Sam Bowman argues against sugar taxes on BBC Radio Ulster

Deputy Director Sam Bowman discusses Tesco's decision to remove Ribena from its shop and argues against sugar taxes on BBC Radio Ulster. Listen to the interview here. (Starts 1:58:52)

Kate Andrews argues against UK farming subsidies on BBC Five Live

Head of Communications Kate Andrews argued against UK farming subsidies and the moral obligation to 'buy British' on BBC 5 Live. Listen to the interview here. (Starts 7:33)

Sam Bowman discusses industrial action on BBC Radio Cumbria

Deputy Director Sam Bowman debates the benefits of strike action on BBC Radio Cumbria Listen to the interview here. (Starts 12:40)

Britain could slash unemployment by time-limiting benefits - Sam Bowman writes for City AM

Deputy Director Sam Bowman discusses new ASI report "Time for Time Limits: Why we should end permanent welfare" in a comment piece for City AM:

Most talk of welfare is about how much we spend. Far too little is about how we actually spend it, but this is what really determines whether it does what we want or not.

Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) is a very small part of the £217bn per year we spend on welfare, costing around £5bn annually. But in interaction with in-work benefits like Working Tax Credits, it can be one of the crucial factors in a person’s decision whether to take a job or keep looking for something better.

The difficulty is that we can only cut JSA so far before it stops being capable of giving people a short-term safety net in between unexpected periods of unemployment. And as a new paper from the Adam Smith Institute (“Time for Time Limits”) argues today, this is where we can learn quite a lot from reforms abroad.

Read the full article here.

Report: 5-year limit on JSA will boost employment and cut welfare spending

For further comments or to arrange an interview, contact Head of Communications Kate Andrews: kate@adamsmith.org | 07584 778207.

• With £12bn to cut from welfare, the Chancellor should put a 5-year limit on jobseekers' allowance (JSA) to boost employment and cut welfare spending.
• Similar welfare reforms in the United States in the 1990s reduced unemployment by 6-7%, reducing benefits caseloads by as much as 96% in some places. Such a change could translate into an estimated reduction in the benefit bill of £300–350 million, based on current spending.

The UK should consider US-style time limits on out-of-work benefits as part of the cuts to benefits spending, according to a new paper from the Adam Smith Institute.

A new report, Time for Time Limits: Why we should end permanent welfare, finds that a 5-year limit on Jobseekers’ Allowance (JSA) across workers’ lifetimes could save the Treasury £300-350m per year, as well as boosting labour markets and putting a break on self-fulfilling cycles of dependency.

The paper, authored by Peter Hill, a lecturer at the University of Roehampton, reviews President Bill Clinton's 'Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act' (PRWORA) which coincided with a massive decline in welfare rolls from 5 million to less than 2 million families by 2006. The act is credited for saving the US government over $50bn between 1996 and 2002.

In some states, there was a decrease in benefits caseloads of 96%, as well as an unprecedented drop in female unemployment and improvement in their financial status even in low paying jobs, and a drop in child poverty. Furthermore, comprehensive econometric analyses suggest that 6-7% of decreases in unemployment counts (and 12–13% of those in female-headed families) are as a result of the introduction of time limits. Although difficult to estimate the exact impact on the UK labour market ex ante, a similar effect on Claimant Count Unemployment could be expected; this translates to an estimated reduction in the benefit bill of £300–350 million based on current spending.

Though Universal Credit is innovative in tackling benefit withdrawal cliffs that make working very unattractive to some households, it does not put any limits on its unemployment insurance provisions. More radical reform like time limits has potential beyond the government's current schemes.

Just as the US ended welfare as an entitlement programme, the paper argues that the UK should also take the radical step of ending JSA being funded from general taxation and instead return to a form of ‘Unemployment Insurance’ funding from NICs. This would mean operating the welfare system as a genuine self-funding insurance scheme managed through the UK Government Actuary’s Department.

Author of the report, Peter Hill, said:

Now more than ever we have to brave new public policy. Money does not grow on trees; policy makers are spending taxpayers’ money - as well as borrowing it in their name - and taxpayers expect it to be well spent. Therefore, tough decisions have to be made to reduce the costs of welfare.

Time for Time Limits encourages readers to turn their eyes across the Atlantic to the radical welfare reform of the 1990s which saw dramatic shifts in unemployment numbers and the associated costs to taxpayers.

If the Chancellor is serious about tackling the deficit, reducing the national debt and returning to strong growth, there is little scope but to follow the path of successful welfare reform pioneered in the United States. Time limits will re-empower the unemployed to take control of their own lives.

Deputy Director of the Adam Smith Institute, Sam Bowman, added:

Getting people into work is the best way of fighting poverty that we have. But the government’s welfare reforms are doing exactly the wrong thing: cutting in-work benefits that entice people into jobs, and raising the minimum wage to make it harder for people to get their first step onto the ladder.

The reforms discussed in this report worked, and may work in Britain, because they made out-of-work benefits a temporary safety net, and made sure that it always made sense for the unemployed to find a job.

Notes to editors:

For further comments or to arrange an interview, contact Head of Communications Kate Andrews: kate@adamsmith.org | 07584 778207.

To access the full report Time for Time Limits: Why we should end permanent welfare, click here.

The Adam Smith Institute is a free market, libertarian think tank based in London. It advocates classically liberal public policies to create a richer, freer world.

ASI Senior Fellow Lars Christensen discusses Finland's EU membership on Bloomberg TV

Senior Fellow at the Adam Smith Institute Lars Christensen discussed whether Finland's membership in the European Union is preventing the country from thriving on Bloomberg TV. Watch here.

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EU Treaty Changes - Senior Fellow Tim Ambler's letter in the Daily Telegraph

Senior Fellow at the Adam Smith Institute Tim Ambler published a letter with the Daily Telegraph on bilateral treaties within the EU:

SIR – It takes at least four years to set up an intergovernmental meeting to make EU treaty changes, by which time the referendum will be long gone.

The only way agreements can be made binding is through bilateral treaties between EU members undertaking to include the agreements in the next round of treaty changes. Such bilateral agreements are allowed by EU protocols but have not yet been used for this purpose.

In addition to being both precise and binding, Brussels would not be able to frustrate the process.

Tim Ambler Senior Fellow, Adam Smith Institute London SW1

Read the letter online here.

Dr Eamonn Butler discusses Osborne's spending review on BBC Radio 4

Director of the Adam Smith Institute Dr Eamonn Butler discusses Osborne's Spending Review on BBC Radio 4 PM. Listen here. (Starts 10:32)

Sam Bowman discusses local council spending and cuts on BBC 5 Live

Deputy Director of the Adam Smith Institute Sam Bowman debates local council spending on BBC 5 Live. Listen here. 02:25:56

Dr Madsen Pirie's comments on the greenbelt feature in the IBTimes

Dr Madsen Pirie's comments on the greenbelt feature in the International Business Times UK:

"The first step in re-evaluation might be to classify greenbelt land into the different types that comprise it," wrote Dr Madsen Pirie of the Adam Smith Institute think tank back in March.

"There is genuinely green land, the fields and woods that everyone likes. There is damaged or brownfield land, partly made up of abandoned buildings, gravel pits and the like. And there is farmland, much of which is not environmentally friendly."

An earlier report by the Adam Smith Institute said that one million homes could be built within walking distance from a station on just 3.7% of the green belt land surrounding the city.

Read the full article here.