Children born today will be taking their first steps into adulthood in 2040. What will life in the UK be like for them, according to current trajectories? What policy options do we have now that can influence or change that trajectory for the better? 

Almost all of the UK Government’s options to improve outcomes by 2040 will be shaped by our economic fortunes. Economic growth is a lynchpin for improved standards of living and social progress, and bolsters the tax receipts that fund better public services. Policy that secures higher productivity and growth enables governments to pursue ambitious policies elsewhere to keep our citizens healthy and look after those who are not, provide good educational opportunities, to both resist and build resilience against a changing climate, and more. 

But growth has been elusive for the UK in recent years, and particularly since the financial crisis of 2007-2008. The consequences of this continue to reverberate across the economy; the gap between where we are headed and where we could have been, based on pre-Global Financial Crisis trends, is stark. 

We’ve convened the brightest and best economists and thinkers in the UK and beyond to discuss the issues, trade-offs and ideas for reversing the trend. We’ve already examined the fundamental facts and choices and here we highlight some of the many ideas raised by those at the forefront of growth economics.

Focusing on four areas that came up time and time again – our institutions, land use, labour markets, and business productivity – some of the ideas are big, and some are small. Some aim to add to the literature on well-trodden ground, and some are more novel. They don’t aim to provide a comprehensive strategy for ‘fixing’ growth, but we hope all are thought provoking.

The nine ideas that follow in this report are:

• Establish an enduring new independent growth institution
• Empower functional economic areas by establishing regional and local governments in England with a route to devolution and fiscal agency 
• Tackle the housing crisis by moving to a zone-led planning system that simplifies the rules for developers
• Improve land use efficiency by introducing a land value tax
• Reduce labour market inactivity by harnessing data and AI to proactively support individuals
• Improve the transparency of the labour market to improve job quality
• Introduce regionally-specific migration routes
• Create ultra-low-cost energy zones to support industry
• Embrace experimentation by developing a productivity innovation fund to understand the most effective interventions

Download the full PDF report

By Alexandra Burns

Over the last few years, the public debate about politics and policy has often felt bleak. With public services struggling to meet demand, a fragile economy and an increasingly unstable world, it’s easy to see why optimism about the future has been lacking. 

But what would it take to change course?

UK 2040 Options has worked with around 300 experts in an effort to lift our collective heads from the crisis and look forward. A child born today will become an adult in the early 2040s. We’ve examined what the country will look like for them if things stay the same, and what we could do now to alter that trajectory for the better.

First, we assessed the fundamental facts that underpin each of the topics. We then highlighted the big choices that the Government faces as a result. These reports now focus on policy ideas. In doing so, they aim to bring to the fore some of the interesting and potentially impactful policy ideas that experts have suggested to us over the past year. 

Across areas critical to the country’s future – economic growth, health, education and the transition to net zero – we found a high degree of consensus about both the issues and the big, difficult choices facing the new Government. But we found hope and new, innovative ideas too. The four reports we’re publishing today aim to be honest about the challenges and bold about the solutions.

From the introduction of safe phones for under-16s to setting supermarkets targets for the healthiness of the food they sell, from harnessing AI to reduce labour market inactivity to decarbonising homes street by street – the ideas aren’t lacking. Now is the time to debate them and their trade-offs honestly. Our hope is that they provide food for thought for those engaged in designing the country’s future.

Continue the conversation at Policy Live on 12 September – registration is open now.

By Giles Wilkes, senior fellow at Institute for Government and specialist partner at Flint Global

The topic of growth tends to attract a certain kind of obsessive. The great economist Bob Lucas said that once you start thinking about it, it is hard to think about anything else. The consequences of making the right or wrong decisions on growth are staggering to contemplate. Arguably, Britain is suffering some of these consequences right now.

A couple of weeks ago, Nesta gathered a dozen or so of the growth-obsessed to debate stagnation in the UK economy. The gathering came on the heels of a ‘Delphi’ exercise intended to collate the views of many more such experts and kick off the discussion. The ultimate point of this: to feed into Nesta’s UK 2040 Options project that will generate policy options to spur growth.

There’s a well-worn joke about a camel being a horse designed by a committee. It is meant to be a dig at committees – though I have always thought it rather mean about camels – and the idea of decision by consensus. Of course, sometimes this is justified. I have particularly excruciating memories of Whitehall roundtables convened to puzzle through solutions to an impending no deal Brexit. Gathering generalists in a room to deliver ceremonial five-minute speeches is no way to plan the future of the country. I cannot recall much ever being decided on the back of such meetings, and it is probably just as well.

