Launching Prosperity Through Growth

I have long thought that there needs to be a radical shift in our economic policy in order toget the UK back on the path to economic prosperity. Since 2007, significant economic growth has eluded the UK.

Too often conversation about growth is purely about the numbers, focusing on whether monthly figures from the ONS have bumped up or down. This fixation has meant that therehas been little focus on the real impact, as most people increasingly view growth as something which benefits others but not them. Public First polling last year showed that only 49 per cent think that growth benefits them.

The UK is a fantastic country, full of entrepreneurial spirit and brimming with talent. The challenge is how to unlock it. Multiple governments have tinkered round the edges when wholescale change is needed.

Growth is not merely a statistic on a spreadsheet but rather a measure of the opportunities that businesses are creating. It gives a sense of how much innovation is being brought into the market and how many jobs are being created. It also affects the levels of philanthropy, hitting important charitable initiatives.

All this directly impacts livelihoods and day-to-day life so easily missed from public debate. It is all about people earning, learning and building a future. It’s about the confidence that allows an entrepreneur to hire, a manufacturer to invest in new machinery, or a young person to take their first step into work.

One aspect of the conversation around growth which has come out most strongly is the power of incentives. So many people, particularly those I meet in my work with the Jobs Foundation, want to create, invest and employ, but the way that government policy interacts with their efforts too often makes that harder than it should be.

Growth happens when people are encouraged to take risks, to work hard, to innovate and to invest. Nowhere is this clearer than in the decisions businesses make about who to employ and where. The right framework of rewards, recognition, and support helps turn ambition into achievement and that’s the foundation of sustainable job creation.

It is not an abstract goal. It’s about more people having the opportunity to create jobs, exciting products and innovating to make us all better off. Every business that creates a job is doing something profoundly social: lifting people out of poverty, restoring dignity and independence and strengthening their community.

That’s why – with my co-authors Dr Arthur Laffer, Lord Michael Hintze and Douglas McWilliams – I’ve spent this year exploring how we might resurrect the UK’s economic fortunes. This has meant exploring not just the theory but also the practical policies and the politics of delivering a plan for growth in the UK.

The result is our new book, Prosperity Through Growth: Boosting Living Standards in an Age of Autocracy and AI, which will be released this Thursday. It’s a look at the engines of job creation, the policies needed to correct course, as well as the politics of making such a plan work.