Commentary & Podcasts

Protests against this year's Grand National have drawn sharp attention to the horse racing industry. That the government subsidises the industry by taxing betting profits raises questions about why such a levy isn't in place to use to treat problem gambling.

The Government’s Heat Pump Investment Roadmap is a late addition to the mass of ‘Green Day’ announcements. Whilst the commitment to heat pumps is clear and welcome, the reliance on private investment may be overly optimistic, argues Niamh O Regan.

In this essay, SMF Director James Kirkup reflects on the merits and failures of markets, whilst looking forward towards work we’re doing with Citizens Advice, exploring what we can do when markets don’t deliver the social benefits we expect of them.

Many of those who support fuel duty cuts say they are justified because they give financial help to people who can barely make ends meet. In fact, as Gideon Salutin shows, fuel duty is mostly paid by the better off, meaning cutting it is little more than a tax cut for the rich, often funded by cutting services that are used by the poor.

Police pay in the UK has declined substantially in real terms since 2000, making the police an outlier among similar occupational roles and among public sector workers more widely. If this were to continue, as Shreya Nanda shows, it would mean a further 4 per cent real-terms decline in by 2027.

The SMF hosted a speech and discussion with Marcus Bokkerink, Chair of the CMA, on 28th February 2023. This is the speech in full, on the importance of competition, misconceptions about it, and on the implications for the CMA's work and for policymakers.