Last week the Prime Minister shared his Government’s Plan for Change that detailed the milestones on the way to their five missions. I was relieved to see the move away from the crude focus on growing GDP to a focus on improving people’s living standards. Unless economic growth delivers material benefits for more of us, Starmer’s future and his mission hang in the balance.
At NEF, we know boosting living standards and creating a green economy will not happen without scrapping our arbitrary fiscal rules, borrowing wisely, and taxing the wealthiest. We’ll continue to call on the government to take this action and are working on providing new ideas for how it can improve lives — from land reforms that will help pay for the social homes we need, to a green interest rate to encourage growth in renewables.
Danny Sriskandarajah, chief executive, New Economics Foundation
Building Hope The UK’s dysfunctional land market is one of the key drivers of our broken housing model. A new report outlines how land reforms can help deliver the social homes we need.
Reflections from the Homes for Us Summit Almost 100 activists and campaigners came together for the Homes for Us summit in the autumn — a new blog sets out what they think the priorities should be for the housing movement.
Trapped behind the wheel A major new study from NEF reveals how new housing developments are forcing people to rely on cars — with the trend towards car dependency increasing in every region of the UK outside of London over the last 15 years.
Can BlackRock save the UK economy The government wants to attract investment in the UK economy from asset managers like BlackRock — but what are the consequences of private companies becoming so deeply intertwined with our state and the provision of public services. Ayeisha Thomas-Smith was joined by Daniela Gabor, professor of economics at SOAS, and Aveek Bhattacharya, director of research at the Social Market Foundation, to discuss.
Are oil and gas workers the coalminers of our generation Keir Starmer has promised that the UK will slash its emissions faster than ever before and his government is banning new licences to drill for fossil fuels in the North Sea. With drilling in the North Sea potentially coming to an end, Ayeisha Thomas Smith was joined by Anna Carthy, senior policy researcher at Uplift, and Mika Minio-Paluello, industry and climate lead at the Trades Union Congress, to discuss how we can deliver a fair transition for workers.
You can not run the government like a private company Chaitanya Kumar was on LBC to discuss the government’s plan to have private companies review department spending plans.
They’ve got no chance unless they replace the arbitrary fiscal rules Danny Sriskandarajah was on LBC News to discuss the government’s new milestones and why they need to scrap the fiscal rules to achieve them.
Sickness benefit reforms will get people back to work, vows Labour Tom Pollard was on the Evening Standard podcast and Talk TV as well as quoted in the Times, the Guardian, and the Big Issue on the government’s plans for benefits reform
Ditching fossil fuels will help reduce our energy bills Theo Harris was on the Evening Standard podcast to respond to inflation statistics and explain what they’ve got to do with fossil fuels.
Wealth taxes at the G20 Danny Sriskandarajah was on BBC News from Rio to talk about wealth tax negotiations at the G20 summit. His response was also featured in the Guardian.
Why progressives should oppose Heathrow expansion NEF’s research on the economics of airports was featured in Left Foot Forward.
