State of the Unions: How to restore free association and expression, combat extremism and make student unions effective

The Adam Smith Institute’s latest paper, by students Maximilian Young and Lucky Dube, explain how student unions cost taxpayers and students, lack democratic legitimacy, and undermine freedom of association and expression, and are in serious need of reform:

  • Student unions are student-led groups that are supposed to represent students on campus to university administrations, provide useful services, and support clubs and associations. 

  • Student unions cost taxpayers and students £165 million per annum, an average of £75 per student per annum or £225 over a three year degree course. This is evenly split between taxpayers and students. They employ 600 full-time student sabbatical officers.

  • Student unions are perceived as ineffective by students, lack democratic legitimacy, and undermine freedom of association and expression.

  • This has little to do with money available: student unions that receive higher block grants from universities tend to be poorer performing in the National Student Survey. 

  • Only one-in-ten students actively participate in student union elections. Nevertheless, students are forced to be members of student unions, undermining freedom of association. 

  • Many student unions are using taxpayer and student money to pursue a narrow political agenda that is irrelevant to representing students. These campaigns tend to follow a specific, “social justice,” political agenda focused on tackling alleged “structural oppression” against minority groups. 

  • In pursuit of this agenda, student unions have sought to control student activity, such as stopping students from wearing sombreros, putting on fancy dress, buying Bacardi rum, clapping, whooping and cheering, and eating meat.

  • Student unions have also sought to limit free speech, by limiting or blocking the selling of certain publications, failing to prevent or encouraging violence at meetings, seeking to approve speeches in advance, blocking the formation of free speech societies, imposing meeting rules, barring certain groups from freshers’ fairs, and requiring excessive red tape for speakers of which they disapprove.

  • This agenda has made many students, including Jewish students, Christians, conservatives, and traditional feminists, feel uncomfortable on campus.

  • Student unions also fund the National Union of Students’ (NUS), whose many officers are engaged in full time political campaigns on issues like defunding the police and decolonisation. Just 3% of students elect delegates to NUS, which makes it even less representative than even individual student unions.

  • To address ineffectiveness, extremist activities, and lack of democratic legitimacy, student union system should be reformed by:

    • splitting a student union into social activities, a sports association, and a academic council, elected through a system of class and faculty representatives rather than centrally;

    • limiting funding from university grants to social, recreational and entertainment activities; student societies; sports; and academic representation.

    • making student societies independent from unions and directly supported by universities and members;

    • returning excess funds to students;

    • allowing establishment of broader student representative councils, but with voluntary membership and without compulsory student funding;

    • preventing pass-through funding of student or taxpayer money to national bodies, like the NUS;

    • not allowing student bodies to limit freedom of expression; and

    • strengthening provisions in law to prevent universities from limiting freedom of expression, including by using procedural mechanisms to frustrate freedom of expression or passing along security costs to student societies.


A Ripper Deal: The case for free trade and movement between Australia and the United Kingdom

The Adam Smith Institute’s latest paper, by Australian Senator James Paterson, makes the case for free trade and movement between Australia and the United Kingdom and a broader CANZUK agreement:

  • This is a pivotal time in Britain’s history. The decision to leave the EU allows the UK to redefine its role in the world: to re-emerge as a global champion of free trade and a defender of the rules-based international order. At the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic has shown that not all trading partners are as reliable as long-term friends and allies.

  • Australia will welcome the return of a global Britain. Australia and the UK share unparalleled historical, cultural, legal and familial ties dating back to 1788. These ties have been strengthened through friendly rivalries on the sporting field and shared adversity on the battlefield.

  • There is now an opportunity to strengthen these ties in the short term through a comprehensive free trade agreement that will remove barriers to trade, in the medium term provide the basis for greater economic integration, and in the longer term provide the foundation for an ambitious wider CANZUK agreement involving the commonwealth countries of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK.

  • An Australia-UK free trade agreement will mean cheaper goods for consumers and better market access for producers. It will mean more Australian wine being sold in the UK and an end to the Tim Tam tax. And it will mean reduced non-tariff barriers to trade, which will boost services and digital trade. 

  • The Australia-UK free trade agreement should contain mutual recognition of standards and occupations. This would allow goods to be sold in our respective countries regardless of variations in standards and regulations; and individuals to practice an equivalent occupation without undertaking further testing or acquiring new qualifications.

