Economy

How do we mend the UK’s broken economy? Fixing UK PLC has outwitted our political leaders, but that’s not surprising. We love the status quo, have an ingrained risk aversion, and our politicians too quickly resort to pickpocketing the electorate with more taxes, and saddling us with debt. What we need are some KPIs, or key performance indicators, to get back on track. KPIs are time-bound goals with clear numerical targets, and critically the person who is responsible for their delivery is identified and on the hook. To enhance transparency, our government’s KPIs should be overlaid with a traffic light system, to squeeze the managerial pips – green for success, amber

This week the British government introduced subsidies for electric vehicles (EVs). But as they have failed to first adopt sensible trade defence measures, this risks Chinese EVs flooding the UK, bringing job losses and data security risks in their wake. Rather than following the example of the US and the European Union, which have adopted tariffs against Chinese EVs to protect automotive jobs, the UK will roll out subsidies for EVs. Each vehicle that qualifies as having a low enough level of carbon emissions in its production will be granted a subsidy of either £1,500 or £3,750. Ministers have so far refused to publish a list of manufacturers who will be eligible,

Unemployment has hit 4.7 per cent – its highest level for four years after the Chancellor’s taxes on business caused jobs to slump. The figures, published this morning by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), also show payroll jobs down by 178,000 in the 12 months to June and by 41,000 between May and June. The line that Rachel Reeves’ decision – namely her £25 billion employer national insurance tax raid – is hampering the job market is becoming a strong one. Andrew Griffith, shadow business secretary, said: ‘Unemployment is the only thing growing under Labour.’ As Reeves weighs up tax rises likely to fall heavily on businesses to plug

When the history of the next election comes to be written, we may end up asking: was the turning point for its outcome the moment that Keir Starmer’s government backtracked on its welfare reforms in the face of a backbench revolt? The fiasco, which eliminated the government’s hopes of saving £5 billion a year, has made any welfare reform during the current Parliament impossible.   Britain has become the benefits office of the world The cost of that is becoming more evident by the day. Figures revealed this morning show that there are currently 3.6 million people receiving Universal Credit who are under no obligation whatsoever to look for work. They

Rachel Reeves wants Britain to become a shareholder democracy. In her annual Mansion House speech to the City’s bankers, accountants and financial advisors, she said ‘for too long, we have presented investment in too negative a light’. She’s right. These changes are unlikely to unleash the ‘big bang’ of prosperity and tax revenues the Chancellor badly wants and badly needs The Chancellor meant that regulation – which she called the ‘boot on the neck of business’ – has led to too many scary warnings about the risks of investing and not enough talking up of the benefits. She’s referring to the legally mandated ‘investment carries risk’ type messages you hear

The string of bleak economic updates continues. First we had the dire report by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) into fiscal risks, which showed how we’re hurtling towards financial disaster. Now we’ve got figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) that reveal the economy shrank in May – the second month in a row. The data, released this morning, shows that GDP fell by 0.1 per cent in May after shrinking by 0.3 per cent in April. The ONS said the most notable contractions were in production and construction, while services (the backbone of our economy) managed to grow slightly. The contraction in production (down 0.9 per cent)

‘We are becoming a welfare state with an economy attached,’ said Kemi Badenoch in a speech on sickness benefits today. She’s right, though anyone who read the Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) dire report this week knows we’re past becoming: we already are. The figures are staggering. The bill for sickness benefits is heading towards £100 billion a year. Soon, one in every four income tax pounds will go just to cover these payments. Meanwhile, a million young people are doing nothing at all –not in work, not in education, not in training. Badenoch called this not only ‘unaffordable and unjustifiable, but immoral’. Again, she’s right. In a fiery speech hosted