Host

Philippa Lamb

Guests

• Iain Wright, Managing Director, Reputation and Influence, ICAEW
• David Williamson, Political Editor, Sunday Express
• Frances Haque, Chief Economist, Santander UK

Producer

Natalie Chisholm

Transcript

Philippa Lamb: Hello. Happy New Year. Now, for our first episode of 2025 we’re going to be trying to predict the most significant global and national events that could affect business and finance in the year ahead. I’m Philippa Lamb, and I’m relieved to say I’m joined in this tricky task by our regular forecasting team back with us for the third year. In the studio, David Williamson, Political Editor at the Sunday Express, and joining remotely, Iain Wright, ICAEW Managing Director of Reputation and Influence, and Frances Haque, Chief Economist at Santander UK. Hello everyone, welcome back.

There is so much going on right now. We’re not actually going to dwell on last year much, but having listened back to the predictions you all made 12 months ago, the standout for me was that Iain was a lone voice putting his money on the early UK election that, of course, surprised the rest of the country when it actually happened. David rightly predicted a Trump victory. Frances, you nailed exactly where we’d be on inflation right now. So good job, everyone.

David Williamson: I’m quite surprised at my forecast.

PL: Well, we’re not. We expect nothing less. Since then, we’ve obviously had the new government. We’ve had Rachel Reeves’ controversial Budget. Trump arrives in office in the US later this month. A bit closer to home we’ve got a lot of political turmoil in Germany and France. How about we start with Donald Trump and his threat of tariffs? Here’s just a reprise for everyone: he’s promised a 25% tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico; I think it’s an additional 10% on imports from China. Obviously, these are his three largest trading partners. What do we think that’s going to do to the US economy first?

Frances Haque: Well, I’m happy to take that one.

PL: Go on then, Frances, tell us.

FH: It’s quite interesting, if you … I mean, obviously I don’t forecast the US economy, but I keep a very close eye on it, because whatever happens there, it matters to us. But it’s interesting reading other forecasters over there and what they think might happen. I mean the inevitable – obviously – increase in inflation, which may be just a one-off for next year but obviously raises the level. That will be interesting to see how that works out, because I think it’s inflation that actually helped Trump in the first place. So if it continues to increase, I’m wondering how that works from a cost-of-living perspective, and how that works for Trump. But you’re probably going to have less growth and therefore … and you’re also probably going to see less cuts in bank rate, if inflation does, as we expect, pick up.

PL: What about the UK and Europe? We’re looking at tariffs too.

FH: Yes. The one thing to remember, of course, with Europe and the US, is there are a lot of tariffs already in place. So quite how the dynamic there changes – whether it’s further tariffs on those goods and services that already have tariffs on them, or whether we’re focusing on new areas, will be interesting to see. Not helpful for the European economy, because obviously it is struggling very much at the moment, and particularly obviously Germany, which is a massive trade exporter.

In terms of the UK? I suspect that the direct impact of the tariffs – and he’s obviously talked about that 10% figure – I don’t think it would have a huge impact directly on the UK economy. But there are obviously second-round effects that will be coming through, and it almost certainly will have an effect on the exchange rate, and that could of course increase inflation in the UK. But in terms of the direct effects, I’d have thought they’d be relatively minimal, but of course on those sectors where he does put the tariffs on, then obviously there’ll be a much larger impact.

PL: Iain, what’s your take on this? Is there any sense in which these tariffs might create opportunity in the UK?

Iain Wright: No…

PL: Okay.

IW: …is the short answer. Tariffs in a protectionist economy is never good for business. History shows us that. I’m no economist like Frances, but I do love my history, and when you see barriers come up when it comes to trade, the world becomes poorer, and we need to deal with that.

Speaking of the word ‘deal’, I wonder whether Trump’s rhetoric is about trying to produce a negotiating position. It’s the opening gambit of trying to get a deal. He wrote a book, The Art of the Deal. That’s what he’s all about, and whether it’s to try and get favorable terms… As Frances said, there’s a lot of tariffs already in place between the US and Europe. Maybe this is just the opening gambit of a negotiating stance to make sure that American companies can export better.