  • The deal should also include generous provisions to allow Australian and UK citizens to live and work in both countries. This would help revive the tradition of Australians spending a few years in the UK during their 20s – this was once a rite-of-passage, but numbers have plummeted by 73 per cent since 2001. 

  • The UK-Australia relationship should be modelled on the Australia-New Zealand agreements: the Closer Economic Relations (CER) agreement that provides a deep economic relationship through mutual recognition and the Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement (TTTA) that provides the ability to work, live and study across countries.

  • A full TTTA-style agreement may not be possible in the short term. If so, then an Australia-UK agreement should at least grant visa access to people with job offers in line with the E3 visas Australians can access in the United States as a result of the  Australia-United States FTA (AUSFTA). 

  • A CER-style agreement between Australia and the UK would be the perfect foundation, in the longer-term, for a wider agreement between Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK. Strengthening the ties between these countries would create a powerful force for free trade and liberal values across the globe. 

  • CANZUK is incredibly popular: support is highest in New Zealand (82%), followed by Canada (76%) and Australia (72%) followed by the UK (68%).

  • Neither an Australia-UK agreement nor a CANZUK agreement would require the UK to sacrifice its newly reclaimed sovereignty. There would be no ‘ever closer union’, no supranational bureaucracy, and no international courts able to override democratically elected governments. 

  • Further, like the Common Travel Area for Ireland, the UK, and the Channel Islands or TTTA for Australia and New Zealand, relaxation of travel and work rights would be between independent nation states who would retain sovereign control over immigration and border protection.

No to ARPA: How state research spending does not stimulate innovation

The Adam Smith Institute’s latest paper, by Professor Terence Kealey of the University of Buckingham, explains makes the case against a British version of the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA):

  • The UK Government has allocated £800 million to create a British Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) in the March 2020 budget.

  • ARPA was originally established by the US Government in 1958 to fund especially pure, especially unrestricted research.

  • The supporters of ARPA assert it created the modern world by supporting key advancements in semiconductors, personal computing and the internet.

  • But ARPA was found by lawmakers to be a waste of money. The Mansfield amendments repurposed ARPA exclusively for defence applications and renamed it the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in 1972.

  • After the Mansfield amendments, key figures left ARPA to join Xerox PARC, the research and development arm of printer manufacturer Xerox. It was PARC that pioneered the likes of the mouse, laser printer and the Ethernet network. Therefore, the United States’ technological success came after ARPA’s wings were cut and the key staff had left – not because of the organisation.

  • ARPA, along with other state-funded research spending, is justified by claims of a “market failure” in science funding: that private companies under produce “public good” basic science research. 

  • However, basic science is not a “public good,” it is a “contribution good,” and therefore needs no public funding. The history of technological progress since the Industrial Revolution demonstrates that private businesses invest in beneficial innovations without state assistance.

  • State spending on research and development, in both the United States and Britain, does not contribute to innovation or economic growth.

  • The industrialised East Asian countries, such as South Korea, Taiwan and Japan, have achieved substantial economic growth through business-sector led research and development spending.

  • It is a myth that ARPA created the modern world. It is also a myth that state research spending stimulates innovation or economic growth. The UK Government is making a mistake by creating British ARPA.

Medicinal Use of Psilocybin: Reducing restrictions on research and treatment

The Adam Smith Institute, in conjunction with the Conservative Drug Policy Reform Group (CDPRG), has published a new report outlining the medical potential of psilocybin and the need to reduce restrictions on research and treatment written by Dr James Rucker, Dr Jesse Schnall, Dr Daniel D’Hotman, David King, Timmy Davis, and Professor Joanna Neill:

  • Psilocybin is a compound found in over 100 species of fungi. In humans, it induces temporary changes in mood, perception and cognition via activation of serotonin receptors in the brain. It is associated with a low potential for harm relative to other classes of psychoactive drugs: it has very low toxicity, its use is not associated with the development of physical dependence, nor with acquisitive or other crime, and deaths attributed to its abuse are extraordinarily rare. It is listed in Class A of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and in Schedule 1 of the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001. There is overwhelming scientific consensus that the current legal status of psilocybin is not evidence-based, but rather grounded in overstated historical assumptions of harm.

  • Depression is among the most significant social, economic and medical challenges in the UK. It is the greatest contributing factor to suicide, a leading cause of disability, and it costs the economy £10 billion annually. Existing therapies are not adequate for approximately 30% of patients; 1.2 million British residents are estimated to be living with treatment-resistant depression. Since very few advances have been made in the treatment of depression in several decades, there is an urgent need to support research into novel therapies for treatment-resistant cases.

