A Budget for Progress

The Chancellor faces a £20 billion fiscal challenge driven by weak growth and high borrowing costs. Without growth, the UK risks a negative spiral of stagnation, forcing difficult choices between tax rises and austerity measures.

To address this gap, we propose 14 targeted policies designed to increase fiscal headroom by over £10 billion through growth-oriented reforms. Key recommendations include:

• Replacing Stamp Duty with an optional annual property tax to remove distortions in the housing market and raise long-term revenue.
• Reformulating the State Pension Triple Lock to calculate earnings and growth over a ten-year period, saving £6 billion annually by 2030.
• Reforming startup incentives by scrapping the outdated Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) and expanding Enterprise Management Incentives (EMI) to support high-growth scale-ups.
• Removing the Carbon Price Support to reduce energy bills by £1.3 billion and accelerate the electrification of the UK economy.