The Policy Fix

Right now in the UK, around two-thirds of all adults are living with excess weight and obesity. This is not just a crisis for adults - more than one in 5 primary school-aged children in England are now living with it. A year ago, the government set out a ‘moonshot’ to end the obesity epidemic in the 10 Year Health Plan for England. However, successive governments have announced almost 700 initiati...

Brexit was supposed to be “done”. Yet in 2026, Britain’s place in Europe is right back at the top of the political agenda  While Keir Starmer’s government has promised a pragmatic relationship “reset,” figures like Andy Burnham and Wes Streeting are already looking further ahead towards considering a full rejoin. In a more fragile world order, with greater geopolitical insecurity, the discussion o...

The UK has no shortage of AI strategies, summits and action plans. But a stack of policy papers doesn't retrain a civil servant, fix a legacy data system, or scale a pilot beyond a single department. The real challenge is execution. In this episode of Policy Fix, Nesta's podcast on the ideas and reforms that matter, host Joe Owen is joined by two people who know what it actually takes to get thing...

The UK is headed for another energy crisis. The war in Iran has choked energy markets and will be felt as another hit for inflation weary consumers and for the UK's beleagured economy. What should government do now? And how can it act to make sure that it doesn't waste the crisis? In this episode of Policy Fix, host Joe Owen sits down with Nesta CEO Ravi Gurumurthy and director of Nesta&#3...

One in five children aged 3–5 already owns a smartphone and 95% of 13–15 year-olds have a social media profile. Is the UK's Online Safety Act failing to protect them and is a blanket ban on social media the answer? In this episode of Policy Fix, host Joe Owen sits down with Tony Curzon Price, economist and policy fellow at Nesta, and Hannah Perry, Director at Demos, to untangle one of the most urg...

Successive governments have promised to reform the British state. Most have left it harder to navigate than they found it. So what would genuinely fixing the way government works actually look like? In this episode of The Policy Fix, Jill Rutter (Senior Fellow, Institute for Government) and Andrew Greenway (founder of A Bit Digital and former senior civil servant) join host Joe Owen to examine why...

The UK tax system has been described by experts as irrational, a mess and a nightmare. But what would genuinely reforming it look like - and why have successive chancellors ducked it for so long? In this first episode of The Policy Fix, Tim Leunig (chief economist, Nesta) and Helen Miller (director, Institute for Fiscal Studies) break down the biggest structural problems in Britain’s tax system: t...

Something’s coming 🎙️ We’re stepping into the studio to tackle the UK’s biggest challenges - not just to debate the problems, but to find the fixes. Make sure you subscribe to this brand new podcast from, Nesta.