“There isn’t enough money sloshing around or changing hands fast enough. That’s the conclusion of the IoD about the latest broad money supply figures published by the Bank of England. The growth rate of the MPC’s preferred measure of broad money fell from 7.1 to 3.8 per cent in April. This is well below the 6-9 per cent range thought to be consistent with the inflation target. Consequently the latest money supply figures suggest two things. First, that inflationary pressure will continue to recede over the next year. Secondly, that a further expansion in quantitative easing is likely over the coming months”.

“The ORR is absolutely right to criticise Network Rail’s indefensible failure to meet its punctuality targets. Decent, reliable long distance rail services which arrive on time are vital to businesses in this country, and late-running, disrupted services are holding the economy back. Given the considerable funds contributed by taxpayers and customers, Network Rail has no excuse for providing a service which is anything short of excellent.”

“The IEA report confirms that shale gas has massive potential, and can make a crucial contribution to cheaper and more secure energy. This is confirmation that unconventional gas exploration is safe, provided it is done properly, and that global CO2 emissions are likely to be higher if shale is not developed. The report is a welcome confirmation that the Government is right to allow fracking to go ahead in Britain, subject to strict environmental controls.”

Alex Mitchell, Head of Influencer Relations at the IoD and a member of the Working Group, said:

“This is good news for young entrepreneurs in the UK – there are hundreds of thousands of young people who are raring to set up their own businesses, and this will help them take the first step. It is crucial that it is not just money being provided, but also mentoring from experienced businesspeople to advise the recipients on how best to invest their funds. Done properly, this scheme will provide the first chance to people who may one day be some of Britain’s best-known business leaders.”

“Today’s Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill offers little to satisfy those in search of worthwhile deregulation. The changes to Employment Tribunals are the closest that the Government gets to the red meat of the issue. Disappointingly, the Bill signals another missed opportunity for the Government. In a week where Adrian Beecroft’s report has dominated the news agenda, the gap between government rhetoric and actual deregulation is all too obvious.”

“Businesses need clean, secure and affordable energy, but we’re concerned that the draft Energy Bill may fail to deliver. We need to see a technology-neutral approach adopted as soon as possible, so that the cheapest low-carbon energy sources are prioritised, but the Bill confirms that the Government will try to pick energy winners for at least another decade. We hope that the contracts for difference framework will succeed, but it looks like an overly-complex way of delivering much-needed investment in Britain’s energy infrastructure.”

“These latest figures show that headline and core inflation are heading south. With money supply and wage growth so weak, not to mention the euro crisis, this trend is likely to continue. Those who are worried about inflation are chasing shadows.”

“Radical action is necessary to cut the severe burden of red tape on employers. The current system is so restrictive that it deters companies from hiring new staff, and in extreme cases firms are going under because redundancy procedures take too long. Beecroft’s recommendations are encouraging, and the Government should back him strongly. Less red tape means more jobs.

“What we need to remember is that excessive labour market regulation discriminates against people seeking to enter the workforce. There are a million young unemployed people who are losing out because employment law protects existing employees at their expense. This is one reason why Spain has youth unemployment above 50%”.

• Presents a comprehensive plan for growth, vital to address problems within the current tax system and the double dip recession
  

• Calls for taxes to be simplified and eight taxes to be scrapped entirely

• Calls for a single proportionate income tax at 30 per cent
  

• Detailed plan for radical but realistic reforms that could be implemented by 2020

Click here for the full report

The 2020 Tax Commission is a joint project between the TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA), Britain’s independent grassroots campaign for lower taxes, and the Institute of Directors (IoD), Europe’s largest membership organisation for business leaders. The Commission’s final report calls for radical but realistic reform of our tax system, that is vital to kick start growth. In a 400 page report, published today, the Commission calls for the abolition of eight taxes and the creation of just one – a Single Income Tax. This is the second TPA and IoD collaboration following the agenda-setting How to save £50 billion in 2009. Several recommendations from that report have been implemented by the Government since the 2010 General Election.

The 2020 Tax Commission proposals would result in substantial tax cuts for all households and provide a significant boost to economic growth. For example, a two earner household, with an income of around £28,000 would receive a tax cut of around £3,400.

