Tag Archives: ippr

The Independent View: Clegg should champion ‘everyday integration’

By Myriam Cherti | Fri 22nd March 2013 - 10:21 am

Nick Clegg’s speech later today will remind us of how crucial an effective immigration policy is to Britain. One of the areas that has been the least developed by previous governments, as well as the Coalition government, is a clear integration policy. Far too often, integration policy has focused on the symbolic notions of identity and much less on the everyday experiences of individuals that might be able to capture better experiences of integration.

Although the UK’s experience of integration is generally positive, outcomes for different groups and in different places across the country are still very mixed. A new …

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Posted in The Independent View | Also tagged integration strategy | 3 Comments

What would a liberal, progressive migration policy for the UK look like?

By Alasdair Murray | Fri 18th January 2013 - 12:51 pm

As the next election begins to loom into view, the issue of immigration continues to pose a challenge for liberal progressives of all political persuasions. A new report published today by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) makes a rich and valuable contribution to this essential debate on the future of British migration policy.

There are few politicians who would disagree with the report’s urgent call to “actively engage with the issue of migration – and the reality of people’s views on it”. The extent to which the political ‘elite’ have avoided talking about immigration has been exaggerated …

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Posted in The Independent View | Also tagged immigration | 16 Comments

Independent View: two cheers for Vince

By Rick Muir | Fri 11th January 2013 - 11:39 am

Landlords and punters across the country should be raising a glass to Vince Cable today after he announced new rules for pub companies (or pubcos) which will help local publicans in these difficult economic times.

His plans include the introduction of an independent adjudicator and a new statutory code for the industry – something I argued for in this IPPR report: Tied Down.

Pubs are an important part of the community – they’re a meeting place for family and friends and host meetings of local clubs and associations, promoting local charities and events. But they’ve faced serious demise with 16 pubs …

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Posted in News and The Independent View | Also tagged featured, pubs and vince cable | 2 Comments

Independent View: What now for housing policy?

By Graeme Cooke | Fri 21st September 2012 - 2:21 pm

As the coalition approaches the halfway point of the Parliament, Liberal Democrats are in search of policies that demonstrate their distinctive contribution to government – especially on the crucial issue of growth. Pre-conference briefing suggests that leading party figures see affordable house building as a leading option. They are right to do so. It would boost demand, create jobs, and meet a pressing social need. The Tories are focused on reforming the planning system, but evidence suggests this is a tough political sell. Efforts to finance house building through clever Treasury wheezes that try to circumvent borrowing constraints have …

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Posted in News and The Independent View | Also tagged housing policy | 3 Comments

Independent View: Housing Benefit reform needs liberal principle of localism

By Graeme Cooke | Fri 20th July 2012 - 10:51 am

The Prime Minister’s recent suggestion that young people under the age of 25 might be barred from receiving Housing Benefit has re-ignited the debate about welfare reform. Talk of a further ‘benefits crackdown’ duly generated the positive headlines that Downing Street strategists were after, while opponents howled in apocalyptic objection to this latest attempt to control the benefits bill. Pretty soon, the political debate moved on, everyone having fulfilled their roles to perfection. Evil Tory bogeymen, tabloid headline writers, charity campaigners all did exactly what we would have expected them to do. Maybe the specific proposal will remerge in future …

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Posted in The Independent View | Also tagged housing benefit | 5 Comments

Housing: the IPPR’s answer

By Mark Pack | Wed 27th June 2012 - 8:25 am

Over the last week I’ve highlighted how the Britain’s love of home ownership is not based on any evidence that high home ownership brings economic success (if anything, the opposite is true), that the proportion of people living in private rented accommodation is on a long-term rise and that changes in property prices in Britain are widening rather than narrowing the huge geographic imbalances. Add to all that the increasing importance that Vince Cable and Nick Clegg, in particular, are giving to the housing market for boosting economic growth, and it is a sector clearly in need of action.

But what action?

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Posted in News | Also tagged featured, housing, land value tax, nick clegg and vince cable | 2 Comments

The True Cost of Energy: why Ed Davey must act

By Reg Platt | Tue 1st May 2012 - 12:22 pm

A poll out yesterday showed that action to address high energy bills is now the top priority for voters, so Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Davey has a political interest in new research on the True Cost of Energy published by IPPR. The report argues that competition in the energy market is not working and that some consumers are paying higher prices as a result.

