The Fiscal Alternative: Public finance choices for the left

A new Fabian Society report, published ahead of the 2018 Budget, calls today for a comprehensive change in direction for UK fiscal policy.

The Fiscal Alternative
By Andrew Harrop
Published 23 October 2018
Topics Labour party , Economy

The Fiscal Alternative is the final report of a six-month project, Public Finance Choices for the Left, and presents recommendations to both a future Labour government and today’s Conservative ministers.

The project was conducted by the Fabian Society and ICAEW and brought together Labour shadow ministers, policy experts and the finance community to debate how a future government might approach public finance decisions.

The final Fabian Society report recommends that:

The Conservatives should adopt fiscal rules similar to those of the Labour party in order to end austerity
Labour should plan to increase public spending by at least 4 percentage points of GDP
Public finance rules should be reformed to end the bias against public sector activism
Taxes should be made more progressive to redistribute money around the UK
The geographic allocation of public spending should be reformed and spending should be devolved so that localities can run their own single public service budgets.

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