According to a full analysis of the proposals by the Centre for Economic and Business Research (Cebr), a leading economics consultancy, the changes would increase GDP by 8.4 per cent over 15 years - equivalent to an additional £5,000 per family in 2012-13.

The recommendations of the 2020 Tax Commission are:

• Taxes should be cut to 33 per cent of national income

• Marginal tax rates should not exceed 30 per cent, and the personal allowance should rise to £10,000

• Taxes on capital and labour income disguised as business taxes should be abolished and replaced with a tax on distributed income

• Transaction, wealth and inheritance taxes should be abolished

• Other consumption taxes need to stay for now, but transport taxes should be cut

• Local authorities should raise half of their spending power from local taxes

Click here for the full report

Other highlights from the 2020 Tax Commission’s final report:

• Income Tax and Employees’ and Employers’ National Insurance would be merged into a single tax on labour income, with rates levelled down so that certain groups don’t face higher bills

• Corporation Tax and Capital Gains Tax should be replaced with a single tax on capital income – dividends, interest and rent – at a rate of 30 per cent

• Stamp Duty and Inheritance Tax would be abolished

• A Fuel Duty cut of 5p a litre and the abolition of Air Passenger Duty

• To ensure fair treatment of families with children or a single earner, the proposals would allow part of the Personal Allowance to be transferred within families (a Family Transferable Allowance)

• Cutting the ratio of spending and taxation to 33 per cent of national income would require spending to continue to fall until 2020 at roughly the same pace that it is currently expected to fall until 2015-16

Click here for the full report

Allister Heath, Chairman of the 2020 Tax Commission:
“It is time for Britain to make a vital choice between tweaking the status quo and letting our economy continue to be crippled by complex and punitive taxes, and drastically changing course with a radical but realistic plan for a tax system fit for the 21st Century. The 2020 Tax Commission has set out that plan and would ensure that income is taxed once at a single, much more reasonable, rate. It could create the conditions to establish the UK as a global trading hub, generating renewed prosperity for all those who live and work here. Politicians who are serious about Britain’s future need to take it up.”

Graeme Leach, Commissioner and Director of Policy at the Institute of Directors:
“This is a radical and practical plan for reforming our tax system to make it fairer and better for the economy. Fiddling with the system causes more complexity and has little benefit to growth – this proposal would put a rocket under economic confidence. This is a real opportunity to make life easier for people, get more money on the High Street and give Britain a tax system which is right in principle and works in practice. We need radical action to kickstart the economy, and this is a comprehensive way to do that in one go.”

Matthew Elliott, Commissioner and Chief Executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance:
“Right now the Government’s first priority has to be strong economic growth to create jobs and ease the pressure on families struggling to make ends meet. Tax reform is essential to make that possible. At the same time, the tax system has to be fair, and seen to be fair. Our current complicated tax code where income is too often either taxed repeatedly or not at all doesn’t pass that test. The Single Income Tax is a serious plan for a tax system that can restore Britain’s economic fortunes and leave more of their money in taxpayers’ pockets.”

• Organised by the TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA) and the Institute of Directors (IoD), the 2020 Tax Commission has spent 18 months assessing the economic and moral case for radical tax reform. For more details see here: www.taxpayersalliance.com/2020-tax-commission
• The Institute of Directors (IoD) was founded in 1903 and obtained a Royal Charter in 1906. The IoD is a non-party political organisation with around 38,000 members in the United Kingdom and overseas. Membership includes directors from right across the business spectrum – from media to manufacturing, e-business to the public and voluntary sectors. Members include CEOs of large corporations as well as entrepreneurial directors of start-up companies. Find out more at www.iod.com   
• Established in 2004 and now with 65,000 supporters, the TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA) is Britain’s independent, grassroots campaign for lower taxes and better government. Find out more about the TaxPayers’ Alliance at www.taxpayersalliance.com
• The full 400 page report can be accessed in PDF format here: http://www.iod.com/MainWebSite/Resources/Document/tax_commission_report_2012.pdf

