poverty and that number has now fallen to just 14 per cent in 2024-25. While that’s obviously to be welcomed, it’s not come without a cost.

Fifty five per cent of all welfare spending is now being consumed by the state pension and associated benefits like pension credit, a whopping £178 billion a year. Contrary to what politicians have allowed people to believe, there are no individual pots we all pay into to cover our state pensions, rather they’re paid out of general taxation. The contributions of today’s retirees paid for the pensions of those who came before.

While the triple lock has certainly helped raise the standards for those getting their pensions, it’s fast becoming unsustainable. As John explained to the Times, we need to restore fairness to the system: “Taxpayers will rightly be concerned by the growing burden of pensions and the welfare bill. While the triple lock may have been needed in the past, as more than half of welfare spending is now being paid to pensioners, it is simply unsustainable and not affordable. To ensure fairness, future increases to the state pension should be solely linked to inflation.”

A Modest Defence of Opting Out of State Services

Should you be able to opt out of state services and stop paying for them? That’s the question political commentator Charles Amos tries to answer in this week’s, guest written blog. With taxpayers rarely getting value for money from the services the state provides, Charles examines how and why they should be able to opt out, and how it could improve the services we use.

As Charles writes: “Insofar as they are provided by the state, they are likely to be worse due to the absence of competition, politically expedient underinvestment, and excessive subsidy. Only consider Britain’s formerly nationalised industries. Post privatisation the productivity per worker skyrocketed in Rolls Royce by 74 per cent, in BT by 100 per cent and in British Coal by 341 per cent, showing how dismal their situation was before… allow people within their localities to simply opt out of certain services. It would be easy to have a register of taxpayers who have paid for the local leisure centre, library and lidos and exclude those who aren’t on it. At the national level too, people could opt out of state education, pensions and much of healthcare as well. All of this would discourage politicians from delivering terrible services as people could just leave the state services and have their money back instead.” Have a read of Charles’ fascinating blog in full here.

Non-job of the week

With Britain’s spending problem, cracking down on waste has never been more important. One place we could start is by doing away with jobs like this in the House of Lords. 

On top of a £46,500 salary, the winning candidate to be the next inclusion and diversity manager will enjoy a £13,471 pension contribution with their holiday entitlement rising to 35 days after one year. Nice work if you can get it…

Until next week

Benjamin Elks, Grassroots Development Manager