I am delighted to publish this guest post by John Crompton on how to fix Britain’s public finances following Rachel Reeves’s revelation of a £22 billion black hole in the accounts. John is a former Treasury official and investment banker as well as a co-author of Public Net Worth, published earlier this year. The inadequacy of Britain’s fiscal rules and the extent to which they have driven poor policy decisions over many years has been a recurring theme in the Wealth of Nations. Given the fiscal challenges faced by all Western democracies at a time of historically high debt levels and weak growth, John’s recommendations apply well beyond Britain.
