Helm Talks - energy climate infrastructure & more

Oct 29 2024 61 ep. 12 mins 44
Helm Talks - energy climate infrastructure & more Podcast artwork

Helm Talks is full of short, 'pull no punches' insights into: Energy & Climate; Regulation, Utilities & Infrastructure; Natural Capital & the Environment. Professor Dieter Helm is Professor of Economic Policy at the University of Oxford.

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The UK’s new growth industry – regulation

Oct 29 2024 15 mins  
The British economy is going to see more regulators, more regulatory bodies, more intervention in the private sector – all requiring businesses, on the other side of the regulatory rules, to spend more time dealing with regulators and regulation. While all governments promise to “cut red tape” – and the new government is no different – sadly, the opposite appears to be ha

Transformation – a case of blood, sweat, tears … and many years

Sep 26 2024 14 mins  
The government is planning radical transformation, to health, education, rail travel, and with a view to achieving net zero electricity by 2030. These bold plans raise questions about what is going to be achieved, by when, and how. The politics is key, as is the timing. Such transformation takes years (many more than Starmer is anticipating). Thinking through the politics of what h

Britain's four fundamental economic problems

Sep 23 2024 15 mins  
The government’s overriding objective is economic growth, and it plans to get there by building lots more houses, and a dash for net zero electricity with the implausible target of 2030. There may be some merit in both, but economic growth is not caused by houses or wind turbines. What inhibits Britain’s economic growth is altogether more profound. The four fundamental problems

Zombie utilities

Jul 23 2024 14 mins  
‘Easy money’ (quantitative easing and low nominal/negative real interest rates) has left a legacy of lots of zombie companies that should not still be in business, because they are not genuinely profitable. Cheap debt washed through the banking system keeps them afloat. For the utilities, easy money has had a devastating impact, encouraging widespread financial engineering. Th

Dash for growth means dash for debt

Jul 23 2024 15 mins  
The Labour government is on a mission to grow the economy to pay for all the public expenditure needed. But where will this growth come from? Previous major economic growth (e.g. in Germany, Japan and China) has had two common factors: exports and high levels of domestic savings. Labour’s plans don’t include anything about exports or export growth, and savings net of capital de

The free-lunch election

Jun 03 2024 11 mins  
The uninspiring ideas and promises from both main parties since the election was announced make for a depressing read. In trying to get our votes – promising not to put up taxes and to look after pensioners – they are seeking to deliver the cakeism we, the consumers and voters, want: more and better services, without paying for them. It is our votes they are bidding for, and th

Privatisation casualties piling up

Apr 23 2024 15 mins  
The privatisation casualties are starting to stack up – earlier failures included Railtrack, and more recently there is Thames Water. Royal Mail is struggling to deliver the post; Bulb and over half the energy supply companies failed; and BT is struggling to find a way forward. Is there a trend behind this, and what does it mean for the UK’s core infrastructures? As real in

Fudging the fiscal rules

Mar 24 2024 15 mins  
The Labour Party, like the Conservatives, has committed to borrow only to invest, to fund current spending only from current income, and to get debt as a percentage of GDP down. As ever when it comes to fiscal rules, the devil is in the detail, and these rules are less than they seem. Labour acknowledges that this may take some time, but its promise is that it will meet its fiscal

Failing utilities – is special administration the solution?

Feb 29 2024 14 mins  
What is to be done about the UK’s failing utilities? The current back-stop is special administration, opening up the possibility of wider restructuring. In all cases it is the structure that needs to change if there is to be a stable investment framework for the next couple of decades. In the case of Thames Water, if the special administer is called in, the assets could be taken

Fiddling the figures – iron fiscal rules are not what they seem

Feb 18 2024 13 mins  
Iron fiscal rules that allow borrowing only for investment might seem like a sensible strategy, but the figures have repeatedly been fiddled to make the UK appear fiscally responsible. Both main political parties have been playing this game for forty years. From Thatcher onwards, Conservatives used privatisation and PFIs (private finance initiatives) to move debt off the public boo