Some groups on the left and right who offer only complaints: The government is proceeding with the job of economic rejuvenation.
At the budget last week, we made the right choices for Britain, reducing energy expenses with a £150 reduction in charges, safeguarding the health service and combating the problem of impoverished children by removing the two-child limit. Steps were likewise implemented that the revenue we raised through taxes was done justly, with all paying their share but those with the greatest capacity contributing their fair share.
As a result of the choices we made, the budget fostered greater economic stability, reducing price increases and state borrowing costs. This is essential for securing our public services, when one pound in every ten expended by government goes on borrowing costs.
Building on Economic Foundations
The announcement strengthens the action we have already taken to improve the economy: directing £120bn toward new investments in such things as transportation and power infrastructure; enacting the biggest planning reforms in a generation to favor construction, not impediments; supporting the expansion of Heathrow and Gatwick; and establishing trading partnerships with the EU, India and the US.
Collectively, these have allowed us to surpass our economic projections.
Revitalizing Our Country
As I set out at the party conference, the government’s purpose is exactly the renewal of our financial system, our localities and our government. Through this approach, we will halt deterioration and restore faith in our country.
We will challenge those on the left and right who only offer dissatisfaction and whose approach would lead to further decline. I want to emphasize, ramping up deficit spending or returning us to austerity – that is the politics of decline and I cannot endorse it.
An Extensive Expansion Agenda
Through remarks coming soon, I will frame the economic measures within the broader financial revitalization on which the government will be judged at the end of this parliament.
To accomplish the national renewal we seek, we must do more to encourage growth, to tackle inactivity among young people and to pursue closer international cooperation with our trading partners.
Bureaucracy Reduction Effort
Our expansion agenda will include a renewed focus on sweeping away unnecessary regulation. Often it has been those on the left who have supported restrictions, but there is nothing advanced in regulations which merely act to raise the cost of living for the poorest, to hinder financial expansion unnecessarily, or prevent a Labour government achieving its aims.
This is the reason I am asking the business secretary to tackle the type of unnecessary embellishment and unnecessary red tape that add to costs and obstruct our industrial strategy.
Benefits System Overhaul
Economic renewal also demands that we must continue to reform the welfare state. We inherited a failing system that resulted in impoverished youth going hungry and which dismissed adolescents as incapable of employment.
We must not accept either part of that ineffective right-wing framework. Hence the reason we will do more to help young people achieve their potential.
Since when individuals are overlooked in your early career, if you are denied the assistance you need to address psychological challenges, or if you are simply written off because you are experiencing cognitive variations or handicaps, then it can trap you in a cycle of joblessness and neediness for decades.
This imposes financial burdens, is bad for our productivity, but much more importantly, it removes potential and ignores potential. Any Labour government worthy of the name cannot ignore that.
Hence the explanation we have commissioned former health secretary to make implementable proposals to help young people with medical issues obtain employment, training or education – guaranteeing they receive assistance to thrive and not sidelined.
International Trade Enhancement
Lastly, we need additional measures to help our businesses trade internationally. No believable commercial perspective for Britain that does not place us as a welcoming, business-oriented country.
We need to acknowledge the reality that the mishandled separation arrangement substantially damaged our finances. It isn't necessary to have a PhD in economics to know that erecting unnecessary trade barriers with your biggest trading partner will impede expansion and increase expenses.
Thus an aspect of our economic renewal will be continuing to move towards a stronger commercial partnership with the EU. If we can get cheaper food, boost growth and create jobs by having a closer relationship with the EU, we should.
A Serious Plan for Serious Times
An economic package built on just selections for Britain must be supported by resolve to achieve the financial revitalization that the country needs.
Through implementing a substantial, courageous extended strategy, not a set of short-term remedies, we will revitalize the nation. We need to transform once more a meaningful society, with a serious government, competent jointly to perform demanding actions to reclaim command of our destiny.
By having a clear mission to renew our economy, our communities and our state, we will implement the transformation we pledged – and then be judged on it at the next election.