Environmental quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations (quangos) are a large part of Britain's regulatory and administrative landscape. Operating at arm's length from ministers, they oversee the natural environment, waterways, fisheries, forestry and the marine environment, with their responsibilities spanning nature conservation, environmental enforcement, economic regulation and scientific research. In recent years, their size and influence have grown considerably, reflecting an ongoing expansion of the regulatory state. In September 2025, the chancellor of the exchequer, Rachel Reeves, instructed ministers to reduce the number of green quangos under the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), with a review of arm's length bodies announced amid growing concern about their cost, accountability and impact on economic growth.[1]

Defra is responsible for over 34 arm's length bodies, spanning executive agencies, non-departmental public bodies and advisory committees.[2] These bodies are sustained by significant budgets, with resources allocated to staffing, enforcement, grant-making and scientific activities. Rising expenditure, staff costs and headcounts highlight the scale of their operations. Their costs ultimately fall on taxpayers and consumers, through direct government funding or, in the case of Ofwat, through charges passed on through household water bills.

This note examines the growth of nine major environmental quangos between 2015-16 and 2024-25: Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS), Environment Agency, Forest Research, Forestry Commission, Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC), Marine Management Organisation (MMO), Natural England, Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) and Water Services Regulation Authority (Ofwat). Using figures from the respective annual accounts for each organisation, it tracks changes in income, expenditure, staff numbers and staff costs over the period. The note does not examine the full breadth of Defra's arm's length bodies; in particular, agricultural quangos such as the Rural Payments Agency have not been included.

The period under examination has seen significant legislative and institutional change. The Environment Act 2021 created substantial new duties for several of the bodies examined and established the Office for Environmental Protection as a new independent body to hold government and public bodies to account on their environmental obligations.[3] In July 2025, the government announced further changes to the water regulatory landscape, with Ofwat to be abolished and its functions merged with water functions across the Environment Agency, Natural England and the Drinking Water Inspectorate to form a single new regulator.[4]

Key findings

• The total number of full-time equivalent staff across nine environmental quangos increased by 34 per cent, a nominal increase of 4,912 between 2015-16 and 2024-25.[5] The total number across all nine bodies was 19,196 in 2024-25.
• The combined total income of the nine quangos more than doubled between 2015-16 and 2024-25, rising from £1.5 billion to £3.1 billion, an increase of £1.7 billion or 111 per cent. Over the same period, combined expenditure rose from £1.6 billion to £2.9 billion, an increase of 88 per cent.
• Between 2015-16 and 2024-25, the Environment Agency’s total income rose from £1.2 billion to £2.3 billion, an increase of £1.2 billion. This is the largest cash terms increase among the quangos examined, and a rise of 101 per cent.
• Forest Research had the largest percentage increase in total income between 2015-16 and 2024-25, rising by 248 per cent. In cash terms, income rose from £12.6 million to £43.9 million. Its staff numbers grew by 136 per cent over the same period, from 178 to 420 staff, the largest percentage increase of any body examined in this note.
• The Environment Agency had the largest increase in expenditure in cash terms, increasing by £899 million, or 74 per cent, from £1.2 billion to £2.1 billion between 2015-16 and 2024-25.
• Forest Research had the largest percentage increase in expenditure between 2015-16 and 2024-25, rising by 251 per cent. In cash terms, expenditure rose from £12.7 million to £44.6 million.
• The Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science had the smallest percentage increase in expenditure between 2015-16 and 2024-25, rising by 72 per cent. In cash terms, expenditure rose from £46.6 million to £80.1 million.
• The Environment Agency had the largest increase in staff, with 3,048 employees added between 2015-16 and 2024-25. Staff numbers rose from 10,283 to 13,331, a rise of 30 per cent.
• The Office for Environmental Protection did not exist in 2015-16, having been established under the Environment Act in 2021. By 2024-25 it received £10.4 million in funding from its sponsoring departments and employed 79 members of staff.
• Natural England saw its income fall between 2015-16 and 2020-21 before rising by 198 per cent between 2020-21 and 2024-25, driven by new duties under the Environment Act 2021. Its total income rose from £129.6 million to £319 million over the full period, a 146 per cent increase.
• Ofwat, which funds itself primarily through licence fees on water companies, saw its income rise by 173 per cent from £22.9 million to £62.6 million between 2015-16 and 2024-25, with staff costs rising by 207 per cent over the same period.
• Staff costs across all the bodies examined have grown significantly faster than staff numbers. The Marine Management Organisation added 91 per cent more staff but saw its staff costs rise by 154 per cent; Ofwat more than doubled its headcount but saw staff costs triple in the same period. Across all bodies combined, total staff costs rose from £597 million to over £1 billion between 2015-16 and 2024-25,  an increase of 72 per cent.

[1] Wright, O., Slash number of green quangos, Rachel Reeves tells ministers, The Times, 14 September 2025.

[2] Gov.uk, Departments, agencies and public bodies, www.gov.uk/government/organisations (accessed 18 May 2026).

