Adam Smith Institute identifies £90 billion of privatisation possibilities

By Tim Montgomerie

On Friday the Adam Smith Institute published a report calling on David Cameron to sell the government's stakes in the nationalised banks, Royal Mail, Network Rail, BBC Worldwide, Channel 4 and other state assets. The report - by Nigel Hawkins - estimates that £90 billion could be raised.

The privatisation candidates are summarised in the table below (click to enlarge) and there's more in this PDF.

ASI report lists £16bn of non-bank privatisation opportunities

A new Adam Smith Institute report recommends 3% annual cuts in every departmental budget for the life of the parliament. Such cuts would reduce spending by £91 billion by 2015. The report by Nigel Hawkins is titled The Party is Over - A Blueprint for Fiscal Stability. Mr Hawkins, a City economist, backs George Osborne's decision to cut early but questions the decision to ringfence the NHS. It argues that the NHS budget should be cut by 2% every year with a focus on:

• Reducing payroll costs outside nursing;
• Managing hospital bed occupation more effectively;
• Creating greater efficiencies within PCTs;
• Cutting the annual drugs bill;
• Regaining control of the disastrous NHS IT project; and
• Scaling back the hospital-building programme.

Hawkins recommends that Secretaries of State unable to deliver 3% annual cuts should be fired.

The report - PDF here - also identified candidates for privatisation. Hawkins estimates that George Osborne can gather £16bn from non-bank privatisations including £3.8bn from the Royal Mail and £48.5bn from sale of the nationalised banks.

Click on table to enlarge.