Tom Frostick: Osborne must target wealth in the Autumn Statement

Tom Frostick is head of press and communications at CentreForum. Follow Centre Forum on Twitter.

This is the third in ConservativeHome's series of posts counting down to the Autumn Statement. Yesterday, Tim Montgomerie said that George Osborne's economic narrative is taking shape. And, earlier today, Peter Hoskin urged Mr Osborne to ditch his current fiscal rules.

Getting rid of unnecessary tax breaks and welfare for the rich is sensible at a time of fiscal consolidation. It will make the tax and benefits system fairer, simpler and more balanced. It will raise substantial revenue for the Treasury. And it will help to convince voters that George Osborne is genuine about us all being “in it together”.

In the build up to the Autumn Statement, there has been a lot of speculation around whether the Conservatives will bite the bullet on “wealth taxes” (a blanket, and arguably not very useful, term) in exchange for Liberal Democrat approval on further welfare cuts. But the conversation behind the scenes is likely to be less polarised. Wholesale rejection of “wealth taxes” by the Tories would be bad politics and depart from what Paul Goodman tells us are Osborne’s intentions.

As our submission to the Autumn Statement demonstrates, asking wealthier individuals to make a sacrifice like everybody else does not necessitate a fully fledged, President Hollande-style wealth tax. Osborne can be more judicious than that.

He can start by taxing universal pensioner benefits. Last week, the Conservative Free Enterprise Group called for free bus passes, free TV licences and winter fuel payments to be withdrawn entirely from the wealthiest pensioner households.

Gill Wyness and Tom Frostick: Why Conservatives should back efforts to tackle information inequalities in higher education

Gill Wyness is an education researcher at CentreForum, the liberal think tank, and LSE. Tom Frostick is head of press and communications at CentreForum

A lot of university students are failing to maximise their talent. In 2009/10, 9,000 of the 56,000 people who got AAB+ at A level went to universities where less than 10% of students achieved such grades. Some of them will have applied to specialist courses offered only at a handful of institutions, but many more will have been overqualified for their courses. They may simply have been unaware that the experience and long term benefits of going to university differs significantly from one institution to the next.

David Willetts wants to get a grip on this problem – information inequalities – by requiring universities to publish Key Information Sets (KIS) on their websites. The idea behind the KIS is spot on: make facts about courses, tuition fees, bursaries, scholarships, accommodation costs and future employment prospects readily available and easy to access. Our concern is that too few people will see this information if it is made available solely through university websites.

CentreForum wants the Government to do more. Child tax credit statements could be adapted to contain personalised information on fee, maintenance loan and grant eligibility for everyone aged 16 to 18. The government knows the relevant household income so can tell parents exactly how much grant and loan their children will get if they go to university. Pupils from non traditional backgrounds can be reassured that university is affordable – if, of course, they are bright enough and hard working enough to get the grades.