[3] Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, World-leading Environment Act becomes law, Gov.uk, 10 November 2021, www.gov.uk/government/news/world-leading-environment-act-becomes-law (accessed 18 May 2026).

[4] Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Ofwat to be abolished in biggest overhaul of water since privatisation, Gov.uk, 21 July 2025, www.gov.uk/government/news/ofwat-to-be-abolished-in-biggest-overhaul-of-water-since-privatisation (accessed 18 May 2026).

[5] Staff numbers are presented in full-time equivalent (FTE) throughout this note.

The Financial Services and Markets Bill has been released and is now facing a second reading in the House of Lords. While there are lots of positive dimensions to the bill there are several concerning aspects that will have an impact on the wider economy and on taxpayers. In several key areas, it risks broader discretion for regulators and ministers which could be misused. These issues should be addressed across the parliamentary review stage.

The Financial Ombudsman Service

One of the most important parts of the bill concerns the Financial Ombudsman Service. The bill creates a new mechanism allowing the Financial Ombudsman to refer matters to the FCA where a complaint may have significant implications for markets or where FCA rules are ambiguous. The FCA would then be able to give an opinion, consult panels, seek a court ruling on legal issues, or direct the Ombudsman to pause its determination.

That is a sensible attempt to stop individual complaints becoming de facto regulatory interventions without the actual regulator being involved. But arguably, the bill does not go far enough.

The proposed new test for determining complaints under the compulsory jurisdiction would allow the Financial Ombudsman to uphold a complaint only if, at the time of the disputed act or omission, either the firm failed to comply with an applicable FCA rule or there was no FCA rule applying to the respondent that related to the act or omission. However, the FOS will still have the ability to act where the firm's act or omission was not fair and reasonable in all the circumstances.

The first limb is a constraint. Where a rule exists, the Ombudsman appears to be more tightly tied to whether the firm breached that rule. That is welcome. Firms should not be punished for complying with the rulebook only to discover later that an ombudsman thinks the rulebook was not enough.

But the second limb preserves a problem. Where no relevant FCA rule exists, the Ombudsman can still uphold a complaint on broad fairness grounds. That leaves space for the FOS to continue creating standards through individual determinations rather than simply applying standards set by the regulator. In effect, the FOS remains capable of operating as a quasi-regulator.

That matters because retrospective redress is not a technical concern. Firms need to know the rules they are expected to follow at the time they act. If businesses can be punished later for breaching standards that were not clearly in the rulebook, the result is uncertainty, defensive compliance leading to higher costs for consumers.

The cleaner reform would be to bring the FOS closer to the FCA, or even merge the two functions. The FCA should set the rules. The ombudsman function should resolve disputes where those rules have been breached. It should not operate as a parallel source of regulatory expectations.

That said, the bill does go the majority of the way towards addressing firms’ concerns about the FOS’s expansive role, which has too often left businesses facing costly uncertainty and retrospective judgments outside the clear rulebook.  

The growth objective 

The bill also strengthens reporting around the FCA and PRA’s competitiveness and growth objective. The regulators would have to produce standalone annual reports to the Treasury explaining how they have complied with their duty to advance competitiveness and growth. They must explain how the objective has been embedded in their operations and decision-making, and how rules and guidance advance that objective.

Realistically, the addition of a secondary growth objective is nonsensical. Regulators should regulate and governments should set the level of risk that it wants the regulator to allow for. It puts the regulator in a position where they are being pulled in two directions. 

But that aside, the bill still lacks a central definition of what “growth” means in this context and how success should be measured. 

A regulator can easily argue that more restrictive rules advance growth in the long term by improving stability, consumer confidence or market integrity. Therefore, the duty will not prevent regulators from adding burdens while claiming that those burdens are pro-growth. The danger is that the growth objective becomes another box to tick rather than a brake on over-regulation.

Ring-fencing

The bill also makes changes to the ring-fencing regime. The central effect is to give the Treasury and the PRA more flexibility over which activities are excluded or prohibited for ring-fenced banks.

Bank ring-fencing separates retail banking services, like deposits and payments, from riskier investment banking activities to protect taxpayers and customers if a bank gets into trouble. 

On paper, flexibility is a strong move. The existing regime is too rigid. There should be circumstances where banks should be allowed to carry out activities that would otherwise be excluded. A more adaptable framework could help reduce unnecessary constraints.

But flexibility can cut both ways. The same powers that allow the Treasury or PRA to permit certain activities can also be used to specify further excluded activities, impose prohibitions, attach conditions and require new rules where regulators consider existing provisions insufficient.

That means the practical effect is not necessarily deregulation. It could just as easily become a more regulator-led ring-fencing regime, with the PRA able to tighten restrictions in the name of stability. Should the winds change or there is a change of heart in government, this would leave firms exposed.

This is where the weakness of the growth objective becomes important. If regulators are free to argue that more restrictive rules support growth because they build trust in the system, then a flexible framework does not necessarily reduce burdens. It simply gives regulators more discretion over where burdens fall.

