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Belinda Brown - 19 May 2013 - Social Policy

On Thursday, Diane Abbott delivered a lecture at the think tank Demos on “Britain’s Crisis of Masculinity”. She put an important subject on the agenda. By telling us that “loving families are a benefit to men” she made a good point. But by focusing on masculinities, rather than men, she lost some important facts in ...

Kathy Gyngell - 20 March 2013 - Social Policy

George Osborne’s reformed ‘modern’ state finds the family on the brink of extinction and one earner couple families under siege argues Kathy Gyngell. Liz Truss’s nanny subsidy policy announcement yesterday (£1200 pound per child for couples earning up to £300,000) put paid to any hope that the Coalition would honour their promise ...

Kathy Gyngell - 01 February 2013 - Social Policy

The hard headed Elizabeth Truss must be wondering what has hit her. Ever since the Resolution Foundation Report, published last October, the word is that the cost of childcare is forcing  mothers, unwillingly, out of the work force; that childcare here is more expensive here than in Europe; that maternal ...

Ryan Bourne - 20 December 2012 - Social Policy

Several people have asked what I make of Alec Shelbrooke’s idea for a Welfare Cash Card. The Tory MP introduced a 10 minute rule bill to the House of Commons on Tuesday, which suggested that a cash card could be designed such that welfare recipients could not spend their state ...

Tom Burkard - 13 August 2012 - Social Policy

CPS Education Expert Tom Burkard explains why calls for investment in education for economic benefit often ignore the reality of vocational education. In the West, professional educators—what Chris Woodhead refers to as 'the blob'--share a set of assumptions completely at odds with Michael Gove and the reformers.  You simply cannot square ...

Yorick Wilks - 03 August 2012 - Social Policy

Marriage was a private enterprise for hundreds of years and should be that way again argues Professor Yorick Wilks.For all the successes of privatisation, I would like to propose another area of citizens' lives from which to remove Government: marriage. The State has not been in the marriage business very ...

Kieron O'Hara - 23 July 2012 - Social Policy

Amidst critcisim of Britain as the third most inactive nation on the plant, Dr. Kieron O'Hara of the University of Southampton blogs on the balance between a healthy and a happy person. Another week, another health warning. This time, some Brazilian Herbert has decided that two thirds of British adults do ...

Lewis Brown - 13 July 2012 - Social Policy

The Phoenix Free School application – an Oldham-based free school that would have been staffed entirely by teachers drawn from the armed forces – has today been rejected by the Department of Education. The School found its genesis last year in a Centre for Policy Studies report ‘Something Can Be ...

Tom Burkard - 10 July 2012 - Social Policy

Tom Burkard, CPS education expert and author of 'Troops to Teachers' in 2008, reacts to the Shadow Education and Defence Secretary's call for Labour to adopt military academies. The Centre for Policy Studies first introduced the 'Troops to Teachers' concept to the UK in Feb 2008, and it was immediately endorsed by ...

Tom Burkard - 23 May 2012 - Social Policy

It's hard to say whether Nick Clegg was playing to the gallery, or whether he honestly believes that universities should give preference to pupils from state schools.  If the Daily Telegraph poll is any indication, this kind of gesture politics won't even win over his Lib Dem constituents—over 88% agreed ...

Philip Davies - 23 March 2012 - Social Policy

Earlier this month, Conservative MPs Philip Davies and Dr. Sarah Wollaston took part in the latest CPS online debate 'Is it right to introduce a minimum alcohol price to tackle alcohol-related problems?'. Here we reproduce Philip Davies' argument against the proposals. The very principle of minimum pricing goes against all my ...

Ryan Bourne - 23 March 2012 - Social Policy

Last month, we published the most recent in our series of debate questions: “Is it right to introduce a minimum alcohol price to tackle alcohol-related problems?” An overwhelming number of readers came down on the side of Philip Davies MP, who had concluded that the policy was flawed, illiberal and ...

Ryan Bourne - 13 March 2012 - Social Policy

The Chancellor George Osborne has, so far, been reluctant to adapt his planned change to Child Benefit for higher rate taxpayers. Households with one earner whose gross income just exceeds the £42,375 threshold will lose the benefit (£1056 for one child per year and then an additional £697 per child ...

Kathy Gyngell - 24 February 2012 - Social Policy

CPS Research Fellow Kathy Gyngell argues that despite the focus of politicians on schools as agents of social mobility, evidence points that whatever the 'radical change' made, they actually have little effect. In the furore over Professor’s Ebdon’s appointment to Offa (or OffToff as it has now been indelibly named) one ...

Kathy Gyngell - 07 December 2011 - Social Policy

Yesterday the Telegraph reported that, for the first time, the morning after pill was to be given out free over the phone; that the British Pregnancy Advisory Service will encourage ‘women’ to stock up on the ‘emergency contraceptive over Christmas and the New Year’ - despite that girls would ‘not ...