Why ISAs?

In her Mansion House speech a few days ago, the Chancellor appears to have squashed speculation that cash ISAs may be restricted or abolished. At the same time she called on the ISA industry to promote more risk-taking in order to achieve better returns and thereby increase investment in the UK economy. Unfortunately, her exhortation to ISA providers to encourage buying shares rather than cash deposits reinforces a widespread misconception:  that buying shares in an ISA results in increased investment in the real economy.

So are ISAs little more than a tax avoidance scheme for the better off? In this article I should like briefly to examine the history, development and current size of ISAs, to analyse and question their justification, and suggest what changes should be made in the savings regime. 

More micromanagement of local government

One of the Government's flagship policies is "planning reform".  This is based on the theory that the UK's disappointing economic performance in recent years is partly due to the contraints of what is loosely called "the planning system" (they really mean planning policies).  Whether this theory has any objective validity (beyond the whingeing of the development industry) could be the subject of a separate article, but here I just wish to draw attention to one of the Government's misconceived attempts at reform: the reform of planning committees.  

Here, in contrast to their professed wish to devolve power and responsibility and refrain from micromanaging local councils, the Government is proposing to legislate to mandate the membership, role and training of planning committees.  They have issued a consultation paper on the proposal, but as this deals only with the details and not the principle, I have decided not to respond to the consultation but rather to write directly to the Deputy Prime Minister, who is also Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government.  I don't suppose for one moment that she will see my letter herself, but it is possible that one of her senior civil servants may come across it and be prompted to question whether they really know what they are doing.

This is the letter that I have sent to Angela Rayner: 

How to re-organise local councils in Hampshire

Every few years a government decides it is time to re-organise local government (again).  This is sometimes attempted with the best of intentions (e.g. to reflect changed settlement patterns, to enable better planning, to make it more efficient) and sometimes out of vindictive spite (as when the Thatcher government abolished the GLC and the metropolitan counties). The results of these attempts have been mixed, but they have never slowed the erosion of local government powers, functions and financial independence that has occurred over the last 80 years.

Last December the Government launched a fresh proposal in a White Paper called "English Devolution".  The purpose of this proposal is to "redistribute political, social and economic power" as between central and local government and thus "rewire England and allow everyone
everywhere to realise their full potential." 

Will it be any different this time? Below I have reproduced a paper that I have written in response to to a local consultation by 12 councils in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.