For banks, that uncertainty matters. If the regime is to be reformed, the purpose should be to make the system more proportionate and more conducive to lending and investment. A reform that merely transfers more discretion to regulators will not necessarily deliver that.

Commercial credit data

The bill also expands the commercial credit data sharing scheme. The current framework is focused on designated banks. The bill would replace that with “designated persons”, allowing the Treasury to bring a wider range of organisations into the scheme.

The Treasury would also be able to designate the credit reference agencies that receive information, set conditions for designation, decide what considerations apply, determine the process for designation and revocation, and require publication of the relevant lists.

There is a reasonable policy objective here. Bank lending to British businesses has slumped to its lowest level in almost three decades, with weak growth and tighter regulation squeezing the supply of credit, particularly for smaller firms. Lending by UK banks to non-financial companies fell to 59 per cent of GDP in the third quarter of 2025, the lowest share since 1998, down from around 90 per cent at its 2008 peak.

Better credit data could improve access to finance, especially for smaller firms that do not have long-standing relationships with major banks. If lenders have better information, they may be more willing to lend and challenger lenders may find it easier to compete.

However, this will leave more duties, more data-sharing requirements, more correction processes and more scope for FCA involvement.

The bill allows regulations to require the rectification of information that has been provided, including duties to notify others when information has been corrected. It also allows requirements around specified facilities, services, standards and arrangements for data sharing. That is likely to mean new compliance checks and new administrative costs for those brought within scope.

The burden may not fall evenly. Large banks and credit reference agencies will probably absorb the costs more easily. Smaller providers, fintechs or other newly designated persons may find compliance more difficult. Even small businesses that are not directly regulated may face more requests for information, more scrutiny of credit data and more formal processes for correcting records.

Again, the bill does not specify the full burden on the face of the legislation. It creates the framework for later regulation. That is precisely the problem. Businesses are being asked to support a direction of travel without yet knowing how far the Treasury and FCA will take it.

Better credit data may help address some of the information gaps holding back SME finance, but if the scheme is implemented through new regulatory barriers and compliance costs, it risks working against the bill’s stated purpose. 

Consumer credit and banking access

The bill begins the process of giving the Treasury broad powers over access to banking services.

The access-to-banking provision is obviously interventionist. The Treasury would be able to make regulations in connection with providing access to banking services. Those regulations could confer functions on the FCA, including a power or duty to make rules, and could even amend Acts of Parliament.

In practice, this could become a statutory “reasonable access to banking” regime. Banks could face requirements around branch closures, banking hubs, cash access, in-person services, mobile branches, Post Office provision or alternative arrangements for vulnerable and digitally excluded customers.

There may be a strong consumer case for some of this, especially in rural areas and for those who rely on face-to-face banking. But from a business perspective, it is clearly a route to new obligations. Banks could face more impact assessments, more reporting, more FCA scrutiny and potentially mandatory participation in shared banking infrastructure.

The issue is that already banks are struggling to meet stakeholder expectations which is partially what is driving the bank closure. As the demand dampens due to technology and the costs of running a branch increase, not helped by the minimum wage and employer national insurance increase, the first money saving decision from banks is to shut branches. Simply legislating against these changes doesn't solve the fundamental reason that banks are shutting branches. 

Once again, the bill does not impose all of that directly. It gives ministers and regulators the tools to impose it later.

Conwy council has launched a consultation on the introduction of a holiday tax.

TaxPayers' Alliance analysis has found this could cost the Conwy economy £24 million in lost tourism spending. With 10,000 jobs related to tourism, this would be a devastating blow to the local economy.

Tell Conwy council to stop the holiday tax by submitting to the consultation using the form below.

Anglesey council has launched a consultation on the introduction of a holiday tax.

TaxPayers' Alliance analysis has found this could cost the Anglesey economy £14 million in lost tourism spending. With one in five jobs related to tourism, this would be a devastating blow to the local economy.

Tell Anglesey council to stop the holiday tax by submitting to the consultation using the form below.

The TaxPayers’ Alliance supports, in principle, the decentralisation of tax powers. Done properly, fiscal decentralisation can increase competition between councils, restrain spending, improve services and encourage local solutions. But those powers should sit with local authorities alongside the commensurate responsibilities for spending restraint, not be used to justify the continued proliferation of combined authorities and regional mayoralties demanding further funding from taxpayers.

In an ideal system, councils would have greater control over genuinely local taxes and the ability to raise revenue from and for local services, accompanied by commensurate reductions in national taxation. Devolution should mean shifting power closer to taxpayers, not layering new taxes on top of existing ones.

Done badly, devolution will achieve the opposite result. Rather than creating a more accountable and competitive local tax system, devolving new tax powers without proper safeguards could allow local politicians to impose additional levies with limited scrutiny and weak accountability. And when the economic effects of these additional charges become clear - such as damage to local tourism - local authorities will then expect the central government to shield them from the consequences of fiscal devolution.

Taxes such as an Overnight Visitor Levy (OVL) are a likely example of this, by damaging tourism, increasing costs for families and businesses, and adding yet another burden to an already overtaxed economy.

