Britain’s status as a low-investment nation is as damaging as it is incontrovertible. Fraying infrastructure, weak growth, slowing climate progress; the sense nothing works anymore is inseparable from the failure of repeated Conservative governments to adequately invest in the nation’s productive capacity and collective resilience. Life is harder and more insecure for many as a result. Contrary to recent headlines, then, Labour’s Green Prosperity Plan makes urgent economic sense. Breaking from the trap of a stagnant and unequal economy requires increasing public investment, ‘green’ or otherwise. The more appropriate criticism of Labour’s investment agenda is not that it is too ambitious, but that it remains inadequate for the age of overlapping emergencies.
Labour is provisionally committed to publicly investing an additional £20bn a year in green infrastructure and industry by the end of the next Parliament. New investment would be funded through borrowing. Given there is widespread evidence that higher public investment boosts inclusive growth and accelerates decarbonisation, outcomes that are central to fulfilling Keir Starmer’s five governing missions, this is welcome. Yet even if the headline figure was delivered in full – itself uncertain, amid recent reports that high level discussions are scheduled in Labour to decide on its fate – Labour’s plans mean overall public investment would still be lower as a percentage of national income at the end of a first term of a Starmer government than at the start. It would remain significantly – and damagingly – below the average in other advanced economies, and less than today as a share of the economy.
Content from our partners