  • Psilocybin is being investigated as a novel therapy for treatment-resistant depression and other difficult-to-manage mental health conditions, including obsessive-compulsive disorder, substance misuse disorders, and end-of-life anxiety. In 2018, the British life sciences company Compass Pathways received FDA ‘Breakthrough Therapy’ designation for psilocybin. Evidence from completed early phase trials indicates that psilocybin can be used safely and feasibly, is well tolerated by patients, and that it is likely to have lasting therapeutic benefits. However, robust evidence on efficacy can only be generated by large-scale phase 3 controlled clinical trials. Compass intend to start phase 3 at UK sites in the near future. These trials will be greatly enabled by rescheduling.

  • Although trials are successfully being undertaken, Schedule 1 regulations are a major barrier, increasing the costs, difficulties and duration of research. Schedule 1 research typically requires multiple Home Office licenses per study, incurring significant administrative costs and delays. Compliance with Schedule 1 safe custody and security regulations add further substantial burdens of cost and time. In practice, these requirements necessitate contracting specialised pharmacies to do what could otherwise be done by hospital pharmacies at trial sites. Additionally, stigma associated with Schedule 1 negatively impacts funding, ethical approval, and collaboration. These barriers, which are well known among the research community and have been recognised in Parliamentary reports for at least twenty years, prevent many studies from taking place and substantially complicate those that do.

  • A scheduling review is undertaken as part of the normal process when a medicinal product achieves market authorisation, but significant savings could be made by moving psilocybin to Schedule 2 prior to the commencement of phase 3 trials. This would have wide-ranging benefits: to legitimate commercial drug development through reduced barriers to research; to the taxpayer through decreased expenditure of Government research grants; and to the NHS and British patients through lower end-costs of treatment and earlier completion of trials. Greater regulatory support for psilocybin research will ensure the UK’s reputation as a global centre of excellence in this area, attract commercial investment and international expertise, and prevent a ‘brain-drain’ of British research and innovation to other jurisdictions. Immediate action will yield the greatest benefits to the UK.

  • In November 2018, a precedent was set for moving controlled drugs (cannabis-based products for medicinal use (CBPM)) from Schedule 1 to Schedule 2 prior to market authorisation as a medicine. At the time, the Home Office wrote: “The rescheduling may lead to increased UK research [...] as these products can be tested more easily.” “This may lead to economic benefits for UK businesses and health benefits to patients if this research leads to new and improved [medicinal products].” “In principle, research is ongoing and could lead to more effective treatment, lower costs, better understanding and management of risks, and improved health and wellbeing, over the medium term.” The current Chief Medical Adviser to the UK Government, Prof Chris Whitty, later stated that moving CBPM to Schedule 2 was “the single most important thing that could be done by Government” to support the development of an evidence base.

  • Likewise, rescheduling would be the most significant and immediate way that Government could support ongoing research with psilocybin. Psilocybin could be rescheduled with statutory limits restricting access to ethically-approved research studies only – unless a product has market authorisation – thus preventing wider prescribing on an unlicensed basis. This would be unprecedented in UK law, but would serve to support scientific development without risking inappropriate prescribing. 

  • The major source of diverted medicinal drugs is by prescription prior to diversion. Moving psilocybin to Schedule 2 for research purposes is unlikely to increase the risk of diversion because the drug is administered to participants under clinical supervision, rather than being prescribed for use in the community. This is in line with ACMD advice that “the risk of diversion and misuse in a research setting is likely to be minimal.”

  • The proposed research-only model of rescheduling would support legitimate scientific and commercial development while maintaining stricter controls on psilocybin than on other controlled drugs associated with greater potential for harm, including diamorphine (heroin), methamphetamine, and cocaine. It would not affect existing legal controls on criminal use or supply. This model may also serve as a basis for future scheduling decisions; there are other Schedule 1 drugs under investigation as treatments for mental health conditions for which there are similar clinical arguments to support rescheduling, albeit with less immediate urgency. 

  • The ongoing ACMD review on barriers to research with Schedule 1 drugs is vital. We also welcome the current work to establish a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for scheduling decisions. However, the primary emphasis of the review on barriers to research is on synthetic cannabinoids and it is currently unclear whether the SOP will be used to review historical scheduling decisions. Since neither report is expected to be published until 2021, nor to directly provide recommendations on psilocybin, there is no known work currently commissioned by the Home Office that addresses the urgent issues identified in this report.