The call for evidence for the Timms review of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) has now closed, and the usual suspects have been busy filling DWP’s inbox. The rhetoric is entirely predictable: the current system, despite being one of the most generous in the world, is not generous enough. Spending on disability benefits, despite having tripled in real terms since 2008, has supposedly been ravaged by austerity. With reforms to PIP being “co-produced” with disability groups, it is worth looking at exactly what their demands are. 

This edition of a closer look examines the “Additional Costs Disability Payment” (ACDP) proposal by the Commission on Social Security, which has been endorsed by Disability Rights UK in their submission to the Timms review as an alternative to PIP. It is hardly surprising that this involves more spending, but some of the suggestions will make readers wonder if the authors understand that someone ultimately has to pay for all of it. 

The honour system 

Perhaps the most egregious part of the proposal is to base PIP on the honour system. Instead of assessors verifying the claims of applicants, they want to turn the assessment process into an “open-ended”, “collaborative discussion” (DR UK response page 8, page 3).

Every assessment would involve three parties: the applicant, a government representative and “someone who has lived or professional expertise in disability” (DR UK response page 9). In other words, a representative from the disability sector. Leaving aside the massive expansion in the role of disability groups this would entail, readers will notice that the system is clearly designed to ensure the government representative is outvoted at every turn. 

Applicants would not even need a health condition. Experiencing physical or mental distress would be enough, with eligibility explicitly not tied to a medical diagnosis (ACDP proposal, page 8) as some conditions remain “poorly understood” (DR UK response, page 11). Instead, principal evidence would be “an applicant’s own account of their life” with other relevant evidence including “testimony from a friend or family member” (DR UK response, page 8). 

Crucially, claims are to be accepted by default, with the burden of proof on the government if it wants to reject them (DR UK response, page 11). As if this was not enough, the government would also have to take into account that “distress or impairment can make an individual’s experience of the barriers and additional costs they face difficult to understand or articulate” (ACDP proposal, page 11), and would not be able to reject claims because of so-called “minor inconsistencies” (DR UK response, page 12). 

This completely inverts the relationship between applicants and taxpayers. Essentially, applicants would have to provide zero independent evidence, would not have to be consistent or even articulate the costs they face in order to have their claims accepted, with the government expected to engage in costly investigations to prove them wrong. 

As the proposal itself notes, “it is anticipated that very few ACDP claims would reach the Social Security (Benefits) Tribunal” (ACDP proposal, page 13). Hardly surprising when the approach is just to approve every claim, no questions asked. 

Reassessments only upon request  

Not only will applicants' claims be accepted by default, they will be able to stay on the benefit indefinitely. Reassessments would only take place if a claimant requests it (ACDP proposal, page 12). Once again, taxpayers will be relying on the honour system to ensure people come forward when their circumstances change. 

Of course, even when someone comes forward and is assessed to no longer meet the already loose criteria, that does not mean the benefit ends. As long as they are even slightly worse off as a result of losing the benefit, they will retain it. And even when there is zero impact on a claimant’s health, such as when their condition is completely resolved, reduction would still be gradual and tapered (ACDP proposal, page 12). Taxpayers will quite literally be expected to pay for non-existent issues. 

More quangos

Taxpayers’ money will not just be handed over to claimants. Disability groups too will get their share. In addition to setting up a “National Independent Advocacy Service”, made up of the very same groups pushing this agenda (ACDP proposal, page 7), the proposal also calls for the establishment of “a national body to research the additional costs disabled people face, including those related to intersectional issues and systemic discrimination”, which would inform the varying levels of payment people would receive (ACDP proposal, page 5). 

This will likely mean how much disabled people receive will depend on factors like their ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation. An actual two-tier benefit system. 

As if the deck is not stacked enough against the taxpayers, everyone involved in the process must have “a good understanding of the social model of disability, the impact of intersectional issues and systemic discrimination” (ACDP proposal, page 11). No prizes for guessing which groups will be contracted to deliver this training.  

A trivial solution 

Far from being a groundbreaking policy reform, the ACDP proposal is astonishingly simplistic. Handing out cash to anyone who asks for it is a lazy solution that requires zero policy imagination. In fact, the only impressive thing about the plan is that it seems purpose-built to eliminate any semblance of scrutiny or fiscal control. But these guardrails do not exist for their own sake; they exist because public money is finite. Without rigorous checks, it is impossible to prioritise support for those who genuinely need it, leaving taxpayers to fund an open-ended liability.

Politicians must ensure that co-production does not turn into capture. If reform is not based in fiscal reality, then the system will inevitably collapse regardless of how generously it is initially set. The TaxPayers’ Alliance submission to the Timms review, by contrast, puts forward common sense proposals to fix a benefit that does not currently work for taxpayers. Read it in full here. 

Prevent spends £36 million a year, but the TaxPayers’ Alliance’s latest research raises serious questions about whether taxpayers can properly see where that money goes. Freedom of information requests that once exposed detailed Prevent spending are now routinely blocked, with councils and the Home Office citing national security and other exemptions even for basic financial breakdowns.