IPPR has analysed how much it costs energy companies to supply electricity and gas to UK consumers, finding strong evidence that competition in the market is not in good health.

The UK energy market …

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Posted in News and The Independent View | Also tagged ed davey and energy costs | 9 Comments

Labour leaning think-tank IPPR backs Osborne on ‘granny tax’

By George Kendall | Sun 25th March 2012 - 12:55 pm

George Osborne has received support from an unexpected source: the Labour leaning think tank, the IPPR.

In an article entitled ”Why Osborne’s ‘granny tax’ makes sense“, Senior Research Fellow at the IPPR, Kayte Lawton says:

It is right for older people to contribute to deficit reduction…

Older people have been relatively protected from the spending cuts imposed by the coalition. The young have taken the brunt of the pain… Asking older people to contribute to tackling the deficit and shoring up the country’s tax base in the long-term is not unreasonable…

Osborne’s pleas of simplification have not played well, but he is right that age-related allowances add

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged budget, kayte lawton and tax | 22 Comments

IPPR: making the Third Wave of Globalisation work for us all

By Prateek Buch | Fri 27th January 2012 - 12:30 pm

A new report by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), headed by a foreword by Lord Peter Mandleson, takes an in-depth look at the positive and negative impacts of the increased internationalisation of trade – what they characterise as the Third Wave of Globalisation.

IPPR’s Will Straw and Alex Glennie set out how the modern increase in global commerce is distinct from those seen around the Industrial Revolution and World War II that were dominated by the UK and the USA respectively. Today’s growth in global trade is lead by developing economies in the East with a …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged globalisation, industrial strategy and Lord Mandleson | 4 Comments

Labour’s stance on high pay leaves the ball firmly in Vince Cable’s court

By Prateek Buch | Fri 13th January 2012 - 1:30 pm

The appearance of cross-party consensus in politics usually makes me welcoming and wary in equal measure – welcoming as it signals a weakening of the fierce discord between political tribes, wary because the sheen of consensus often betrays a deep underlying suspicion of the ability of any party to take on the challenges they face.

Excessive remuneration appears to be the latest issue on which the three main parties appear to agree – it apparently unites the hitherto unlikely trio of Vince Cable, Ed Miliband and, latterly it seems, David Cameron around the recognition that extremes of …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged chuka umunna, high pay commission, inequality and vince cable | 7 Comments

Opinion: Will fixing the planning system improve the housing supply?

By Alex Marsh | Fri 18th November 2011 - 10:25 am

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Britain has a housing problem. There are problems of shortage and, consequently, access and affordability.

There are three principal mechanisms for dealing with significant housing shortage and indirectly reducing the affordability problems that go with it: (1) You can reduce the number of households needing to be housed; (2) You can increase the number of properties available; and (3) You can improve the utilization of the existing stock of properties.

You can try to do something on all three fronts. A couple of weeks ago LibDemVoice co-editor Mark Pack identified six …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged cbi, Chartered Institute of Housing, housing, Mark Pack, office of fair trading and project merlin | 14 Comments

Housing: six things that could be done

By Mark Pack | Tue 1st November 2011 - 8:46 am

As Tim Leunig pointed out last week, housing plays an important role in most people’s concept of social mobility, a point highlighted in Stephen Gilbert’s piece over the summer recounting his own personal circumstances:

Last year I was probably the only MP to be elected while still living with my parents. Of course, I’d moved out of home and, like many others, had to move back again. It’s a symptom of the fact that housing policy in the UK is in crisis. We have millions of people languishing on social housing waiting lists, first-time-buyers priced out of the market

…

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged council tax, david laws, featured, green investment bank, housing, social housing, social mobility, stephen gilbert and tim leunig | 14 Comments

Opinion: Dr. Balls makes the right diagnosis, offers the same old failed prescriptions

By Prateek Buch | Thu 29th September 2011 - 3:53 pm

Leading commentators on the political economy must have been flattered to hear many of their principles and policies given lip service by Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls this week in his speech to the Labour party conference. Flattered only to be deceived, sadly, as lip service is all he paid; underneath the rhetorical support for a reformed political economy promoted by the likes of Will Hutton, the Institute for Public Policy Research, Ha-Joon Chang and others, Balls’ prescription for the UK economy amounts to little more than tinkering with the same old policy levers that haven’t worked in the past.