  • We recommend that the Home Office commission a high-priority ACMD review into the access-restricted rescheduling of psilocybin under the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001.



The Urgent Need for NGDP Targeting: Learning from the last crisis

The ASI’s latest paper, by Scott Sumner of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, explains why the UK should adopt an NGDP target for monetary policy:

  • The current economic crisis, caused by the response to Covid-19, has led to a historic drop in economic activity and increase in unemployment.

  • In order to avoid a long-lasting recession, it is necessary to reconsider the
    current monetary policy of targeting inflation.

  • Inflation targeting is dependent on flawed metrics, which are easily biased by non-monetary factors such as supply shocks and sales taxes, which do not
    require a monetary response. During this crisis, it risks excessively tight
    monetary policy.

  • A nominal GDP target can address the dual concerns of macroeconomic
    policy, inflation and jobs, with a single policy target. It would allow for a looser,
    expansionary monetary policy during the current recession and help reduce the impact on jobs and growth in the longer run.

  • Had central banks pursued nominal GDP targeting during 2008, it is quite
    likely that both the financial crisis and the recession would have been much milder. 

  • In order to minimise the damage of the current recession, the Government should provide the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee a remit to:

    • target a nominal GDP growth of around 4% per annum over the coming years;

    • use “level targeting,” which means making up for past undershoots or overshoots — in practice, this would mean compensating for lower nominal GDP growth in 2020 by targeting a higher nominal GDP growth rate in 2021; and

    • have the central bank target market expectations of nominal GDP growth.

Bloody Well Pay Them: The case for Voluntary Remunerated Plasma Collections

The ASI’s latest paper, authored by Georgetown University academic Peter M. Jaworski, explains why blood plasma donors should be remunerated:

  • Blood plasma is used in a wide, and growing, range of life-saving therapies. It is now being trialled to treat Covid-19, including by the United Kingdom’s National Health Service.

  • There are significant global shortages of blood plasma.  Demand is growing at a rate of 6-10% per year. Three-quarters of people do not have access to the appropriate plasma therapy, largely outside of developed countries.

  • Shortages are significantly exacerbated by the World Health Organisation’s policy — adopted by the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and some Canadian provinces — to rely exclusively on Voluntary Non-Remunerated Blood Donations (VNRBD).

  • The United Kingdom imports 100% of its supply of blood plasma, Canada (84%), Australia (52%), and New Zealand (13%). They are increasingly dependent on imports for blood plasma from countries that remunerate donors. This inflates the global blood plasma price, making it unaffordable for low to middle income countries.

  • The United States, which allows remuneration of donors, is responsible for 70% of the global supply of plasma. Together with other countries that permit a form of payment for plasma
    donations  — including Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Czechia  — they account for nearly 90% of the total supply. The dependence on a small number of countries is a serious health security threat. 

  • Non-remunerated donations are estimated to be 2-4 times more expensive than remunerated collections, because of the expense of recruiting and retaining donors, including through marketing. Australia, for example, could save $200 million annually by importing all blood plasma.

  • There are significant global shortages of plasma therapies. The growing global demand cannot be met without remuneration. 

  • The evidence is clear that remunerating individuals for blood plasma donations is safe, would ensure a secure supply of plasma, does not discourage non-remunerated blood donations, and would provide significant patient benefits, including peace of mind. 

  • If the U.S. exits the WHO, should make a review of Voluntary Remunerated Plasma Collections a condition for rejoining.

  • In order to ensure a safe, secure, and sufficient supply of plasma therapies, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand should adopt Voluntary Remunerated Plasma Collections (VRPC): 

  • VRPC means individuals are paid, in cash or in-kind, to give plasma of their own free will. It also means collections using modern deferral and testing techniques, such as deferring higher-risk donors and advanced viral detection tests. 

  • VRPC would allow the Canzuk countries to at the very least become self-sufficient, and potentially contribute to the humanitarian goal of increasing the global supply of blood plasma for low to middle income countries.

Fixing Social Care: New funding, new methods, new partnerships

The ASI’s latest paper, authored by ASI Director Eamonn Butler and adult social care sector expert Paul Saper, argues that that the social care system is broken, unfit for purpose and cannot be fixed by new taxes.

The Problems

The paper identifies a number of challenges in the care system:

  • Covid-19 has focused attention on the crisis in residential and nursing care homes for the elderly, although the crisis in adult social care is deep and has been growing for many years.