Podcast host Duncan Barkes is joined by the TPA’s Anne Strickland and John O'Connell to discuss Prevent’s growing transparency problem, why independent reviews have raised concerns about oversight and value for money, and whether a programme designed to stop terrorism has drifted into a wider safeguarding system.

Mergers and acquisitions are among the most foundational and valuable financial tools available to businesses. Built on the simple logic that combining assets creates more value than the sum of the involved parts, M&As also have the benefit of being able to streamline the more bureaucratic processes of businesses, such as HR and payroll. 

As we say quite often at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, the public sector has a lot to learn from the private sector and mergers between quangos may seem like an obvious area to increase efficiency, especially when many perform duplicative functions already. In practice though, the issue becomes far more complex.

As a case study, take the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Payment Systems Regulator (PSR). The PSR is currently an independent subsidiary of the FCA, but is currently in the process of being consolidated into the FCA. 

Both the FCA and PSR are charged with ‘preventing and tackling financial crime’, a worthwhile and necessary function, but a duplicated one. The consolidation of the two will likely lead to a more effective regulator on the other side of it.

However,it is in some of their other functions that the real quangocracy problem emerges. Both the FCA and PSR are also responsible for ‘competition enforcement’. Since the birth of civilisation, competition in markets has been caused by similar businesses seeking the same customers, not by regulators demanding it. For this particular function, a merger may bring some streamlining behind the scenes, but the general negative impacts on businesses will remain unchanged.

When the government announces a ‘bonfire of the quangos’, the immediate reflex is to applaud. Taxpayers are rightfully exhausted by the sheer volume of acronym-heavy agencies draining their money. However, taking two sprawling, over-mighty regulatory bodies and stuffing them under a single roof does not necessarily shrink the state. In many cases, it simply builds a bigger bureaucracy.

If we consolidate two agencies without actively stripping away their statutory powers, we risk creating unaccountable super-quangos. A newly merged regulator might save a few hundred thousand pounds on office space and shared IT systems, but it will retain all of the bloated mandates that allowed it to interfere in the free market in the first place. The underlying problem with the modern quango state is not merely that there are too many of them; it is that they are permitted to do far too much.

Consider the economic realities facing British businesses today. Entrepreneurs and established firms alike are drowning in a sea of red tape. The true cost of the quangocracy is not just money used to fund their vast headquarters, but the hidden ‘regulatory tax’ forced upon the private sector.

When agencies like the FCA or the PSR stretch their tentacles beyond stopping actual crime and begin attempting to socially engineer market competition, businesses pay the ultimate price. Instead of investing capital into research, development, or hiring new staff, companies are forced to redirect millions of pounds into massive compliance departments. They have to hire armies of lawyers and risk officers simply to navigate the ever-shifting, vaguely defined rules handed down by unelected officials.

Merging regulators might make the government's organisational chart look cleaner, but if that merged entity continues to bombard businesses with the exact same volume of overreaching directives, the burden on the economy remains entirely unchanged. A streamlined bureaucracy that still aggressively micromanages the private sector is not a victory for taxpayers. Instead, all that has been created is a more efficient engine for stagnation.

If the public sector truly wants to learn from the private sector's use of mergers and acquisitions, ministers need to understand the corporate concept of divestment. When a smart corporation acquires another business, it ruthlessly axes the divisions that fail to add value to the bottom line. 

The government must take a similarly ruthless approach to statutory mandates. When quangos are merged, their foundational legislation must be subjected to an exhaustive audit: only core functions remain, and any mission creep is axed. 

Britain's economic growth depends on unleashing the private sector, not perpetually managing it from Whitehall. The consolidation of agencies like the PSR into the FCA is a step in the right direction administratively, but it remains a half-measure.

True reform requires Parliament to reclaim its authority. Unelected regulators must be returned to their original, narrow purposes: enforcing the law, preventing egregious harm, and then getting out of the way. Until the government is willing to take an axe to the legislation that empowers these bodies, any announced merger will be little more than window dressing. 

We often mistake a reduction in bureaucrats for a reduction in bureaucracy. But for the small business owner and the average taxpayer, the weight of the state isn't measured by the number of inspectors but by the compliance burden. To truly unleash economic potential, we must look beyond the headcount of the regulators and boldly dismantle the regulations and regulators themselves.

Principles behind the Timms Review

The TaxPayers’ Alliance agrees that PIP must be fair and fit for the future. This means it must be fair to both those that claim it and the taxpayers that pay for it. Unfortunately, the massive increase in spending on this benefit and high-profile examples of abuse have led to a significant decline in public trust. Too often, commitments have been made and entitlements handed out without any idea of how to pay for them. Britain already has one of the most generous disability support systems internationally.[1] Yet this is no longer sustainable given the ever-increasing number of claimants.

For this reason, this Review is wrong to start from the position of refusing to “generate proposals for further savings”, including insisting on retaining “non-means-tested support for people in and out of work”.[2] Such an approach avoids making hard choices and merely kicks the can down the road. 

