The Centre for Policy Studies is Britain’s leading centre-right think tank with a mission to develop a new generation of conservative thinking. Under the directorship of Robert Colvile and chairmanship of Lord Spencer, the latest parliamentary survey by ComRes found that the CPS is considered by Conservative MPs to be the country’s most influential think tank.
The CPS produces its own policy papers – in particular on its core areas of tax and cost of living, tech and innovation, education, housing, and energy and the environment. It also works with prominent thinkers, including many Conservative MPs, to bring their ideas to a wider audience as well as hosting events, debates and conferences.
The CPS also owns and operates CapX, a comment site publishing pieces on policies and ideas that will enhance freedom, choice and prosperity for everyone in Britain.
Founded in 1974 by Sir Keith Joseph and Margaret Thatcher, the CPS was responsible for developing the bulk of the policy agenda that became known as Thatcherism. The CPS, Thatcher said, “was where our conservative revolution began”.
Over the past 50 years, the CPS has produced countless policies which have made Britain a better place. The taming of runaway inflation, the curbing of the power of the trade unions, the privatisation revolution, the shrinking of the state and Britain’s embrace of entrepreneurship all began at the CPS.
In more recent years, the CPS created the Lifetime ISA, championed wider share ownership, argued that you should be able to take your pension with you when you moved jobs, championed synthetic phonics in schools, which – since its introduction – raised children’s literacy standards, and the policy of raising the personal allowance for income tax first appeared in a CPS pamphlet.
