I take no pleasure in saying it, but the United Kingdom is stuck.
We have weak growth, stubborn inflation and declining competitiveness simply because we have allowed the regulatory alliance of the government, quangos and NGOs to become too large and too intrusive. The ‘groupthink’ that dominates this political class is not interested in cutting back bureaucracy, but instead intent, at every opportunity, to add more and more – as they seek to justify their existence.
Rather than allowing our economy and businesses to breathe, we have decided to wrap everything in cotton wool. Every challenge or “emergency” is met with the same response: another watchdog, another quango or another piece of over-bearing regulation.
Unfortunately, we have allowed ourselves to forget a fundamental truth that: government is not the solution to our problem – government IS the problem.
Despite the Chancellor telling us that “growth is the number one mission”, the figures tell a different story. With the economy expanding by just 0.1% in Q3, it is clear that we cannot regulate our way to prosperity. We need dynamism throughout the business world; we must encourage innovation through freedom, and we must end the risk adverse culture from top to bottom.
This ‘cotton-wool society’ is not just the current Chancellor’s fault. Successive Governments, of all political colours, have let businesses down by constructing an environment that ties their hands behind their backs.
If any Government wants to achieve actual growth in the economy we must change this risk-adverse and bureaucratic culture. We must repeal the cumbersome legislation that is dominating the business world and we must re-create a belief in enterprise and the free market.
This can be achieved by drastically reducing the number of quangos. These arms-length bodies hold little democratic accountability, and they serve as an invisible tax on businesses. They introduce greater requirements which drastically reduce productivity and competitiveness. A Government, truly, committed to growth must look to scrap any that hold Britain’s businesses back.
The same applies to legislation drafted to protect, but instead suffocates the private sector. ESG and DEI mandates and other layers of bureaucracy bring in administrative costs for all businesses and deter investment. Unfortunately, with the Government’s Employment Rights Bill, this regulatory culture does not look as if it will change any time soon.
Finally, the Government has gone too far in supporting organisations that lobby for more and more regulation and intervention. It is ridiculous that NGOs such as Greenpeace and Oxfam have such a hold over the government and take money from the businesses that are promoting growth which will invariably lead to improvements in the social causes they are arguing for. Public money should not be used to promote agendas that undermine economic growth for us all.
Britain needs to remove itself from this hole. We need an economy that supports businesses to grow, invest and most importantly take risks. We simply cannot achieve the Chancellor’s target of economic growth if we continue to rely heavily on quangos and bureaucratic mandates.
Real growth will only come when we trust our businesses to succeed, or yes fail.
