Mucca Mad Boys
Well-Known Member
Where to even start? To state the obvious, we need economic growth.
Two areas to focus on:
Energy. We have the most expensive energy in the western world and cutting the green levies and VAT on energy would be a good start to help ‘immediately’. Helps with household bills and helps businesses, particularly manufacturing. Finally, AI businesses required tons of energy which means cheap energy is the key to unlocking these growth industries.
Massive welfare reforms, having as many people as we do on sickness benefits is a major red flag. Particularly in the 18-24 age range who are predominantly claiming for mental health disorders. The welfare state as we know it cannot cope with this many young people being out of work. There are a few scenarios where the welfare state pays more than people who work. For obvious reasons, this is toxic for the economy and public finances.
My personal view is that the tax burden has reached the critical mass where any new taxes will have diminished returns. A pertinent example here has been the disastrous increase of ‘employers NI’ which has resulted in hours being cut, hiring freezes or even redundancies - particularly impacting young people. Payrolls in the private sector has sharply declined (minus 153k) since this ‘jobs tax’ was introduced but simultaneously the public sector has grown by 75k (or thereabouts).