Centre for British Progress
1.3K posts
@BritishProgress
The Centre for British Progress is a non-partisan think tank on a mission to accelerate and shape an era of British growth and progress; evolved from @UKDayOne.
The @BritishProgress summer reading list is here. Featuring suggestions from @KanishkaNarayan, @NeilDotObrien, @YuanfenYang, @matthewclifford, @redditchrachel, @Brendan_McCord, @Dan4Barnet, @Victoria_Spratt, @tylercowen, @Stsantek, @Katie_Lam_MP & more!
Disappointing but unsurprising. Our @BritishProgress report with @BritainRemade found that Britain pays an infrastructure cost premium of 65% compared to peer countries, in transport & nuclear infrastructure. But despite this, Britain actually has the 3rd most data centres in the world. Our location is perfect: between the US and Europe, at the intersection of transatlantic cables. If we could fix our planning, grid queues and lower cost electricity, AI data centres could become a significant sovereign asset as we enter the next industrial revolution.
McKinsey finds that data centres are nearly twice as expensive in Britain as in China, driven by capex and (especially) energy costs.
Andy Burnham is backing a proposal to scrap Council Tax and Stamp Duty, replacing them with a Proportional Property Tax (PPT). 📌 Rate: 0.48% of current property value 📌 Cap: £1,200 per year initially 📌 Supporters claim 77% of households would save an average £556 annually A major reform if it ever gains traction. Winners and losers would depend heavily on property values and location. #Property #HousingMarket #CouncilTax #StampDuty #UKProperty #RealEstate #AndyBurnham
Data centers didn’t raise electric bills nationally from 2015–24. Surprise! Actually, they modestly lowered them. That's because big fixed grid costs get spread over more kilowatt-hours, and new demand can unlock economies of scale. @arxiv
New Substack from @dc_lawrence & @pdmsero on how Britain does carbon accounting, and its impact on UK industry and global emissions.
This map shows the infrastructure Britain could have, without spending an extra penny, if our infrastructure cost as much as it does in Europe. NEW RESEARCH from @BritishProgress & @BritainRemade finds that *the UK faces an investment cost premium of 65%* compared to other OECD countries, and therefore delivers less infrastructure for similar levels of investment. Want better rail in Manchester? A tram for Leeds? More electrified railways? Better road upgrades? All without raising taxes? Then Britain has to fix the cost of building. We look at case studies including the Edinburgh tram, Lower Thames Crossing and HS2, and find that, for the same amount of money, we get less back. The reasons are: 👑 Centralisation of power prevents mayoral & local authorities from funding & building new projects 🏛️ A lack of state capacity, particularly in procurement and engineering, means more gets outsourced 🏗️ Planning dysfunction adds uncertainty, delays and costs to new projects ⚖️ Our legal & regulatory system can add inappropriate requirements to projects, making investments more costly and even unviable. In a weird way, this is good news. Why? Because it means that the UK can dramatically improve its infrastructure, and the effectiveness of our investment, without spending an extra penny. At a time of constrained public finances, this is welcome. However, it is also a warning. Unless we fix Britain’s investment premium, every extra £ spent on transport, energy or other infrastructure will deliver less than it could. Read the full paper from me, @pdmsero, @Sam_Dumitriu & @Michael_J_Hil here: britishprogress.org/reports/buildi… Scroll down for key graphs and charts…
This map shows the infrastructure Britain could have, without spending an extra penny, if our infrastructure cost as much as it does in Europe. NEW RESEARCH from @BritishProgress & @BritainRemade finds that *the UK faces an investment cost premium of 65%* compared to other OECD countries, and therefore delivers less infrastructure for similar levels of investment. Want better rail in Manchester? A tram for Leeds? More electrified railways? Better road upgrades? All without raising taxes? Then Britain has to fix the cost of building. We look at case studies including the Edinburgh tram, Lower Thames Crossing and HS2, and find that, for the same amount of money, we get less back. The reasons are: 👑 Centralisation of power prevents mayoral & local authorities from funding & building new projects 🏛️ A lack of state capacity, particularly in procurement and engineering, means more gets outsourced 🏗️ Planning dysfunction adds uncertainty, delays and costs to new projects ⚖️ Our legal & regulatory system can add inappropriate requirements to projects, making investments more costly and even unviable. In a weird way, this is good news. Why? Because it means that the UK can dramatically improve its infrastructure, and the effectiveness of our investment, without spending an extra penny. At a time of constrained public finances, this is welcome. However, it is also a warning. Unless we fix Britain’s investment premium, every extra £ spent on transport, energy or other infrastructure will deliver less than it could. Read the full paper from me, @pdmsero, @Sam_Dumitriu & @Michael_J_Hil here: britishprogress.org/reports/buildi… Scroll down for key graphs and charts…
The way the British state measures carbon emissions is narcissistic and dumb. The UK is rejecting projects that *reduce* global CO2 and create jobs in Britain. Until we fix this in the Treasury’s Green Book, worthwhile projects will continue to receive negative scoring. In our latest @britishprogress Substack, @pdmsero & I look at the Government’s carbon accounting system, and highlight how: 🌍 We fail to consider *global emissions*, which means projects are only scored on emissions produced in the UK. 🔀 We fail to consider counterfactuals: whether a project will go ahead elsewhere if it doesn’t happen in Britain. ⚡ We fail to consider the impact of Britain’s grid, which has decarbonised more rapidly than peer countries, and means projects here are less emitting than those elsewhere. ⚖️ We assume that every other country has defined carbon budgets (they don’t) and are sticking to them (they aren’t). All this means we have made up rules for ourselves that harm British industry, and harm the planet: 🗄️ Investment in UK data centres gets scored negatively, even though data centres built in Britain are far less carbon-emitting than those built abroad. 🛫 While we argue about airport expansion, other countries (with lower environmental standards) are building at scale. British families fly longer, more carbon-intensive routes via Dubai, Amsterdam and Istanbul. There is no such thing as ‘CO2+🇬🇧’, a Britain-specific carbon molecule. The climate is blind to where emissions are produced. Until we acknowledge this, Britain, and our planet, will continue to lose out. Read the full piece here: britishprogress.substack.com/p/uk-carbon-co…