  • Alongside care of the elderly, half of local government care spending goes on the needs of people under 65 with physical disabilities, mental health or learning problems. Because of rising longevity, the demand for care in each of these groups has grown 3-4% per annum over this century as parents can no longer look after children all their lives.

  • The adult social care system is a lottery and widely perceived as unfair. 

  • Most care homes with local authority-funded residents are over 20 years old and no longer up to standard.

  • Too many self-funders in care homes receive a raw deal from providers. While they no longer subsidise local authority-funded residents, they are insufficiently protected by the financial regulators. They have no control over future fee increases, and the margins on the ‘hotel’ element of their care that they are required to pay may be as high as 50% or more.

  • Apart from some carers managed by the best care companies, most live-in carers have only basic qualifications and training.

  • Proposals such as raising public care budgets, raising the asset qualification, or making social care free to all will not work on their own. They do not change the fact that the care system itself is dysfunctional, full of perverse incentives, and badly undercapitalised.

  • Meanwhile, families are unwilling to save for something that only one in three will need. And insurance is not viable while the ‘long-tail’ (risk that some individuals may need many years of expensive care) remains.

  • To bring about effective change for the long term, policymakers must find solutions to the structural, incentive and supply problems in the system. 

The solutions

If we want to address the deficiencies in long term care provision, avoid future crises and ensure equitable care for all, we need to accept the following realities and steps:

  • Huge new investment in care homes is needed. This is unlikely to come from public budgets. Therefore, we propose a new mechanism to bring in long term investors, helping create better-quality, better-value partnerships in more up-to-date facilities.

  • Future sustainability and pressures on public funding, now greatly exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, require new ways of enabling those individuals and families who can make greater provision themselves to do so. This could involve insurance or personal care savings accounts and other options.

  • To make insurance viable and affordable to the many, the state should pick up the ‘long-tail’ costs of those needing many years of care. Involving insurers would also put pressure on providers to restructure and deliver better value for money.

  • Older people enjoy a number of dedicated benefits, some starting even before they reach pensionable age. Making public care budgets sustainable will mean older but wealthier people making more of a contribution to their own generation’s care costs.

  • Public funding and long term care budgets should give much higher priority to younger adults with physical disabilities, mental health or learning problems, whose needs have long been under-resourced. 

  • Local authority-funded care at home focuses on price, not quality. It should instead embrace new providers who have developed better delivery technologies, integration with healthcare, and training and recruitment of carers.

  • A more rational and affordable care system will involve disrupting the market, but will deliver better supply, sustainability and fairness in a more functional system. Without a radical overhaul of provision, increases in public funding will not avoid future crises.

Winning the Peace: How to safely unfreeze the economy and unleash British enterprise

The ASI’s latest paper, authored by ASI Deputy Director Matt Kilcoyne and Head of Research Matthew Lesh, explores how to safely unfreeze the economy and unleash British enterprise:

  • The protection of public health in response to Covid-19 is raising extraordinary economic challenges.

  • The Government has tried to “freeze” the economy using the Job Retention Scheme, generous business loans, and various handouts. But freezing the economy is the easy part. Just like we have not mastered the second phase in cryogenics — unfreezing a human — we do not know how to successfully unfreeze an economy. Both are complex systems that cannot simply be turned “on” and “off”.

  • The economic scarring has already begun. Thousands of businesses are shutting down, undermining the productive capacity of the economy. There have already been millions of job losses. Many who lose their job during a recession never find one again. Young people who are trying to enter the workforce could experience long-run lost earnings.

  • Freezing the economy has also had extraordinary fiscal costs: increasing government debt by hundreds of billions. While this was justified to prevent a total economic collapse, it is simply unaffordable for these sorts of measures or this level of state expenditure to be maintained.

  • The Government is now loosening the public health restrictions that have undermined economic activity through a phased plan. The focus must now turn to how to successfully unfreeze the British economy.

  • The next stage of the recovery will require a new approach guided by following principles:

    • Prosperity: The focus must shift from redistributing a shrinking economic pie to expanding the pie by embracing private sector entrepreneurship and innovation, and earned success to get people back to work.

    • Temporariness: Extraordinary emergency measures to “freeze” the economy that undermine long-run prosperity must not be allowed to become permanent.

    • Flexibility: Existing ways of thinking will not suffice, it is necessary to be adaptive to circumstance, pursue industry-specific measures and implement radical policies.

