CentreRight

Good reasons why crime HAS fallen

By Andrew Haldenby, Director of Reform.

The Opposition – and Jonathan and Natalie – clearly can’t accept that crime has fallen.  I wonder why.  The principles of personal responsibility, property rights and good penal policy would suggest that it has.

The crime statistics show the following:

• Crime started falling in 1993, just after that government introduced a much stiffer sentencing regime and the prison population started rising. Since then the prison population has kept rising and crime has kept falling.
• At the same time as crime has been falling, people have been making a much better defence of their property. According to the latest British Crime Survey, for example, 91 per cent of cars now have central locking compared to only only 35 per cent in 1992, and big increases in the use of burglar alarms, deadlocks and window locks as well.

The implication is that England and Wales are safer because of a rising prison population and a better defense of property.  Sounds good to me.  And dare I say, shouldn’t Conservatives expect that to happen?  Or do people think that crime has risen DESPITE a rising prison population and better defense of property?

Not when but how

By Andrew Haldenby of Reform

“When to cut public spending?” is suddenly the question of the moment.  But it’s not the right question, as a Reform seminar led by Hamish McRae of The Independent today discovered.  The real question is “what” and “how”.  The “when” depends on that.  The emergency action that is needed right now – the action that actually is long overdue – is the publication of a credible plan to get the structural deficit down.  The Government’s forthcoming Budget (and / or the Conservative Emergency Budget if that were to happen) is the moment to do that.

The Conservatives have come under pressure over the question of “when”.  Various organisations, including the IFS today, have put pressure on them for their pledge to cut straight away in the new Parliament (in a cautious way).  The FT was particularly dismissive.  Various others, not least the editor of this site, have supported the Conservatives and urged them to go further.

Automatic stabilisers yes; one-off stimulus no

By Andrew Haldenby, Director, Reform.

 

One of the big questions of the moment is whether to cut public spending or whether to push even more fiscal stimulus into the economy.  A useful meeting in Westminster yesterday generated some answers.  A hundred Treasury, Bank of England and Number 10 Downing Street officials, City economists and academics gathered to discuss the output of the World Economy and Finance Programme, comprising the work of many academics led by Professor John Driffill of Birkbeck College.

The most important session for Reform’s work on public spending, and for the big political questions, was that on fiscal policy, introduced by Simon Wren-Lewis of Oxford University and George Alogoskoufis of the Athens University of Economics and Business (and the Minister of Economy and Finance of Greece until January last year).

The academic research was strongly against temporary fiscal stimulus.  The presenters argued that government spending should certainly rise in times of economic slowdown – but this should be achieved through the “automatic stabilisers” i.e. the automatic payments that governments make in hard times, such as extra unemployment benefits.  The great advantage of these is that they fall away of their own accord as growth picks up and unemployment falls.  Both speakers criticised one-off stimuli on the grounds that they may be politically difficult to withdraw.  This supports the finding of previous Reform research.

Criminally expensive

By Daisy Thornton.

The ripples of problems in the economy are starting to hit the public sector. Just as households up and down the country are slimming down their budgets, now more than ever parties of every colour need to think about how they would tighten the purse strings. The Ministry of Justice is reportedly drawing up a £1 billion package of savings aimed at “reducing overheads, removing duplication and increasing efficiencies in order to prioritise frontline services”.

More people now pay 51% direct tax on their earnings

One point that has been overlooked so far is the damaging effects on opportunity for middle earners.  The Chancellor yesterday reduced the higher rate threshold of income tax from £36,000 to £35,400.  Reform’s latest report on social mobility raised the idea of ‘mobility blocks’ – key points in the tax and benefits system that undermine mobility.  The upper rate threshold is one of these blocks.  Adding on National Insurance Contributions, the Chancellor moved thousands more people into the position of paying 51 per cent direct tax on their earnings.

Nick Herbert sets out the Conservative Party's commitment to reform

Nick Herbert gave a clarion call for public sector reform yesterday in a speech to Reform (pdf here).  The following points seemed to me to lay down important markers:

> “Real reform is intrinsically modern and post-bureaucratic.”  This suggests that public sector reform is integral to David Cameron’s Conservative Party.

> Successful reform has four principles: “supply side liberalisation and choice”; “meaningful information provided independently of government”; “clear lines of accountability”; “transfer public spending from subsidising failure to incentivising success”.  This is the real deal for public sector reform.

> As demonstrated in Reform’s April paper Shifting the unequal state, “reform is needed to drive social mobility”.