The TPA team has recently returned from Manchester where we enjoyed a fascinating series of panel discussions and conversations at Conservative Party Conference. In partnership with the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), ThinkTent was a roaring success with 19 fringe events taking place over 3 days. Notable highlights included discussions with Esther McVey and Sajid Javid. In front of a packed audience the chancellor hinted at tax cuts and even toyed with scrapping inheritance tax (more below).
Long queues were a regular occurrence for our events but if you were unable to attend, recordings are available online. Many thanks to everyone who joined us and made this year's ThinkTent our best ever! We will see you again next year in Birmingham.
Freshers' Fair at Durham University Following the release of the University Rich List (below), the TPA team visited the Durham University Freshers' Fair to speak to students about the report. All were shocked to learn that the vice-chancellor of Durham, Stuart Corbridge, was paid £301,431 in 2017-18.
They were even more surprised when they discovered that at an average Russell Group university (such as Durham), 185 staff were paid more that £100,000 in 2017-18. Ably assisted by my colleagues Ethan Wilkinson and Kieran Neild we handed out hundreds of pieces of TPA literature to students. Get in touch if you'd like the TPA to campaign at your university Burdens on business tour To promote The Bumper Book of Burdens on Business I will be attending business exhibitions across the country. A full list of events can be found below and all are free to attend. Basildon Business Expo North East Expo South West Business Expo
With students recently starting their university terms, we revealed this week that an average of 3,615 staff at British universities were paid over £100,000 each year between 2016 and 2018. 762 staff were remunerated to the tune of over £150,000. Universities are funded by both taxpayers, and from students (including graduates) directly. Due to this mixed form of funding, the university sector is spared the scrutiny usually applied to other institutions. Our report was featured in the Daily Mail, The Times, Daily Telegraph, The Sun and even The Today Programme on Radio 4. Click here to read the report.
These rankings shine a light on the thousands of university administrators taking home very generous pay packets. Taxpayers and students will be left with a degree of uncertainty over whether this is money is being well spent, particularly when left-wing professors are so keen to lecture them about the evils of inequality. Instead of constantly complaining about faculty budget cuts, university bosses must get wage bills under control and focus on providing their students with the very best higher education possible. Let me know your thoughts about the report
Inheritance tax to be scrapped? In his speech to Conservative party conference on Monday, chancellor Sajid Javid announced a raft of new spending pledges. He covered everything from national infrastructure to rural areas, roads and 5G broadband.
In a joint piece for CityAM, the IEA's Mark Littlewood and our very own John O'Connell urged the chancellor that large scale reform of the tax system was badly needed, rather than more spending. They write, "At more than 22,000 pages, or 12 times the size of the King James Bible, the UK tax code is hideously complicated, burdensome, and lacks the trust of the tax-paying public."
The following day in front of a packed house, the chancellor sat down with CityAM editor Christian May to discuss his plans for the future of the British economy. Following a TPA panel discussion on inheritance tax, Mr Javid hinted that he is considering scrapping it, saying: "I shouldn’t say too much now, but I understand the arguments against that tax. I do think that when people have paid taxes already, through work or through investments and capital gains and other taxes, there is a real issue with then asking them, on that income, to pay taxes all over again. The chancellor's comments were picked by many national press outlets and follow extensive campaigning by the TPA. Our recent research paper, The Cost of Death, highlighted that for a homeowner living in London, without a spouse or children to pass assets on to, who purchases a coffin and is cremated, the cost of death could be up to £60,773. Let me know if you want to see inheritance tax scrapped
World Tourism Day and foreign aid The latest in a series of excellent blogs by our policy analyst Jeremy Hutton looks at how British taxpayer funded foreign aid money is spent. Whether you are for foreign aid spending or not you don't expect it to be used to fund the UN World Tourism Office. As Jeremy explains: "Thanks to the rigged foreign aid rules of the OEDC, a small number of giant NGOs and multilateral organisations and agencies can receive what are effectively blank cheques from governments around the world. No matter how these cash injections are spent, the donor can report them as foreign aid. "One such agency in receipt of these blank cheques is the UN World Tourism Office (UNWTO). Operating on a budget of around £18 million per year, nearly £12.5 million of this comes from UN member nations. For every £1 sent to the UNWTO, 89 pence can be reported as foreign aid by the donor."
Whilst tourism can be a great boon to a developing country’s economy, it is surely a misleading betrayal to taxpayers in countries all around the world whose governments contribute to the UNWTO. If you would like to write a guest blog do let me know.
Time to pull the plug
This week we learned that energy firm, Victory Energy, owned by Plymouth City council spent nearly £100,000 on sponsorship deal with Portsmouth Football Club just months before it was lined up for the axe in March 2018. Victory Energy was a disaster from the start, with consultants being paid £474,000 and the chief executive £270,000 in just 17 months. Worse still it seems that the company never launched properly and didn't have a single customer. The company has since been shut down by new council leader Gerald Vernon-Jackson. Our chief executive John O'Connell welcomed the decision: "I applaud the current council leader's decision to close down Victory Energy, but this sponsorship should never have come to pass. Time and again, whenever local authorities and devolved governments set up such firms, they crash and burn. "The cost of a dual-fuel bill is an understandable concern to many households, but in future, politicians should avoid these schemes and stick to their statutory duties." Do let me know of any wasteful government spending in your area.
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