    • Common sense, not micro-management: The state should not seek to micromanage the reopening of the economy, but rather encourage businesses to adapt to new circumstances.

    • Supporting people, not businesses: Support should be broad-based and focused on helping individuals, not on bailouts to politically favoured companies.

    • Accepting failure: The economic structure and businesses must adapt to new circumstances; this will mean accepting some previously viable firms are no longer sustainable.

  • This paper outlines a plan to help reboot the economy in the short to medium term, to “unfreeze” the economy in the least possible damaging way.

  • In practice, this means taking steps to reduce the footprint of the government in the economy, boost employment, reform insolvency arrangements, support hospitality and retail, reduce the tax burden on enterprises, support housing reform, improve accessibility to child care, champion trade and immigration, and back innovative new transport.


Recommendations

Fiscal and temporary measures

  • Abstain from increasing taxes that hamper economic activity

  • Replace the pension triple lock with a double lock to improve intergenerational fairness and the Government’s fiscal position

  • Pursue a phased withdrawal of temporary spending and interventions that undermine prosperity

Employment

  • Phase the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme into Universal Credit to ensure continued incentive to work

  • Suspend 45 day redundancy consultation notice to discourage businesses from beginning to make staff redundant and encourage hiring

  • Exempt microbusinesses from written Covid-19 risk assessments to reduce the red tape burden 

  • Raise the employer’s National Insurance threshold to encourage hiring

  • Defer the introduction of the single employment regulatory body to avoid new costs to hire

Insolvency and liabilities 

  • Fast-track forthcoming insolvency reforms allowing firms to continue to operate while insolvent for a limited period to allow restructuring

  • Introduce a temporary Coronavirus Insolvency Limited Liability Forgiveness Scheme to prevent viable businesses from going bankrupt 

Hospitality and retail

  • Allow the world’s largest beer gardens in public parks during the summer to save our pubs and breweries

  • Fast track approval of drone and robot deliveries for of food, drinks, and shop purchases to support hospitality and retail

  • Waive the license fee for a new pub that establishes on a site of a previous establishment that has become insolvent to encourage business turnover

  • Scrap Sunday trading laws to enable greater social distancing and economic activity

Taxation and investment

  • Abolish the Factory Tax, by allowing for the immediate full write off on capital investments, to encourage business investment

  • Allow companies to bring back revenue from overseas tax-free for 18-24 months to encourage greater investment in the UK

  • Combine enterprise investment schemes and refocus on private capital

  • Scrap the Key Information Document for Investment Trusts to encourage investment 

Housing 

  • Extend Permitted Development Rights to allow for dynamic repurposing of office space to housing, with design codes for amenity and external facade

  • Allow councils to continue charging business rates on property converted from commercial to residential to prevent revenue losses 

  • Provide a temporary suspension of stamp duty to get housing market moving

  • Reduce time in homesale conveyancing to encourage activity

Child care

  • Liberalise staff to child ratios to reduce the cost of childcare 

Trade and immigration

  • Unilaterally approve Covid-19 treatments, vaccines and other goods such as personal protective equipment and testing processes from comparable countries to speed up medical innovation 

  • Provide an automatic extension of visas to immigrants to encourage necessary migration and reduce international travel

  • Instigate amnesty for illegal migrants to encourage proper public health support

  • Unilaterally recognise qualifications and occupational licenses from other developed countries to help fill skills gaps

Transport

  • End the Transport for London fare freeze and increase ticket prices for public transport to discourage unnecessary use of public transport

  • Replace the ‘Congestion Charge’ with a national dynamic road pricing scheme to better manage the flow of people

  • Pursue a liberal approach to e-scooter legislation to encourage social distanced transport

Shifting out of Lockdown: The Four Days On, Ten Days Off Model

The ASI’s latest paper, authored by Imperial College Professor Keith Willison and ASI Head of Research Matthew Lesh, outlines a creative way to phase out the lockdown using a ‘four days on, ten days off’ cyclical strategy:

  • The COVID-19 lockdown was justified for clinical reasons, however it is broadly acknowledged that it is causing substantial economic, educational and social disruption and should be phased out as quickly as is safely possible.

  • The UK has now passed peak infections, but it remains in the danger zone. There is concern that reducing the draconian lockdown measures could cause a second peak that overwhelms the healthcare system and necessitates a more damaging second lockdown. The public is also worried about loosening the lockdown, with many expressing that they would prefer to not return to work or send their children to school.

