Ruth Davidson MSP's speech for the ASI features in major dailies, the BBC

Ruth Davidson MSP delivered a speech, hosted by the Adam Smith Institute, about the lesson from Adam Smith and the need for a Scottish alternative in politics. The speech was covered by the BBC:

In a speech at the Adam Smith Institute at Westminster, the MSP said Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale's plan to levy a 50p top rate of tax on people with salaries of more than £150,000 is "utterly naive and self-defeating".

Scotland has about 14,000 top-rate taxpayers, roughly 5% of the UK total and below its population share.

Ms Davidson wants to attract another 10,000 high earners to live in Scotland.

City AM:

Scotland should vow to keep tax rates as low as the rest of the UK to keep more high earners in the country, Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson said last night.

“This sends out the right message to everyone from across the UK that Scotland is not about punishing earned wealth,” she said, in a speech to the Adam Smith Institute last night.

Conservative Home:

Your columnist saw the Glasgow MSP address a meeting organised by the libertarian think tank the Adam Smith Institute, in which she set out the case for “a Scottish alternative” to the statist consensus that dominates Scotland under Labour and the SNP.

She was particularly keen to stress that, despite a slick PR operation, the Nationalists should not be viewed as an effective party in government: on key indicators such as education Scotland has slipped back both in terms of outcomes and equality of access, despite much-vaunted shibboleths like free tuition.

The Daily Express:

In a keynote speech to the Adam Smith Institute at Westminster, Ms Davidson said: “We do that first by guaranteeing that tax rates in Scotland will be no higher than the rest of the UK, something I urge the Scottish Government to do immediately.

The Daily Telegraph:

Scotland must use its new financial powers to “roll out the red carpet” to wealthy English taxpayers and encourage 10,000 more of them to move north of the Border, Ruth Davidson has said.

The Scottish Tory leader urged SNP ministers to set a target to hugely increase the number of additional rate taxpayers who live in Scotland in order to increase revenues from income tax, which is being devolved to Holyrood.

In a speech to the Adam Smith Institute at Westminster, she claimed a “great British revival” was under way and Scotland had to adopt an attractive tax and business regime in order to reap the benefits.

The Herald:

Ms Davidson said her clear sense from conflicting messages from the SNP over the timing of another referendum was that it was "swithering over this themselves because they know they can't afford to fail; the next time they have to win it or they are bust".

She also, in her speech to the Adam Smith Institute in London, said she wanted to attract another 10,000 high earners to Scotland. At present there are just 14,000 Scots who pay the higher rate of tax, representing just 5.1 per cent - well below Scotland's 9 per cent share of the UK population.

And The Times:

Scotland should become such a low-tax, business-friendly society that entrepreneurs and the wealthy are enticed north of the border from England, Ruth Davidson said last night.

The Scottish Conservative leader berated the SNP and Labour for curbing investment, discouraging enterprise and chasing the rich out of Scotland.

Giving a speech to the Adam Smith Institute in London, Ms Davidson championed a policy platform that, she claimed, would allow Scotland to thrive. It would involve keeping taxes as low as — or preferably lower — than the rest of the UK, encouraging scientific developments such as GM crops and leading a fracking revolution. This summer the Scottish government announced a controversial ban on growing GM crops. It previously imposed a moratorium on fracking.

To access a full copy of Davidson's speech, click here. 

Press Release: CMI's pay gap findings fatally flawed by not controlling for working hours

For further comments or to arrange an interview, contact Head of Communications Kate Andrews: kate@adamsmith.org | 07584 778207. Commenting on the Chartered Management Institute's findings on the gender pay gap, Head of Research at the Adam Smith Institute Ben Southwood said:

The Chartered Management Institute's report makes a fatal error, completely undermining their findings that women work nearly 2 hours a day ‘for free’—they do not control for hours worked. Evidence we have suggests that women work fewer hours than men - they are not ‘working for free’.

Their survey of middle managers finds a pay gap of about £8,500, or 23% in average annual pay, but they have not released any information on average hours. As such, we are forced to assume they don't have such data, an assumption supported by the fact that they rely on the average working week statistic from the ONS when they compute their dubious estimate of the time women allegedly spend working for free.

If they do not have any data on working weeks, then there is no reason to assume there is any hourly wage gap at all. A more reasonable assumption is that men are simply working for longer—since this is what other data has consistently told us.

A sophisticated discussion of the gender wage gap would include reference to data showing gender pay gaps are wider in more gender egalitarian countries, that women who never leave the work force are more likely to make CEO and earn more on average and that women aged 22-29 and 30-39 earn slightly more per hour than men at the median.

Notes to Editors:

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

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.