The TaxPayers’ Alliance believes that the current welfare system, including PIP, places an unaffordable burden on working taxpayers. Ignoring this painful truth is a critical mistake and, sadly, reflects the political choices behind this Review. Nonetheless, this submission offers an assessment of PIP and proposals for improving the sustainability of the benefit, notwithstanding the misguided principles mentioned above. 

[1] Department for Work & Pensions, International Comparisons of Disability Benefits and Disability Employment, 26 February 2026, www.gov.uk/government/publications/international-comparisons-of-disability-benefits-and-disability-employment/international-comparisons-of-disability-benefits-and-disability-employment (accessed 28 May 2026).

[2] Department for Work & Pensions, Timms Review of Personal Independence Payment: Terms of Reference, 30 October 2025, www.gov.uk/government/publications/timms-review-of-pip-terms-of-reference/timms-review-of-personal-independence-payment-terms-of-reference (accessed 28 May 2026).

Our latest analysis shows that the overnight visitors levy could cause the UK economy to lose over £13billion and result in a loss of 42million domestic overnight visits.

Based on figures published by VisitBritain, a reduction in tourists in accordance with the surveys would cost the UK between £6 billion and £13 billion.

 - In 2024, there were 107.9 million domestic overnight tourists who spent over £33.4 billion.

- If the government introduced any form of visitors tax, it could lead to a £6 billion loss to the UK economy. This is a drop of almost 19.5 million domestic overnight visits.

- If the UK visitor tax is set at £5, it could cause the UK economy to lose over £9 billion and result in a loss of 30 million domestic overnight visits.

- If the UK visitor tax is set at £10, this could cause the UK economy to lose over £13 billion and result in a loss of 42 million domestic overnight visits.

Read the full story

Keir Starmer is planning a new tax to hit holidays - and there’s outrage

The Government’s plan to allow mayors to levy tourism taxes could devastate the holiday industry and cost the economy billions

Daily ExpressDavid Williamson

The Prevent strategy represents one of the UK’s core branches of counter-terrorism with £36 million in annual expenditure.[1] Yet after two decades of operation, it remains largely unclear how these funds are being spent and whether it delivers value for money. When the TaxPayers’ Alliance last examined Prevent in 2009, detailed funding breakdowns and recipient information were available through freedom of information (FOI) requests to local authorities, enabling proper scrutiny of public expenditure. That note revealed that over £12 million was distributed to community groups with insufficient monitoring of how it was spent between 2006-07 and 2008-09, including £850,000 to Muslim Council of Britain affiliates, an organisation that the government subsequently designated as a ‘non-engagement’ group due to previous leaders taking positions that contradict fundamental British values.[2]^,[3] Now, the Home Office and local authorities routinely refuse FOI requests on national security and commercial sensitivity grounds, preventing taxpayers from understanding where public funds are allocated annually. Without the transparency that exposed these allocations in 2009, there is no way to verify whether public money continues to support organisations whose views run counter to Prevent's objectives.

Multiple independent reviews have identified serious concerns about Prevent's value for money. The 2023 Shawcross review found that “millions” in public funds have been allocated to external consulting firms providing “demonstrably ineffective” services with poor due diligence, sometimes resulting in public money supporting groups whose views “run against Prevent’s objectives”.[4] Meanwhile, evidence suggests significant mission creep as Prevent evolves from a targeted counter-terrorism programme into a general safeguarding mechanism. A 2026 home affairs committee report warned that Prevent “is outdated and inadequately prepared to deal with modern extremism challenges in the digital world” with it increasingly “having to support those with no ideological motivation”.[5] Most referrals are not adopted into Channel, the multi-agency intervention programme that provides voluntary support to those assessed as genuinely at risk of radicalisation following Prevent referral. Non-ideological referrals now dominate the programme, and cases involving Islamist extremism have declined dramatically, in spite of the fact that MI5’s counter-terrorism caseload remains focused on ideological threats with approximately 75 per cent of their investigations with Counter Terrorism Policing relating to Islamist terrorism.[6] This means counter-terrorism resources and the legitimate opacity justified by national security concerns now apply primarily to general safeguarding cases involving vulnerable young people with complex needs but no terrorism risk. When practitioners spend time assessing individuals with no ideological component or terrorism risk, fewer resources are available for addressing genuine counter-terrorism cases.

Recent attacks have highlighted why the UK needs a focused counter-terrorism programme rather than one diluted by mission creep. The July 2024 Southport attacker had been referred to Prevent three times yet still carried out the attack, while the October 2025 Manchester synagogue terrorist had never been referred to Prevent.[7]^,[8] These cases underscore the vital importance of effective counter-terrorism work. Current opacity, however, prevents any meaningful assessment of Prevent's ability to intervene before radicalisation leads to violence or whether mission creep has turned a counter-terrorism programme into an unfocused safeguarding triage system.

This note demonstrates that the Prevent strategy suffers from three critical failures that undermine value for taxpayers: inadequate transparency, resource misallocation and confusion over its fundamental purpose.