  • It is now necessary to develop creative solutions that enable people to get back to work while avoiding a second peak of infections. 

  • In order to be effective, these solutions should allow for variation in local circumstances while ensuring broad safety of the public.

  • One such solution that should be considered, along with other measures such as social distancing, ‘track, trace and quarantine,’ and hygiene, is the Weizmann Institute of Science’s ‘Four Days On, Ten Days Off’ cyclic strategy:

    • Populations would be divided into two groups of households. Each group would work or attend school for four days, Monday through Thursday, and then enter a 10 day period off. Each group works or attends school while the other group is off. Individuals in the two groups do not interact with each other.

    • The advantage of this approach is that it would limit social interactions, reduce pressure of public transport and enable greater social distancing in schools and workplaces by halving numbers.

    • Individuals who become symptomatic would be likely to do so during their ‘off’ period, limiting their ability to unintentionally spread the virus.

    • It would immediately allow a large number of people who are not able to work or study to return to 40% employment or education, reducing the impact of the lockdown while keeping people safe.

    • Extensive modelling has found it would maintain R0 below 1, therefore reducing the probability of a second peak. The specific work/off work ratio can be varied in response to observations.

  • If the Government wants to safely reopen the economy while avoiding a surge in infections that overwhelms the healthcare system, they should:

    • avoid excessively prescriptive guidance to business about how to safely operate;

    • allow businesses to develop innovative, sector and company-specific protocols;

    • encourage creative and innovative methods in how to operate such as the ‘Four Days On, Ten Days Off’ ; and

    • trial new approaches, such as the ‘Four Days On, Ten Days Off’ spearheaded by the Weizmann Institute, in the civil service and education sector.


Young hit hardest by lockdown, want tax cuts: A survey of the U.K. population

The Adam Smith Institute commissioned Survation to undertake a nationally representative poll of UK adults to investigate the financial impact of the lockdown, views on developing an economic recovery and lockdown exit plan, and tax policy after the lockdown.

The poll’s findings, analysed in a new report by ASI Deputy Director Matt Kilcoyne and Head of Research Matthew Lesh, found that:

  • There is broad, cross sectional public concern about the economic impact of the lockdown.

    • Nine-in-ten (89%) respondents said they were concerned about the economic impact, compared to just one-in-ten (9%) who are not.

  • A growing number of people are feeling the financial impact of the lockdown. Younger cohorts are more affected than older ones. Londoners are more impacted than the rest of the country.

    • Two-in-five respondents (41%) expressed concern that the lockdown is having a negative personal impact, compared to just over half (52%) who stated that it is having no negative impact. 

    • This reflects an increase over time when compared to other polls, indicating that the economic impact of the crisis is growing over time.

    • Seven-in-ten (70%) of those over-65 report that the lockdown is not having a negative impact on their finances. In contrast, half of those under the age of 54  (49%) report that the lockdown is having a negative financial impact on their finances.

  • There is broad, cross sectional public support for developing an economic recovery plan and lockdown exit plan once medical authorities deem it safe to do so — and there are concerns the Government is not doing enough to develop this plan.

    • Almost nine-in-ten respondents (86%) expressed support for developing an economic recovery and exit plan, compared to just 2% who did not.

    • Conservative voters were the most likely to “strongly support” an economic recovery and exit plan (61%), compared to under half of Labour and Liberal Democrat voters (47%).

    • More people believe that the Government has not done enough (42%) to develop an economic recovery and exit plan compared to those who think the Government has done enough (34%).

  • There is popular support for reducing taxes after the lockdown to help boost the economy and jobs. Younger cohorts are the most supportive of tax cuts after the lockdown.

    • Almost three-quarters of respondents (72%) think that the Government should reduce taxes after the lockdown to try to increase economic growth and jobs, while fewer than one-in-ten (8%) disagree with reducing taxes.

    • Of those aged 18-34, two-in-five (44%) “strongly support” lower taxes after the lockdown, compared to just one-third (33%) of those over the age of 65.

  • These results present the need for greater involvement of economic expertise in the Government’s decision making. 

  • It is recommended that if the Government wants to secure the nation’s economic future they should establish an Economic Advisory Group for Emergencies (EAGE) to advise on the withdrawal of the lockdown and appropriate measures to reboot the economy. This should operate in a similar fashion, with a similar level of regard and in tandem, to the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE).