Healey’s prescriptions for growth are familiar — and wrong

Far-right politics / 6 September 2026 Farage is dripping in sleaze – but the rise of the right won’t defeat itself 6 September 2026 Editorial / 4 September 2026 Burnham, the bond markets and the choice facing Labour 4 September 2026 Editorial / 3 September 2026 Polanski raises stakes in by-election 3 September 2026 Editorial / 2 September 2026 You can’t separate the cost-of-living crisis from foreign policy 2 September 2026 Editorial / 1 September 2026 Burnham must stop housing back-sliding 1 September 2026 Editorial / 1 September 2026 Why unions must take the fight to Andy Burnham 1 September 2026 Editorial / 30 August 2026 Britain’s prisons need reform, not political point-scoring 30 August 2026 JAGUAR Land Rover confirming 4,000 jobs will go took the shine off Chancellor John Healey’s claim that Britain’s economy is “turning the corner” today.

Healey’s “pre-Budget speech” suggests his own well-publicised assessment that Andy Burnham’s is a “continuity” government, rather than representing a sharp policy break from Keir Starmer, holds true.

He emphasises adherence to his predecessor Rachel Reeves’s fiscal-rules straitjacket, severely constraining government room for manoeuvre on spending. Burnham may have called for Britain to “get beyond” being “in hock to the bond market” when he was Manchester mayor but in government he runs as scared of the money men as his predecessor.

Healey’s prescription for economic growth falls under two main headings.

One, fiscal devolution, including greater tax-retention powers by local authorities, could begin to reverse the hollowing-out of local democracy we have seen since Thatcher’s day, though the specifics, which he says he will map out at the Budget, are crucial: his refusal to rule out devolution of corporation tax was worrying, since that could prompt a race to the bottom by regions hoping to attract corporate favours.

But the other repeats the tried-and-tested-to-destruction mantra of government after government: that deregulating business will spur growth.

Healey’s pledge to reduce business regulation by “25 per cent” echoes David Cameron’s notorious “bonfire of the regulations.”

These arbitrary targets encourage reckless deregulation ignoring the principle dubbed “Chesterton’s Fence” — that you should find out why a fence was put up before you tear it down.

Deregulation is responsible for atrocities like the Grenfell Tower blaze and outrages like the poisoning of our rivers and coastlines by privatised water companies exploiting the lax “operator self-monitoring” system so effectively skewered in Channel 4’s Dirty Business drama. Indeed, deregulation of the banking sector allowed the high-risk lending and speculation that exploded in the 2008 bankers’ crash, which prompted the long squeeze on wages and cuts to public services which Healey laments.

Given how far trade unions’ hopes in this government are tied up with the Employment Rights Act, key provisions of which we’re still waiting on and which is already heavily diluted from the original New Deal for Workers, we need clarity on what Healey means by reducing the regulatory burden on business, particularly since he lists “labour costs” as part of that burden.

He also objects to “planning constraints,” and specifies that changes to judicial review rules already applied to energy projects, which reduce the scope to challenge them legally, will be extended to “all major infrastructure.” The government classifies the energy and water-intensive, and overwhelmingly US-owned, data centres springing up on our land as “critical national infrastructure” — will we lose our limited democratic power to fight these?

Aside from the risk that deregulation will weaken worker, consumer and public protections, the notion that letting corporations do whatever they want will lead to growth ignores the underlying weaknesses behind Britain’s low levels of private-sector investment.

A corporate culture that prioritises short-term profit over long-term sustainability is actually the result of under-regulation, especially when it comes to allowing private equity to buy up British businesses and services.

Jaguar Land Rover (JLR’s) problems include the frankly hostile trade policy of the United States and its tariffs, but also the transition to electric vehicles. Tories cite government targets for production of electric cars as a burden on the business — as if petrol cars have an indefinite future. But JLR’s plummeting sales in China are down to consumer preferences shifting towards electric cars. Investment in accelerating the transition to renewables, as we have seen in China, is the route to more competitive exports.

A clear judgement on the new Chancellor’s approach must wait for the Budget. But the signs so far are that the crippling misapprehensions of the last government are shared by its successor.

Economy / 7 September 2026 Chancellor John Healey vows to ‘draw a line’ under rising costs for businesses during first major speech 7 September 2026 Industrial / 6 September 2026 4,000 Jaguar Land Rover jobs hang in the balance 6 September 2026 Unite hits back as government says there will be no bailout