Mr. …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged ed balls, george osborne, Ha-Joon Chang and will hutton | 7 Comments

The Independent View: Vince needs to consider his legacy

By Laura Chappell | Thu 25th August 2011 - 10:20 am

Plan A is looking shakier than ever. After a slow climb out of recession, growth is now stalling and unemployment rising again, the approach taken thus far – cutting the deficit, and waiting for a spontaneous boom in the private sector – feels ever more risky, both politically and for our pockets. Vince Cable, who has always looked uneasy with a “plan for growth” that involves little except sitting back with fingers crossed, must feel increasingly unnerved.

And he’s right to be worried. His credibility is on the line and his legacy at BIS is yet to be secured. Now is …

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Posted in The Independent View | Also tagged asian century, chris huhne, department of business, enterprise zones, green investment bank, innovation and skills and vince cable | 21 Comments

The Independent View: Public support action on excessive pay gap

By Kayte Lawton | Thu 9th June 2011 - 2:42 pm

The clamour for action on excessive pay is growing, not least from some of our biggest business names. Sir Stuart Rose, of Marks and Spencer, recently suggested that the gap between CEO pay and the wages of ordinary workers might have got out of control, while the newly appointed President of the CBI, Sir Roger Carr, this week described ‘rewards for failure’ as “unforgivable”.

Yet the idea that very high salaries can be justified as long as they are deserved is called into question by research from the High Pay Commission, which found that executive pay has grown by 7 per cent a year in real terms over the last 10 years, compared to annual average real growth of just 0.8 per cent between 1949 and 1979. Researchers can find no evidence that UK firms have done better over the last 10 years than in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. Nor is there any evidence that senior executives are significantly more mobile than ordinary workers or modern firms more complex to run, as many supporters of the rapid increase in top pay argue.

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Posted in The Independent View | Also tagged boardroom pay and fair pay | 6 Comments

Nick Clegg: “AV gives people more power, more choice”

By Nick Thornsby | Fri 22nd April 2011 - 12:25 pm

Yesterday morning, deputy prime minister Nick Clegg delivered a speech at the Institute for Public Policy Research think tank on political reform, particularly on the need to change the UK’s voting system as part of the ‘new politics’. The speech was trailed on the Voice here.

You can read the text of Nick’s speech below. (We also linked to Nick’s Telegraph piece yesterday here.)

Liberals have been champions of political reform since the formation of our party more than a century and a half ago.
House of Lords reform, party funding, devolution – and of course, reform of the voting

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged av referendum and nick clegg | 15 Comments

Go and see Nick Clegg’s electoral reform speech tomorrow morning

By The Voice | Wed 20th April 2011 - 4:49 pm

Tis the day for tickets for events in London it would seem, as the IPPR have been in touch about a few spaces left for tomorrow’s speech on electoral reform from Nick Clegg:

The Shape of the New Politics
Keynote speech by Rt Hon Nick Clegg MP, Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of the Liberal Democrats

Thursday 21 April 2011, (9.45am for) 10 – 11am
ippr offices, 14 Buckingham St, 4th Floor, London, WC2N 6DF

Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg MP, will give a keynote speech at ippr outlining the case for the Alternative Vote as part …

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Posted in News | Also tagged av referendum, electoral reform and nick clegg | 4 Comments

Switch to AV would not boost BNP

By Nick Thornsby | Fri 15th April 2011 - 5:25 pm

The British National Party has featured surprisingly prominently in the AV campaign so far, since their introduction into the debate by the NO campaign. The BNP are, of course, firmly positioned in the NO camp, not least because they know that they wouldn’t have a hope of winning a Parliamentary election under the system – as their deputy chairman Simon Darby acknowledged to Channel 4′s FactCheck team yesterday.

This comes on the back of a report by the IPPR think tank which analysed the claim of the NO campaign that under AV, second preferences of BNP voters would be decisive …

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Posted in News | Also tagged av referendum, bnp and factcheck | 13 Comments

What the think tanks are saying: The IPPR on “How much is Labour to blame?”

By George Kendall | Wed 9th February 2011 - 4:46 pm

(On 14 January 2011, the IPPR published a paper by Tony Dolphin, Senior Economist and Associate Director for Economic Policy at the IPPR entitled Debts and Deficits: How much is Labour to blame?)

