Well, duh.

From City AM:

Graduates earn £9,000 a year more than non-graduates, research released yesterday by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills shows. That figure covers the entire working-age population – ages 16 to 64. Young graduates, aged between 21 and 30, earn £6,000 more on average than their non-graduate counterparts...

“These figures show that going to university is a great investment,” said Greg Clark, the universities, science and cities minister.

Is everybody else thinking what I'm thinking..?

A common criticism made by economists is that the link is not necessarily a causal one. Students who get a degree tend to be smarter on average before they go to university. The figures do not control for that effect.

Further hilarity at gov.uk:

Born in Middlesbrough, Greg studied economics at Cambridge before earning his PhD from the London School of Economics.
---------------
UPDATE: Mombers says "Would love to see the figures once doctors, dentists, lawyers, accountants, engineers and any other professions that require a degree for entry are stripped out."

That's the sad thing, there is no real requirement for accountants to have a degree, but over the past twenty or thirty years, nearly all Chartered Accountants have made it a pre-condition, even if your degree is completely irrelevant. I've had younger colleagues with degrees in glaciology and ancient history, FFS.

Tory Minister talks sense on house prices: shock

From The Daily Mail:

... he warned the housing shortage was damaging the lives of the young.

Mr Clark said: "It’s destroying family life in so many ways. How can a family put down roots if they’re on six months’ notice to quit on a buy-to-let? Young parents are having to spend more of their earnings on rent, and less on their children. Living in tiny flats and houses without the gardens they played in as children. Leading isolated lives, miles from where their children’s grandparents and other relatives are."

His suggestion, to allow more new construction, is of course only part of the solution at best: as we know from the 1950s and 1960s, it requires a combination of land taxation (Schedule A, Domestic Rates, ideally in combination with lower taxation of incomes); lots of new construction; and sensible mortgage lending restrictions.

Just doing the last two is only deferring the problem until later, it would in fact be quite sufficient just to do the first bit, but hey.

"Pickles promises people's planning power"

What a splendid bit of alliteration by the BBC! The article continues...

Communities in England will get the power to decide where no shops, offices and homes are to be built, the government will announce.

Under the plans, local referendums will be held, which could force councils to adopt "neighbourhood plans" to block all new developments. The government will also offer financial incentives to encourage the "right kind of development", primarily "none".

Slow lane

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles said this would mean "more people-planning for no new developments and less politician-planning for no new developments... For far too long local people have had too little say in turning down planning applications, and the planning system imposed bureaucratic zero targets by distant officials in Whitehall and the town hall. We need to change things... so there is more direct democracy and less bureaucracy in the system. These reforms will become the building blocks of the Big Society. Except there won't be any building - just blocks, mainly."

Hard shoulder

The Localism Bill, to be unveiled later, says residents can set out an overall plan for no new development in their area, which will then be voted on in a referendum. This will allow voters to decide where no building takes place and that all green spaces should be protected.

Councils will then have to adopt the neighbourhood plans, which would be put on a "fast track" to planning refusal, meaning urgent projects can be turned down immediately. The government is asking for 12 local authorities to volunteer to take part in trials.

Eighty mile tailback

Greg Clark, minister for planning and decentralisation, added: "We want local people to be able to impose their desire for farmland around their home town to remain farmland for all eternity. These reforms offer a scope for self-determination which previously local politicians were keen to impose on their voters' behalf. Localism in refusing planning will create the freedom and the incentives for those places that don't want to grow, not to do so, and for others to suffer the consequences. It's a reason to say 'no.'"

Proper mining engineer 1; Tory wannabe 0

You may vaguely remember recent headlines based on the fact (to the extent that anything can be accepted as a fact any more) that "Germany has 99 days of gas storage capacity, France has 122 days, while Britain has just 15 days".

The Remittance Man* explains why this is complete and utter scaremongering tosh.

* Who has accepted the post of Defence Minister.