A point on transport links. I live in the South West which has fast and reliable trains to London but a season ticket from Swindon to Paddington (55 mins) is over £11k a year, making it unaffordable to all but high earners.
Good point. My husband would like to take the next step in his career but so many jobs in his industry are in London (we're in Swindon) and we can't afford to spend £11k on train travel. So for now he's staying where he is. If an amazing job came up he'd have to drive all or part of the way which would be a nightmare journey also.
Another way of breaking out of our economic and political inertia is to promote more devolution across different parts of England. We need to go beyond just having local mayors of select cities and create county governors with expanded autonomy.
This way counties have more room to experiment and generate a faster feedback loop on what does and doesn't work.
Westminster is broken and run by a cadre of out-of-touch elitists. We're a nation of nearly 70 million people, the unitary political system is outdated.
Agree with much of this, but not the premise that lurks behind your housing supply solution. On standard theory the fact that there's no difference in AHC incomes in London versus elsewhere is a feature of land, not a bug that can be fixed. Land (largely) captures the urban surplus and it's therefore inevitable that the cost of building a house is much less than the cost of the property. As you build and boost agglomeration in a city, productivity rises and land values follow. So yes, by all means build in cities to boost agglomeration, but you can't change AHC incomes that way.
Agree entirely on apprenticeship levy - the German system is based on employers running it, not the education system (suspect there is a definition effect here in how trainees are counted if German figures for “on the job” training are low)
The main reason for the de-industrialisation of Britain is the high cost of power - the highest in the world. The other big problem for Britain is nimbyism; from the smallest project to the largest everything gets delayed and made more expensive by planning procedures. Until these two basic problems are solved we are doomed to live in a slow growth economy.
Very interesting, Sam, thank you. I'd welcome your thoughts on what impact the devolution of careers advice to schools had on the skills/jobs market. Teachers do their best but it's a complicated world out there. Often, parents and children - and teachers, too - simply don't know about the high paying jobs available in manufacturing and engineering. When they find out, they are astonished, and welcome the chance to do an apprenticeship, degree-based it otherwise, rather than do a degree that leaves them with debt.
I love infrastructure. However I do think skills are a huge cause of lower productivity in the UK - but not the skills that everyone talks about. The skills shortage is not with grads, it’s with business owners: https://www.bis.org/review/r170322b.pdf
same in United States - death by legal asphyxiation. We need fewer regulations, fewer lawyers, but more accountability - if you promise to deliver something then you must deliver it roughly on time and with agreed-upon quality or face real consequences other than more lawyers and bureaucrats. US Example: EV charging infrastructure.
The comparison you mention between Birmingham and Lyon relates to two observations I'v seen made elsewhere:
1. UK has smallest floor space per resident in Europe
2. UK NIMBYs perceive that the countryside is being concreted over more so than other European countries.
Both could be true (yes i'm, not sure about 2 but lets ride that train) only if the UK has the worst height restrictions on residential properties. Abolish the regulations on height or just devolve the regulations to LAs and job done.
A point on transport links. I live in the South West which has fast and reliable trains to London but a season ticket from Swindon to Paddington (55 mins) is over £11k a year, making it unaffordable to all but high earners.
Good point. My husband would like to take the next step in his career but so many jobs in his industry are in London (we're in Swindon) and we can't afford to spend £11k on train travel. So for now he's staying where he is. If an amazing job came up he'd have to drive all or part of the way which would be a nightmare journey also.
Another way of breaking out of our economic and political inertia is to promote more devolution across different parts of England. We need to go beyond just having local mayors of select cities and create county governors with expanded autonomy.
This way counties have more room to experiment and generate a faster feedback loop on what does and doesn't work.
Westminster is broken and run by a cadre of out-of-touch elitists. We're a nation of nearly 70 million people, the unitary political system is outdated.
Agree with much of this, but not the premise that lurks behind your housing supply solution. On standard theory the fact that there's no difference in AHC incomes in London versus elsewhere is a feature of land, not a bug that can be fixed. Land (largely) captures the urban surplus and it's therefore inevitable that the cost of building a house is much less than the cost of the property. As you build and boost agglomeration in a city, productivity rises and land values follow. So yes, by all means build in cities to boost agglomeration, but you can't change AHC incomes that way.
Agree entirely on apprenticeship levy - the German system is based on employers running it, not the education system (suspect there is a definition effect here in how trainees are counted if German figures for “on the job” training are low)
The main reason for the de-industrialisation of Britain is the high cost of power - the highest in the world. The other big problem for Britain is nimbyism; from the smallest project to the largest everything gets delayed and made more expensive by planning procedures. Until these two basic problems are solved we are doomed to live in a slow growth economy.
I think bus drivers are worth more than a man who drives a train on two steel rails. All he has to do is stop or go!!! Or, maybe I’m being unfair!!!
Very interesting, Sam, thank you. I'd welcome your thoughts on what impact the devolution of careers advice to schools had on the skills/jobs market. Teachers do their best but it's a complicated world out there. Often, parents and children - and teachers, too - simply don't know about the high paying jobs available in manufacturing and engineering. When they find out, they are astonished, and welcome the chance to do an apprenticeship, degree-based it otherwise, rather than do a degree that leaves them with debt.
Information is infrastructure too!
I love infrastructure. However I do think skills are a huge cause of lower productivity in the UK - but not the skills that everyone talks about. The skills shortage is not with grads, it’s with business owners: https://www.bis.org/review/r170322b.pdf
same in United States - death by legal asphyxiation. We need fewer regulations, fewer lawyers, but more accountability - if you promise to deliver something then you must deliver it roughly on time and with agreed-upon quality or face real consequences other than more lawyers and bureaucrats. US Example: EV charging infrastructure.
The comparison you mention between Birmingham and Lyon relates to two observations I'v seen made elsewhere:
1. UK has smallest floor space per resident in Europe
2. UK NIMBYs perceive that the countryside is being concreted over more so than other European countries.
Both could be true (yes i'm, not sure about 2 but lets ride that train) only if the UK has the worst height restrictions on residential properties. Abolish the regulations on height or just devolve the regulations to LAs and job done.