[1] Simmonds, D., Counter-terrorism and Radicalism: Finance, UK Parliament, 4 December 2025, questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2025-10-28/85943 (accessed 14 January 2026).

[2] The TaxPayers’ Alliance, Council Spending Uncovered II; No.5: The Prevent Strategy, 2009, p. 1.

[3] Timms, S., Muslim Council of Britain, UK Parliament, 29 February 2024, questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2024-02-26/15545/ (accessed 17 November 2025).

[4] Shawcross, W., Independent Review of Prevent, 2023, p.111.

[5] Home Affairs Committee, Prevent referral mechanism unprepared to deal with reality of modern extremism – Home Affairs Committee warns, UK Parliament, 1 April 2026, committees.parliament.uk/committee/83/home-affairs-committee/news/212957/prevent-referral-mechanism-unprepared-to-deal-with-reality-of-modern-extremism-home-affairs-committee-warns/ (accessed 2 April 2026).

[6] Counter Terrorism Policing, Counter Terrorism Policing: Our mission factsheet, 12 February 2025, www.counterterrorism.police.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/CTP-Our-Mission-Factsheet-February-2025.pdf (accessed 25 February 2026).

[7] Home Office, Post-Southport review into Prevent and Axel Rudakubana: terms of reference, Gov.uk, 2 June 2025, www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent-prevent-commissioner-terms-of-reference/post-southport-review-into-prevent-and-axel-rudakubana-terms-of-reference (accessed 7 November 2025).

[8] Counter Terrorism Policing, Update 14:31 4 December 2025 | Manchester Attack, 4 December 2025, www.counterterrorism.police.uk/manchester-attack-2025/ (accessed 15 January 2026).

Britain has sleepwalked into a youth unemployment crisis.

New figures from Alan Milburn’s report on youth unemployment show that more than one million young people are now not in education, employment or training (NEET), the highest level in more than a decade. One in seven young people is effectively disconnected from both work and education, while almost six in ten have never had a job at all.

For decades, Britain operated on a simple social contract. Young people were told that if they worked hard, gained qualifications and played by the rules, opportunities would follow. A first job would lead to experience. Experience would lead to higher earnings. Each generation would build on the success of the last. But today that contract is now broken.

The most striking finding from Milburn’s review is that this is not a generation that has given up. Eighty-four per cent of NEETs say they want a job or training opportunity. Many are applying for dozens, sometimes hundreds, of vacancies without success.

The tragedy is that the jobs they would once have relied upon to get a foot on the ladder are disappearing.

Over the past two decades, Britain has lost around 1.6 million lower and mid-skilled jobs. Hospitality vacancies have halved in just four years. The proportion of 16 and 17 year olds in paid work has collapsed from 35 per cent in 2006 to just 19 per cent today.

The shops, pubs, restaurants and small businesses that once gave young people their first taste of work are under relentless pressure from rising taxes, higher employment costs and a stagnant economy. At the same time, successive governments have steadily increased the cost and risk of hiring staff through higher national insurance contributions, rising wage costs and growing regulation. When businesses are forced to make difficult decisions, it is often inexperienced workers who lose out first.

Also mass migration has had a direct negative impact on the prospects of young people. According to the Centre for Social Justice, since January 2020, the number of non-EU workers aged under 25 on UK payrolls has risen by 290,000. Over the same period, the number of young British workers has increased by just 11,000. That means there have been 27 young non-EU workers added to payrolls for every additional young Brit.

Worse still is that the cost of this failure is staggering. Milburn's review estimates youth inactivity costs the economy £125 billion every year through lost productivity, lower tax revenues, higher welfare spending and the long-term scarring effect that follows young people throughout their working lives.Every young person who never enters the workforce is someone less likely to pay taxes, more likely to rely on state support and less able to contribute to economic growth. At a time when Britain is already burdened by weak growth, rising debt and annual debt interest costs of more than £100 billion, this is the last thing the country needs.

The welfare implications are equally alarming. The number of 16 to 24-year-olds receiving Personal Independence Payment or Disability Living Allowance has doubled from around 200,000 in 2012 to more than 400,000 today. Current projections suggest that figure could reach 700,000 by the early 2030s.

Nearly half of all PIP claims among young people are now for autism and ADHD, compared to fewer than one in ten claims across the wider claimant population.

Most concerning of all, once many young people enter the welfare system they rarely leave it. Seven in ten young people claiming a health or disability benefit are still claiming ten years later. More than half of those who first claim between the ages of 16 and 24 remain out of work five years later. So once they get on welfare, they are likely to stay on welfare at a time when they should be building their lives.A country cannot prosper when over a million young people are sitting on the sidelines. It cannot sustain an ever-expanding welfare state when fewer young people are entering work. And it cannot expect taxpayers to shoulder an ever-greater burden while another generation struggles to find its place in the economy.

For too many young people, the future is no longer something to look forward to but is something to worry about. And I don’t blame them, because it is successive governments that have failed them and failed to create and enable the conditions for them to prosper.