The contributors to the 2020 Tax Commission are:
Chairman: Allister Heath
Commissioners: Andrew Allum, Richard Baron, Kevin Bell, Rosemary Brown,
Mike Denham, Martin Durkin, Matthew Elliott, Anthony J. Evans, David Frost,
Graham Hampson Silk, Graeme Leach, Andrew Lilico, Mark Littlewood,
Douglas McWilliams, Fraser Nelson, Stephan Shakespeare
Chief Economist: David B. Smith
Principal Editor: Matthew Sinclair
Lead researchers: Rory Meakin, John O’Connell
Other contributors: Eamonn Butler, Scott Corfe, Arvid Malm, Tom Packer,
Matt Ridley, Bilal Sambur, Nima Sanandaji, Tino Sanandaji, Corin Taylor,
Tom Welsh
Further details about the commissioners available here: www.2020tax.org/commissioners/

The report, Space – Britain’s New Infrastructure Frontier, studies the scale and breadth of a little-known sector which now supports 85,000 jobs in the UK. The author also investigates the causes of the private sector revolution which has driven Britain’s space sector, and explores the infrastructure and policy needs that would help it to grow even further.

They key findings of the report are:

• The £8 billion UK space sector employs around 25,000 people, supporting a further 60,000 jobs indirectly. It has more than doubled in size over the last decade, and if job growth continues at the 15% rate of the last few years, employment in the sector will reach 100,000 by 2020.

• The UK’s space sector came about largely thanks to unforeseen consequences of Britain’s early adoption of satellite broadcasting, allowing the UK to draw on the skills of overlapping world-class aerospace and defence industries. By contrast, the government has had very little involvement.

• The UK Space Agency receives all of £313 million in public funding – a mere 0.73% of the combined global space agency budget of $65 billion in 2010 – making the space sector one of the least subsidised parts of the UK economy.

• The end of NASA’s Space Shuttle programme is leading to a private sector space revolution, with a host of companies competing to provide space taxi services. Private sector innovation is rapidly lowering the cost of getting cargo into space. SpaceX, for example, already has contracts with NASA worth over $4 billion to launch cargos to the International Space Station and deliver satellites into orbit. Its Falcon 9 vehicle has lowered the cost per kilo to Low Earth Orbit to just over $5,000, compared with between $18,000 and $60,000 for the Space Shuttle.

• A spaceport would be a key piece of infrastructure for the UK’s space sector, operating as a hub for space tourism, research and development. Space tourists are willing to pay $200,000 for a mere three hours in space, and will have considerable disposable income that would help the wider local economy. The private sector could help fund the costs of a spaceport.

• A spaceport would have several requirements, including a long runway and its own undisturbed high altitude air corridor, which narrow down the location options. Lengthening the runway of an RAF base in Scotland or Northern Ireland would be a possibility, while the South West of England could represent an alternative location.

• The UK’s space sector also needs a proper regulatory framework for journeys out of the atmosphere. With no safety, environmental or flight regulations in place for trips into space from the UK, it’s harder for space pioneers to insure and calculate the cost of setting up – and hopefully clustering – upstream companies that build space hardware and downstream firms that offer space-related services in Britain. Options are being examined for regulatory control of UK-based spaceflight, and it is essential that this moves forward as quickly as possible.

To download the full report, click here.

Dan Lewis, author of the report and a Policy Adviser at the Institute of Directors, said:

“The UK space industry is a real success story, overwhelmingly built up by the private sector and creating a large number of highly skilled jobs. We should celebrate how well the space sector has done, and learn the lessons of how its strong growth has been delivered. This is a fantastic base to build on, in terms of skills and turnover, and a spaceport is the logical next step to grow Britain’s space industry even further. It is exciting to think that Britain has an opportunity to be one of the first countries in the world to have a commercial spaceport, making us the centre of a booming new industry.”

This report is the first in a new Infrastructure for Business series of papers by the IoD looking at the key energy, transport and technology infrastructure developments that would help the UK regain competitiveness and encourage a thriving private sector.

The full report is available online here: http://www.iod.com/mainwebsite/resources/document/space-britains-new-infrastructure-frontier-may12.pdf