Tony Dolphin makes a key point in his paper, that Labour did not seem to realise how much it was relying on revenues from sources associated with rampant lending, such as the City and the housing market.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t develop this point.

Using the Treasury figures for the budget deficit, between 2007 and 2009, the deficit leapt from £37bn to £123bn. These figures are cyclically adjusted, …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged deficit and thinktanks | 26 Comments

The Independent View: The UK voting system is broken

By Nick Pearce | Tue 4th January 2011 - 6:04 pm

One of the key arguments made by defenders of First Past the Post is that it produces clear outcomes on which strong and stable government is based. New analysis published today by the ippr (Worst of Both worlds: Why First Past the Post no longer works) shows why this claim no longer stacks up. It shows that the last general election result was not an aberration but a reflection of long-term changes in voting patterns across the UK which significantly increase the likelihood of more hung parliaments in the future.

Britain has evolved into a multi-party system, but it still has an electoral …

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Posted in Op-eds and The Independent View | Also tagged av referendum and electoral reform | 6 Comments

Baroness Kate Parminter’s maiden speech

By Kathryn Parminter | Thu 22nd July 2010 - 7:40 pm

In recent weeks, LDV has been bringing its readers copies of our new MPs’ first words in the House of Commons, so that we can read what is being said and respond. You can find all of the speeches in this category with this link. Today’s guest editor Mark Valladares feels that it was only right that the same honour should be offered to new Peers, and today we bring you the words of Baroness Parminter of Godalming.

Baroness Parminter: I add my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, for initiating this debate today. As a new girl, …

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Posted in Parliament | Also tagged acevo, carey oppenheim, equal pay act, equalities, gender balance, godalming, guest editor, house of lords, jobshare, kathryn parminter, lisa harker and maiden | 3 Comments

Nick Clegg on winning people over for deficit reduction

By Stephen Tall | Tue 16th March 2010 - 2:55 pm

Nick Clegg addressed the ippr this morning to set out his approach to the single biggest problem facing all three major political parties in the coming weeks and months: how to keep the support of the British people given the need for huge public spending cuts to tackle the deficit.

We’re re-printing Nick’s speech in full, below, but here are the key points which struck me:

Re-iterating Vince Cable’s five conditions to take account of before cutting public spending: the rate of growth; the level of unemployment; credit conditions; the extent of spare capacity in the economy and the cost of Government borrowing.
A clear statement “that the conditions will be right for cuts from 2011-12, but not before.”
A clear statement of the level of cuts needed: “at some point in the next eight years the government is going to have to stop spending as much as 10% of what it spends today.”
A promise that the Lib Dems will follow the example of Canada’s Liberal Government in the 1990s and undertake “a massive consultation about every last line of public spending”.
A cash limit on public sector pay rises of £400, ensuring that the lower your salary, the higher percentage pay rise you are eligible for.
In addition, Nick sets out once again the party’s four key election campaign pledges: fair taxes, the £2.5bn ‘pupil premium’, a sustainable economy, and a fair political system.

The sharp eyed will notice no mention of “progressive austerity“. Nor indeed does Nick use the term “savage cuts” – though for all the embarrassment and mockery with which that phrase is identified, it’s the reality of what all the parties would have to implement in their own ways if elected to government.

Here’s what Nick said:

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Posted in News | Also tagged nick clegg and spending cuts | 7 Comments

#ldconf podcast: IPPR fringe

By Alex Foster | Wed 23rd September 2009 - 8:01 pm

We were taping ippr‘s fringe with our own Editor at Large Stephen Tall along with some relative political unknowns – Shirley Williams, Menzies Campbell and Charles Clarke.

The ippr did say they were recording the event themselves, and their recording is probably better than ours, but I can’t immediately find it on their website.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:05:06 — 59.6MB)

Posted in Conference and Podcasts | Also tagged bournemouth 2009 conference, charles clarke, fringe, Ming Campbell, mp3, recording, shirley williams and stephen tall | 1 Comment

So, what do we make of #ldconf so far, then?

By Stephen Tall | Tue 22nd September 2009 - 3:53 pm

I’ve just come from speaking at the ippr fringe event, The end of politics as we know it?, alongside Ming Campbell, Shirley Williams and Charles Clarke.

