The central purpose of our economic policy is to give people the opportunity to build wealthier, more secure lives for themselves and their families.
- At the start of this year, we committed to halve inflation – because inflation is a tax that erodes that dream, driving up the cost of the weekly shop and mortgages, eroding hard-earned savings and pensions.
- We have delivered on our commitment and halved inflation, which has fallen to 4.6 per cent. This is the largest fall in inflation since the start of the 1980s, down from its peak of 11.1 per cent last year.
- With inflation falling, and global economic conditions stabilising, we are now able to change gear and turn our attention to the long-term decisions required to strengthen our economy and build a brighter future.
- As we do so, the country faces a critical choice about our strategy for the economy and the role of government within it.
- Labour think we must continue with the big government, high spending, high borrowing, and high tax approach we had to take to get us through Covid and the economic shock from Putin’s war, based on the fairy-tale idea the idea that someone sitting in Whitehall can plan and direct the whole economy, assisted by tens of billions of pounds of spending with no plan to pay for it.
- We will offer a fundamentally different approach. An approach that believes that as we move on from the twin shocks of Covid and the energy price spike, we must take the chance to control spending so we can tax less. That gets inflation down and keeps it down. That believes the private sector grows the economy and where government has a role, it must be limited. And in doing these things, an approach that allows us to grasp the unprecedented opportunities of the new wave of technology, to unleash the dynamism of the private sector and all the jobs and growth it will bring.
