Author Archives: Adam Corlett

Adam Corlett

Opinion: “The first £10,000 you earn tax-free”? Not unless we act on National Insurance

By Adam Corlett | Tue 1st November 2011 - 10:55 am

At Conference, Danny Alexander repeated his view that the personal allowance for income tax should be raised beyond £10,000, saying:

In the next Parliament, I want us to go further; our aspiration should be that someone working full time on the minimum wage should pay no income tax at all. An income tax threshold of £12,500 – think what that would do to work incentives, think what it would mean for basic fairness. Let’s put that on the front page of our next manifesto.

The idea certainly seems popular within the party. But remarkably absent from these discussions is any mention of National Insurance. The very first point in our 2010 manifesto was “the first £10,000 you earn tax-free” but, while it later clarified it meant income tax (IT), it’s hard to see why the parallel income tax that is National Insurance (NI) should be treated any differently.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 24 Comments
Adam Corlett

Opinion: Why we need an impact assessment of drugs policy

By Adam Corlett | Fri 17th December 2010 - 2:21 pm

Yesterday, Labour MP and former minister, Bob Ainsworth came out strongly against drugs prohibition. He proposed an “Impact Assessment of the Misuse of Drugs Act”, an “independent, evidence-based review, exploring all policy options” which was welcomed by Lib Dem MP Tom Brake. This is precisely one of the things that the Liberal Democrats for Drug Policy Reform (LDDPR) are calling for and I’d therefore like to give an overview of why an impact assessment is needed and is something that all can support.



1. One has never been done despite strong reasons for concern

Back in 1971, there were no ‘impact …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 13 Comments
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