Best of this week in our opinion pages: from the call for a more inclusive job market to flooding and big tech mergers
As the tense exchanges between the UK and France over migration remain on top of the news, Eliot Wilson looks at Home Secretary Priti Patel’s management – or mismanagement – of the Channel crisis. To achieve a long-term solution and avoid further tragedies, the government should firstly stop the dangerous crossings, and secondly modernise the asylum process so that people in need of a safe haven can have the answers they deserve on time.
The UK must project a message that we welcome refugees, but that we will do everything to frustrate the people-traffickers.
Eliot Wilson
On Tuesday, Josh Wintersgill argued that people with disabilities still struggle immensely to harness their talent and grab the best opportunities in the job market. The government’s Access To Work scheme, providing help and funds to disabled entrepreneurs, is a starting point. However, most people don’t even know about it. Things need to change, for the talent pool of disabled workers is wide and valuable.
Having a physical or hidden disability, like I do, adds a daily need to innovate and problem-solve. That ability to overcome barriers is one of the greatest tools for building a company.
Josh Wintersgill
The NHS backlogs and delays have become a reality for many. Matthew Lesh argues that to solve this crisis, we need to accept and embrace some forms of privatisation of the health system. Denmark has a “Go Private” scheme where if your waiting time exceeds a guarantee, you can pick a private provider and your region will pay for it. It wouldn’t be crazy – if anything, it would be smart – to adopt something similar here.
The United Kingdom is becoming a health service with a country attached.
Matthew Lesh
As the Environment Agency warned Brits to brace for an exceptionally wet winter, Elena Siniscalco looked at the impact that flooding is having on many English homes. One in six homes in England are at risk of flooding, and yet 30 per cent of people living in at-risk areas haven’t put in place protective measures yet. The government must coordinate with local authorities on this issue, and put climate change at the core of the planning reform.
It cannot become the prerogative of those with the most cash to protect people’s homes. Climate change must be at the core of planning reforms, or what we build won’t last the test of time.
Elena Siniscalco
Last but not least, Max von Thun writes that the CMA blocking Facebook (now Meta) from acquiring Giphy is a move that speaks volumes about the regulator’s strategy. The CMA has grown disillusioned with tech mergers. Whether investors will share this belief in the long-term, will be one worth watching.
While the government has sought to put innovation at the heart of its policy agenda and make Britain a “science and technology” superpower, it nonetheless shares the CMA’s scepticism of big tech.
Max von Thun