Should Tories celebrate Corbyn’s popularity? | Dr Madsen Pirie argues NO in the City AM debate

President of the ASI, Dr Madsen Pirie, argues that Jeremy Corbyn's growing popularity is nothing for Tories to celebrate in the City AM debate:

Dr Madsen Pirie is founder and president of the Adam Smith Institute, says No

Some Conservatives want Jeremy Corbyn to win because they think he will prompt lasting divisions within Labour, and make the party unelectable in a general election. They should not celebrate too soon. Even if this is true, there is a short-term price to be paid. If Corbyn became official Leader of the Opposition, it would legitimise economic and political fantasy. Every day the media would have to treat his proposals as serious politics. The discussions would centre on things we already know are unworkable. We have seen how nationalisation ruins industries by making them serve political, not economic, objectives. We have seen how high taxes squeeze out growth, and how they drive out our talent and deter outside talent from locating here. We have seen how unfunded largesse targeted at selected groups creates a black hole of debt. A Corbyn-led Labour would make this a legitimate matter of public debate. It should not be, because it remains the same nonsense it was before.

Read the full debate here.

Kate Andrews discusses executive pay on BBC Radio 4's Today Programme

Kate Andrews spoke to BBC Radio 4's Today Programme about the value a CEO and top executives can bring to a global company, and explained why capping high-pay does not solve the problem of low-pay and in-work poverty.

Kate Andrews discusses executive pay on BBC News and Sky News

Head of Communications Kate Andrews spoke to BBC News and Sky News about the value a CEO and top executives can bring to a global company, and how their decisions can translate into better, cheaper consumer products. Watch the BBC News interview here. (Starts 19:15)

Screen shot 2015-08-18 at 12.15.25

Watch the Sky News interview here:

Capping bosses’ salaries will not raise salaries of people at the bottom | Kate Andrews writes for City AM

Head of Communications Kate Andrews writes for City AM:

Today’s briefing paper from the High Pay Centre (HPC) has zoned in on the gap between FTSE 100 chief executive pay and the average salary of UK workers in 2014: 183/1.

Perhaps it is the HPC’s emphasis – or perhaps it is the world’s recent focus on inequality - that has most people, in the media and elsewhere, focused on this divide. The assumption is that high executive pay is costing lower earners a pay rise, and that condoning people getting rich at the top is an endorsement of keeping people poor at the bottom.

But one does not cause the other; and while it is crucial that we tackle in-work poverty and address long-term low pay, capping executive pay will not raise the salaries of people at the bottom. Indeed, this could lead to negative consequences of its own.

Read the full comment piece here.

Sam Bowman's comments on executive pay feature in: Financial Times, Huffington Post & BBC News

Deputy Director of the Adam Smith Institute Sam Bowman's comments on high executive pay featured in the Financial Times, Huffington Post, and in a BBC News article: From the Financial Times:

But Sam Bowman, deputy director of the Adam Smith Institute, said: “Investors see executives as extremely important to the value of firms, with the strategic decisions they make often determining whether a firm flourishes or goes bankrupt. For that reason, it can be sensible to pay a lot to get skilled executives with good judgment.”

Read the full article here.

From the Huffington Post:

Business lobby group CBI said high pay was only justified by "exceptional performance", while think tank, the Adam Smith Institute reportedly justified it by saying the salaries rewarded "extraordinary talent and skills" and the good decision-making that is "as close to invaluable as one can get".

Read the full article here.

From the BBC:

But the free-market think tank, the Adam Smith Institute, was more forthright, saying that the right chief executive could make or break a company.

"CEO pay rewards extraordinary talent and skills in a highly competitive, globalised market," said its deputy director Sam Bowman.

"Good decision-making from the top might not be invaluable, but CEO pay reflects that it is as close to invaluable as one can get."

Read the full article here.

Kate Andrews discusses executive pay on BBC Radio Stoke

Head of Communications Kate Andrews discussed executive pay on BBC Radio Stoke, arguing that capping high-pay will not help solve the issue of low-pay and in-work poverty. Listen to the interview here. (Starts 30:45)

Kate Andrews debates milk prices on BBC 5 Live, BBC Radio Leeds, and BBC Radio Wiltshire

Head of Communications Kate Andrews debated UK milk prices, farming subsidies, and what is best for UK consumers on BBC 5 Live, BBC Radio Leeds and BBC Radio Wiltshire. Listen to the BBC 5 Live Breakfast Show interview here. (Starts 02:08:08)

Listen to the BBC Radio Leeds interview here. (Starts 9:48)

Listen to the BBC Radio Wiltshire interview here. (Starts 33:08)

Press Release | Executive pay: because they're worth it

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

Commenting on the High Pay Centre's briefing on executive pay, Deputy Director of the Adam Smith Institute Sam Bowman said:

Investors see executives as extremely important to the value of firms, with the strategic decisions they make often determining whether a firm flourishes or goes bankrupt. For that reason, it can be sensible to pay a lot to get skilled executives with good judgement.

It’s not hard to find examples on both sides: when Steve Ballmer stepped down as CEO of Microsoft, the firm’s value increased by billions overnight. Compare Ballmer to Tesco’s CEO David Lewis, who investors judged would make the firm millions of pounds more valuable.

A Steve Jobs can make a firm; a Steve Ballmer can break it.

CEO pay rewards extraordinary talent and skills in a highly competitive, globalized market. Good decision-making from the top might not be invaluable, but CEO pay reflects that it is as close to invaluable as one can get.

Notes to Editors:

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.