In my introductory remarks, I looked at the two big crises of the last 12 months – the economic crisis of recession, and the political crisis of MPs’ expenses scandals – and their impact on the Lib Dems, with special reference to this week’s conference. I approached the topic as (I hope) a constructively critical friend; harsh but fair was the reaction I was (I guess) looking for. Here’s more or less what I said – see if you think I got the balance right …

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Posted in Conference and Op-eds | Also tagged bournemouth 2009 conference, economy, mps expenses, recession and vince cable | 6 Comments

ippr fringe event: The end of politics as we know it? #ldconf

By Stephen Tall | Tue 22nd September 2009 - 12:25 pm

Over the last few days I’ve been uploading the results from Lib Dem Voice’s members’ survey, completed by c.250 party members – you can catch up on the results published to date by clicking here.

The survey was conducted in association with the Institute of Public Policy Research (ippr) in advance of today’s lunchtime fringe, The end of politics as we know it?. Full details here:

Liberal Democrats Conference: The end of politics as we know it?
22 September 2009 -

13.00-14.00
Dorchester One room, Marriott Highcliff Hotel

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Posted in Conference and LDV Members poll | Also tagged bournemouth 2009 conference and stephen tall | 1 Comment

The Independent View: the ippr on ‘The future of politics itself’ #ldconf

By Carey Oppenheim | Mon 14th September 2009 - 10:55 am

I’m Carey Oppenheim and I’m Co-Director of the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr), the UK’s leading progressive think tank. If you have been to the Liberal Democrat conference before you may have been to one of our events.

The debate dominating the conferences this year is the future of politics itself – ippr is hosting a key event at each of the three main conferences where leading figures will discuss how to renew trust in politics and the crucial issues facing us in the coming general election.

To open up the debate, ippr and Lib Dem Voice are asking party …

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Posted in LDV Members poll, Op-eds and The Independent View | Also tagged bournemouth 2009 conference | 6 Comments

NEW: pre-conference ’09 LDV members’ survey #ldconf

By Stephen Tall | Sat 12th September 2009 - 6:49 pm

In the lead-up to this year’s Lib Dem autumn conference in Bouremouth, Lib Dem Voice is conducting a survey of our Forum for party members on the recent political and economic crises – asking about what you think, and also your perception of how the party has dealt with them.

The survey has been designed jointly with the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr), to tie-in with a conference fringe event on the theme, ‘The end of politics as we know it?‘, (1pm, Tue 22 Sept) with a panel comprising Ming Campbell, Shirley Williams, Charles Clarke and, erm, …

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Posted in LDV Members poll | Also tagged bournemouth 2009 conference | 3 Comments

Campbell: “determined to take fight for a fairer Britain into the mainstream of British politics”

By The Voice | Tue 19th December 2006 - 11:09 am

Menzies Campbell has today delivered a speech to the IPPR entitled “Poverty and opportunity: the Liberal way”.

We reproduce the speech in full below – it’s fairly long and weighty as you’d expect, but worth reading in full rather than skipping to the conclusion, as we’ve done in the blog post title

Some coverage of this speech already here.

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Posted in News | Also tagged Ming Campbell and poverty | 1 Comment

Heads up: Campbell to make keynote poverty speech at 11am

By The Voice | Tue 19th December 2006 - 12:01 am

Menzies Campbell will address the IPPR today outlining Liberal Democrat policy proposals on tackling poverty.

Posted in News | Also tagged Ming Campbell and poverty | Leave a comment

Opinion: Immigration brings more than economic benefits

By Steve Cooke | Mon 18th December 2006 - 7:11 pm

Earth

A report from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) has provided an interesting slant on population movements in Britain. The report’s full of interesting stats, which, if I could be bothered to quote them, would probably bury the point of this post in numbers. The thing that really struck me was there are 5.5 million Brits living abroad. That’s 9.2% of the population and means there are more Britains living abroad than foreigners living in the UK.

Related to those figures is the finding that: “a small but significant minority are finding the settlement experience much more challenging. Often these Britons come up against linguistic and cultural barriers that they have not prepared for, and have, in response, clustered together away from the host society.”

Could it be that many Britains fail to integrate with their host communities? Surely not!

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged immigration | Leave a comment