Commenting on Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s speech to Conservative Party Conference, Director General at the Institute of Economic Affairs Mark Littlewood said:

“It is a good day when praise for free markets dominates the Prime Minister’s party conference speech. The freedoms and liberties we enjoy in the UK go hand-in-hand with a commitment to economic liberalism, which creates prosperity and raises living standards for everyone in society.

“But Boris Johnson must pay more than just lip service to free enterprise and fiscal responsibility. 

“Results for patients on the NHS are not, as the Prime Minister claims, “amazing”, but rather woefully mediocre in international comparisons of health system performance. Expanding house-building on brownfield sites will not remove the need to dramatically liberalise planning law, to deliver the million new homes Britain needs to tackle the housing crisis. And his endorsement of hiking the National Living Wage only serves to further politicise wage-setting, risking the productivity growth he hopes to generate in order to increase tax revenue and boost funding for public services.

“The Prime Minister’s instincts on the merits of capitalism seem to hit the mark. What was missing from his speech were concrete policy plans to reduce the tax burden and roll back red tape, which would allow market mechanisms to flourish.”

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For further IEA reading on capitalism, click here.

For further IEA reading on red tape, click here.

For further IEA reading on housing, click here.

For further IEA reading on wage-setting, click here.

The mission of the Institute of Economic Affairs is to improve understanding of the fundamental institutions of a free society by analysing and expounding the role of markets in solving economic and social problems.

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