Delivering a New Growth Strategy for Britain’s Economy

• Finally, there is the rest of the economy; the environment and climate where the EU has regulated strongly to force the adoption of non-fossil-based energy; the regulation of technology, especially in agriculture (GM is forbidden) and pharmaceuticals, where the EU has given primacy to the precautionary principle, and held back technological innovation. [...] EXPAND THE REMIT AND CAPABILITY OF THE OBR TO SUPPORT THE NEW COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISORS The Treasury approach to fiscal policy has been further entrenched by the creation of the OBR. [...] Indeed the irony is that today’s senior civil servants were so attuned to the lessons of the 1970s in their youth – ie, monetary policy must be used to control inflation and that the government must demonstrate solvency - that they have failed to notice how much the facts of the day and problems have moved on, necessitating a rethink to deal with the new problems of growth and the modern business. [...] Revamp Economic Modelling Owing to the changes of function due to Bank independence, the Treasury’s adoption of borrowing rules and the rise of the OBR, the critical activity of modelling the economy’s behaviour has been abandoned by the Treasury and the OBR has had inadequate resources to take it over, even if it has done some particular modelling projects. [...] In the same way that the worthwhile reform of the creation of a national curriculum for schools was effectively hijacked, in the first instance, by the contemporary education establishment successfully subverting the ambitions of the original public service reform.