This is an important new post from @pdmsero. There is a proposal going around, with support from voices as diverse as Richard Tice, IPPR and New Economics Foundation, that the Government could raise £billions by eliminating (or at least taxing) interest that banks receive on reserves held with the Bank of England. But this is misguided, and will damage the Bank of England's ability to control inflation. Why? Because the Bank of England depends on these interest payments to control the rate at which banks lend, and therefore the amount of money in the economy, and the price of goods. The key graph is this one: a levy on reserves reduces market interest rates, and therefore the amount of borrowing. The bank rate would no longer effectively control market rates to manage inflation. If you want to tax banks, there are better ways of doing it. But going after reserves would reduce state capacity, and our ability to act.

The scandal here is that Britain consistently overspends but under-delivers on infrastructure. Our @BritishProgress study with @BritainRemade found that we spend 30% more than comparable OECD countries on transport & energy infrastructure, but deliver a fifth less. Overall we face a 65% cost premium for building in Britain: for the same money, we could have a lot more if we built like European countries do. The only people who benefit from this system are rent-seeking sectors, like consultants and lawyers employed to ensure compliance with complex regulations. Meanwhile it's ordinary people, like taxpayers and Miatta's constituents, who lose out.

The PM is expected to signal an end to the triple lock today. But what are the options for reform, and how much money do they save? @BritishProgress (namely, @matthewgstubbs) has made a tool to compare the different ideas on the table. For instance, you can compare @timleunig's '5-year triple lock' with @resfoundation's 'smoothed triple lock' proposal (originally proposed by @TorstenBell and @lauracgardiner) to see that they each would save around £60bn by 2047, and deliver an annual state pension of around £27k (nominal). As you can see, the amount of money that can be saved – particularly over a longer time-horizon, is enormous.

FINALLY, check out this tool built by @matthewgstubbs to explore the survey results data. You can also see how different AI models responded to the survey, and how closely they tracked experts' views. (@grok 4.6 and @claudeai's Fable 5.1 were closest to the experts!) growthsurvey.britishprogress…

Huge thanks to @matthewgstubbs for pulling the survey together, @pdmsero for helping design the questions, and to all our 100+ respondents! You can read the full results and analysis here: britishprogress.org/reports/…

Thank you also to @conky_k for covering the story in @thetimes today, featuring quotes from @johnfingleton1, @frencheconomics and @markkoyama. You can read the piece here: thetimes.com/uk/politics/art…

Every year @BritishProgress asks Britain's top economists and policy researchers what the UK should do to increase growth. 🚨 As covered exclusively for @thetimes this morning, the 2026 growth survey results are now in! 🚨 This was our biggest survey yet with over 100 responses. 📉 The bad news: Britain's public finances, with inflation hit by external shocks, are in a bad state. 📈 The good news: the UK is not without options. There is much that can be done on the supply side reforms, & smarter fiscal policy can raise revenue while supporting growth. Here are the 12 most interesting results 👇 *1. Where should the government prioritise spending political capital?* We asked "In what areas should the Government invest more (or less) political capital to achieve growth?" NB this was explicitly not a question about spending – that's the next one.

NEW REPORT from @Ezra_Cohen_ for @BritishProgress on what we can do to tackle dodgy shops. We all see them all the time, but no one seems to do anything about them. Ezra has an answer! Read all about it 👇

Come and work with us! We're looking for an ambitious & creative editor to oversee our publications and Substack. You'll have a lot of autonomy, room to grow and excellent colleagues! Check it out! ⬇️