Thankfully, Nesta’s gathering of productivity professionals could not have been more different. There were experts on skills, regional growth, macroeconomic policy, investment, politics, technology, energy, tax and more. Such heterogeneity is vital. Britain’s productivity problem is a crime mystery with multiple culprits. The worst trap to fall into is impatience, which can lead to an urge to use ‘one simple trick’ to solve something as longstanding, multifaceted and intractable as the UK’s productivity problem, like it is some clickbait article about losing weight.

There is a fine line to tread between due acknowledgement of the scale of the problem and trying to eat an indigestible everything-burger of economic ailments, and I think our roundtable managed to tread it. Certain strong themes emerged. Lagging investment, and the structural reasons for this, was one of them. It is hard to find anyone who really thinks the country’s centralised-yet-fragmented political structure is good for investment. Too much is hoarded to an overburdened, under-resourced and politically-diverted Westminster, and the only power to have been thoroughly devolved – planning – is one that holds up growth. Local communities are disengaged and consequently obstructive.

This is a problem that will take an act of political courage to break out of the loop. People are used to blaming central government for the state of their neighbourhood. Never being given full responsibility, local actors never gain the skills to take on the powers they need. Central government, in turn, evaluates devolution as a risky idea, given the lack of local capacity. Some future government needs to go ahead anyway, take the risk that money will be spent badly, and stay the course. Waiting for the perfect moment means nothing happening.

It would have been odd if the problem of inconsistent policymaking was not brought up. What passes for industrial strategy in the UK has been started, stopped and started again too many times to count. Once-a-generation strategies appear every year or two. Institutions to support a more consistent policy framework are missing, or are scrapped soon after coming into existence. Policy uncertainty also shows itself through a lack of long-term budgets, and a consequent inability of local authorities, businesses or government departments to plan ahead or even gain the skills to.

The last theme I would like to emphasise is the closest I will ever come to the ‘one simple trick’ delusion. Economic growth is a scale game. The more exposure there is to customers, ideas, competition and capital, the better the economy will be. You can see this at the level of the business, which is an inherently geared creation, always trying to generate more sales out of the same fixed cost base, and the same applies to the whole economy. Scale is what motivates investment, and scale is what justifies government intervention. There was definitely a lot of frustration that the UK government, when it does act, does so in such a tentative way, as if every footstep it takes needs to be piloted first. The problems are not going to be solved with subscale ideas that fail to be followed through.

Once again, in my view if there is an answer it has to come from the politicians. When they set out a policy goal – be it to build a series of giga factories, become a world-leader in quantum technology, or install five million heat-pumps – they need to become much more demanding about the “how” of the policy, not just the press release on the day of its announcement. Too often the government machine reacts to ambition with concern about the risks; with pilot schemes, consultations and so forth. The politicians need to demand to know what will actually happen, and then stay on the case to make sure it is delivered. Officials will be nervous, because they are blamed when things go wrong, which means the politicians being clear that they, not their staff, are to be held responsible.

Far more was debated than can be summarised in a short post like this; had I enough words, I would love to relate more what was said about tax, energy, skills and the labour market. We barely touched upon the immediate choices facing the next government, whatever it may be: its fiscal pressures, the relationship with Europe, and how to push greater devolution. At the end I was relieved we had been set a 15+ year timescale to think about, rather than the more typical “give me five good ideas for a speech next Thursday” schedule that is regrettably normal in politics. But as the UK 2040 Options programme proceeds, I expect the sense of urgency to increase and the focus to narrow. There’s an election next year and the need for genuinely good ideas has never been greater.

Economic activity and the productivity that underlies it has a major impact on our ability to provide things that people value – from homes to hospitals to holidays. If we are to achieve continued improvement in the standard of living for UK citizens by 2040, growth will be key.

Where is the UK economy now, and where is it heading? There is no shortage of commentary, data and debate. These fundamental facts aim to distil the wealth of information into the core, foundational evidence and trends that policymakers should have front of mind as they consider the options, providing clear signals amongst the noise. Unsurprisingly, they illustrate that the UK economy is having significant difficulties at the moment with GDP per capita, real wages and productivity performing poorly both absolutely and comparatively. There is also some indication of the proximate causes of this: regional imbalances and low investment both now and historically appear as prime culprits. Whilst employment looks healthier there are warning signs there too, from growing long-term sickness to the impact of demographic changes by 2040.

Of course in considering these foundational facts it is worth bearing in mind that economic outcomes are just one way of measuring social progress. Whilst overall GDP growth, rising productivity and real wages tend to be associated with higher living standards, economic measures don’t give us the whole picture. Not least, aggregate economic growth can mask inequality in varying forms. Across the UK 2040 Options project, we will be considering a wide set of outcomes from health to education and wealth inequality.

Read the ten things we think people working in economic growth and productivity should know, by downloading our fundamentals document.