Labour-backed holiday taxes could leave families paying hundreds of pounds more for a UK break, piling yet another burden onto households already squeezed by the cost of living. And after Rachel Reeves’ tax raids on pubs, hotels and hospitality businesses, many are asking: why does Labour seem so determined to hammer Britain’s hospitality and tourism industries?

Podcast host Duncan Barkes is joined by the TPA’s Benjamin Elks and UKHospitality chief executive Allen Simpson to discuss how a holiday tax could damage staycations, hit local economies and pile pressure onto an industry already under strain. They also explore Labour’s wider war on hospitality and what businesses and holidaymakers can do to fight back.

Responding to resident doctors announcing new strike action, John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said:

“Taxpayers will be livid that resident doctors are walking out for the 16th time in three years. 

“After multiple inflation-busting pay rises and record NHS funding, the BMA is still demanding more despite being offered a deal that would have seen some of them earn six figures.

“The new health secretary must stand firm and not allow the NHS to be held hostage by union militancy."  

TPA spokespeople are available for live and pre-recorded broadcast interviews via 07795 084 113 (no texts)

Media contact:

William Yarwood
Campaigns Director, TaxPayers' Alliance
william.yarwood@taxpayersalliance.com
24-hour media hotline: 07795 084 113 (no texts)

Notes to editors:

1. Founded in 2004 by Matthew Elliott and Andrew Allum, the TaxPayers' Alliance (TPA) campaigns to reform taxes and public services, cut waste and speak up for British taxpayers. Find out more at www.taxpayersalliance.com.
2. TaxPayers' Alliance's research council.
3. The TaxPayers’ Alliance has previously done analysis which revealed that the BMA have selectively chosen 2008-09 as a baseline, which ignores real terms pay rises prior to that year.

Energy quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations (quangos) are a significant part of Britain’s regulatory and administrative landscape. Operating at arm’s length from ministers, they influence large parts of the energy sector, with responsibilities spanning regulation, climate policy, market administration and the management of the transition to net zero.  This reach extends across the energy supply chain, affecting producers, network operators, businesses and household consumers alike. As the government continues its drive towards the 2050 net zero target, the size and influence of these bodies is likely to expand further.

Recent policy decisions have reinforced this trend. The establishment of Great British Energy through the Great British Energy Act 2025 marked a substantial increase in state involvement in the energy market. Great British Energy is a publicly owned energy company tasked with accelerating the deployment of clean energy generation and supporting industries linked to energy transition.[1] Its creation reflects a broader shift towards greater use of quangos to direct investment, administer schemes and shape strategic decisions across the energy sector, with the King’s Speech 2026 announcing a new energy quango, as well as more powers and additional responsibilities for existing bodies causing additional costs to taxpayers.[2]

These organisations are sustained by substantial budgets and staffing resources, with their activities funded either directly or indirectly by taxpayers and consumers. Rising expenditure, staff costs and headcounts illustrate the growing scale of their operations, while their expanding remit highlights the increasing role they play in delivering government policy objectives. Despite their influence, these bodies operate with limited direct public accountability.

This note examines four major energy quangos between 2015-16 and 2024-25, including the Climate Change Committee, Low Carbon Contracts Company, North Sea Transition Authority and Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem). It tracks changes in their income, expenditure, staff numbers and staff costs over the period, highlighting the extent to which these bodies are driving and administering the government’s energy and net zero agenda.

Key findings

• Between 2015-16 and 2024-25, Ofgem’s income rose from £76 million to £227 million, an increase of £150 million. This is the largest cash terms increase among the quangos examined, and a rise of 197 per cent.
• Ofgem had the largest increase in expenditure in cash and percentage terms, rising by £183 million, or 237 per cent, from £77 million to £260 million between 2015-16 and 2024-25.
• The North Sea Transition Authority had the smallest percentage increase in expenditure between 2015-16 to 2024-25, rising by 33 per cent. In cash terms, expenditure rose from £33 million to £44 million. This was impacted by the North Sea Transition Authority’s status change from an executive agency to a government company.
• Since 2015-16, Ofgem’s headcount has risen from 907 to 2,276 in 2024-25, a 151 per cent increase. This is the largest rise in staff headcount with 1,369 employees added.
• The Low Carbon Contracts Company had the largest percentage increase in headcount between 2015-16 and 2024-25, at 382 per cent. Staff numbers in this time rose by 187, from 49 to 236.
• The Committee on Climate Change had the smallest percentage increase in headcount, rising by 89 per cent between 2015-16 and 2024-25. In this time staff numbers rose from 30 to 57.
• Ofgem’s staff costs increased the most in cash terms, from £54 million to £162 million between 2015-16 and 2024-25, a 202 per cent or £108 million rise.
• The Low Carbon Contracts Company had the largest percentage increase in its staff costs, rising by 281 per cent, from £5 million to £19 million between 2015-16 and 2024-25.

[1] Great British Energy, Great British Energy, www.gbe.gov.uk/ (accessed 24 April 2026).

[2] HM Government, The King’s Speech 2026, Prime Minister’s Office, 2026, pp.103-105.