‘Growth’ – the focus of the Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ speech this morning – can be a confusing word. It’s intangible, obscure, hard to visualise. It happens slowly, often imperceptibly, over a political cycle – when it happens at all. The changes needed to achieve it can be tough and involve trade-offs. Often voters feel those changes will not directly benefit them, or may even make their lives worse – whether it’s new housing developments, HS2, a new runway at Heathrow (which Reeves backed) or new nuclear power stations. For anyone who stood on the doorstep during the last election, we know that making and doing more things can be a hard sell. So the Chancellor is right to treat her ‘dash for growth’ – spurred on by the catastrophic £8 billion collapse in headroom caused by her own cack-handed drive for fiscal stability – as a national emergency.
Growth is a necessary, not sufficient, condition for an economy to thrive
What Rachel Reeves’ plan looks like in practice remains to be seen.
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