And winner of the worst government policy of the year is . . .

There have been plenty of contenders for the year’s worst (UK) government policy.  The coalition seems to have inherited Labour’s desire to meddle, fiddle and tweak and the uneasy marriage of Lib Dem lefties and nominally right wing Tories has been a recipe for fudge and confusion. 

This has led to a bumper crop of terrible policies including:

-          George Osborne’s “tax cuts for employment rights” policy was designed to please right wingers but was just another politician’s wheeze which backfired at the taxpayer’s expense (and confirmed that George’s scary similarity with Gordon – see “Oh No it’s Geor-don!”);

-          Ed Davey’s horrible energy bill which slaps an extra £100 onto fuel bills for a hotchpotch of measures which will damage the UK economy but do nothing to “combat climate change”.  In a world where India and China are building new coal-fired stations every week, the UK messing around with wind farms and subsidising loft insulation is an expensive irrelevance.  Davey’s bald-faced assertion that his measures will eventually reduce bills by £94 (compared to what they would have been without the bill) was political lie of the year ;

-          Separately the £2bn “climate aid” pledge to assist with climate change projects in the developing world had massive-waste-of-money written all over it;

-          The way the Treasury rowed back on the child benefit cuts for rich people was also depressing.   The original cut, announced last year, was the right thing to do but was badly botched from the start, penalising single-wage households.  The efforts to undo the damage have watered down the savings and added another huge layer of complexity to the tax system (see this if you don’t believe me see Couples face “who buys toys” quiz by taxman to get a flavour of the madness);

-          Kicking Heathrow airport expansion into the long grass (yet again) while simultaneously making UK air passenger tax the highest in the world, was a great example of political expediency trumping the long term economic interest of the country; and

-          Getting control over Labour’s crazy “open door / open wallets” immigration policy is important but the coalition have set an arbitrary target of limiting non-EU immigration and Theresa May is trying to reach it by clamping down on students from abroad and skilled workers business needs.  Leaving the EU and restricting welfare payments to citizens who have earned it would be a better bet (see EU’s migrant rules prove the referendum case).

So what could be worse than this lot?  Well my nomination as worst government policy of the year is Minimum Alcohol Pricing.  It’s at the White Paper stage now so not law but it will be soon, particularly given that the PM has thrown his weight behind it (so we can’t blame the Lib Dems for this one).  It may not be the policy with the most serious bad consequences but it is truly awful for lots of reasons which I describe here:  Minimum alcohol price: Cameron’s dodgy dossier

From our website:  Do you need to submit a Spanish tax return?

EU's migrant rules prove the referendum case

So Scotland is to get an independence referendum to be held in 2014.  For people like me, who want a referendum on Britain's (England's?) place in Europe, the wait goes.

But the case for EU withdrawal or radical renegotiation is growing by the day.

Take last week's news that the EU is trying to force the UK government to pay benefits, including pensions, to any EU citizen who applies for them.  The EU wants to stop Britain applying its "habitual resident test" to ensure that foreign claimants are genuinely settled in the UK and have paid taxes here.

I think you would be hard-pressed to find more than 2% of the British electorate who would support paying benefits out to foreigners who haven't contributed anything to the country beforehand.  But our democratically-elected government is being forced to do so by the European Commissioner for Social Affairs, an unelected Hungarian who we have no influence over whatsoever.

And this is not some minor irritant.  Control of public spending, given the size of the deficit and the challenge of funding growing numbers of retirees, is crucial if the UK economy is to survive never mind thrive.

The EU would argue that they are sticking up for the rights of immigrants but the best way to ensure that is to have clear, fair and properly enforced rules to reassure the host country's citizens that they are not being taken advantage of.

A group of Tory MPs recently proposed a scheme where UK immigrants would earn their rights to benefits, housing and healthcare over time by working and paying taxes.  They might have added that the immigrant would lose these rights (and ultimately their right to reside in Britain) if they committed any crime.

This might seem tough but it would transform the immigration debate overnight.  The suspicion that immigrant communities are a drain would lift.  Now the very word "immigrant" suggests a burden and a problem but perceptions can quickly change with some clear rules.

Immigration should be a massive plus for Britain.  Not just the cultural vibrancy it brings but hard economic benefits - an improved dependency (worker to non-worker) ratio, a better workforce for our companies and lots of imported skills, capital and connections.

A scheme where residency rights for all immigrants, both EU and non-EU, were dependent on contributing to the system and staying on the right side of the law would ensure that immigration delivers these gains and regains popular trust.

But the EU wants us to go in the opposite direction which will further undermine perceptions of immigrants and make mugs out of honest taxpayers.  I wish it was a Referendum on Europe we were getting ready for in 2014.

The People's Pledge - EU Referendum Campaign



From the website:  Service for Spanish autonomos