The Week 11 October 2024
Policy Director
Party conferences are already a distant memory, and the Chancellor’s Budget on the 30th of October is fast approaching. The ONS are reporting this morning that GDP grew 0.2 per cent in the month of August, which Rachel Reeves is taking as a vote of confidence in the Government’s fiscal plans. Speculation continues about the biggest revenue-raising options, like capital gains tax, and the bond markets warn that there is little room for more borrowing as prices climbed on Monday and Tuesday.
To continue driving the Government’s growth mission, the Prime Minister has appointed a new Investment Minister, Poppy Gustafsson. The former CEO of cybersecurity firm Darktrace will join government via the House of Lords, where she follows Patrick Vallance and James Timpson as another Minister appointed from outside of politics to bring their experience to Whitehall. With plenty of recent criticism that “investment is banned” in Britain, she can expect to arrive to a full in-tray.
But as professional Whitehall-watchers, we’re most interested in what’s happening behind the scenes, where the list of Mission Boards has been published. They look very similar to previous lists of Cabinet sub-committees, with the relevant Secretary of State chairing each. Our Senior Researcher Patrick King set out the problems with this model, and why we recommended one big Mission Board, chaired by the PM (in our paper Mission control) to prioritise the collective set of missions and coordinate between them.
Onto the read of the week..
Secretary of State for DSIT Peter Kyle launched the new Regulatory Innovation Office on Tuesday. So far they look to be just bringing together existing teams, hiring a chair, and announcing their priority areas. But if you want to read why it matters that the RIO is a success, and what it would take in terms of investment, logistics and powers, then read Andrew Bennett’s paper with our friends at UK Day One. Particularly fascinating is the idea of using the RIO as a “regulator of last resort”, to step in when other regulators are facing challenges.