PL: Yes. What do you think, David? How positive is the US feeling about trading and investing with us?

DW: I think Trump is essentially a creature of 1970s New York. You look at his campaign, it’s what he channels. It’s talk of crime waves, it’s disco. And of course, he also will have grown up with his formative experiences being inflation. And I think the second that someone sits down and says, Look, you have to make a choice essentially. Are we going to see sky-high inflation which is going to make whatever people experienced under Joe Biden seem like just a mild cold, or are you actually going to focus on delivering that rise in living standards that you promised? I think that’s going to probably be very powerful to him, because he’s someone who looks at the poll ratings. His great delight is that he’s managed to get elected with the popular vote, which stunned everybody. It’s changed the entire temperature and the way in which the world talks about Trump. So he’s going to want to keep that affection, that validation that was so clearly missing in his first term, where there was the sense that having not won the popular vote, he was fighting for legitimacy a lot at the time.

And this touches on lots of his most controversial policies, because if he does go ahead with a historic clampdown on undocumented migrants, and if you are literally seeing the forces of the state being used to try and move hundreds of thousands, millions of people, that’s going to have a phenomenal impact on labour costs. And again, that’s inflationary, so suddenly he’s going to find himself sitting thinking, do I want to be the least popular president in modern history?

PL: But he’s talked about it so much. Isn’t it going to be hard for him to backtrack from it?

DW: I think he’ll probably find a way of doing it without backtracking, and certainly I agree completely with Iain, this is the big put something on the table, make everyone sit on this, and I think we have to do a deal.

PL: Frances, could we – just before we leave Trump – can we just talk a bit about crypto? Because he has changed his position on this, hasn’t he? He’s now talking about making the US the ‘global crypto capital’. We know all about the scams and frauds and the downside of this, but thinking about it in a bit of a more macro way, if we hear a lot more about that, and the Bank of England has already talked about bringing forward a sterling denominated version, in some way, of crypto, is that going to push that into actually happening more rapidly, or happening at all, do you think?

FH: Well, I certainly think … The Bank of England has been looking at digital currency for a little while now, and I don’t think that’s just related to the issues with crypto. I think there’s a general view that perhaps the next generation, perhaps I don’t quite include myself in this … That’s the way that they view things, much more of a digital kind of nature, and the way that payments are being made, there perhaps needs to be that around for businesses and people to be able to use and obviously it is much better if it is properly set up by someone like the Bank of England.

Equally, there is actually … the FCA has got, I’m not sure if it’s exactly a consultation, but they’re certainly asking for feedback in terms of cryptocurrency and transparency around it, because I don’t think we can get away from the fact that this is going to become more popular and it’s going to grow, and there are very little protections out there for consumers in particular. And a lot of us obviously understand some of the problems with it, with scams and things like that. You can lose a lot of money very, very quickly. And I think there needs to be a lot more information out there. So I think the FCA is starting to look at what they can do to help protect consumers as much as possible.

But with or without Trump, to be honest, I think cryptocurrency was always going to start moving up people’s agendas. I just think with Trump there, it’s probably going to move up an awful lot quicker. As you say, governments, central banks are going to need to be a bit more on the front foot.

PL: Yes. Iain, it’s coming, isn’t it?

IW: I do worry about this. I agree with Frances, I think this feels so unregulated. I think people can lose an awful lot of money very quickly, so I think some degree of a strong regulatory and consumer protection approach is absolutely necessary. It feels a bit like other parts…

PL: Particularly recently.

IW: …of the economy actually, it feels frothy. Some of the values just seem silly. And then even if you look at listed companies …

DW: Exactly.

IW: Bitcoin is $100,000 or something, absolutely ridiculous. And even the stock market seems … very much feels … there’s an element of a froth there. But just coming back, if I may, to David’s point: if you look at any degree of tariff – it doesn’t have to be 60% on Chinese goods – that’s inflationary. If you’re restricting the labour supply in America, that’s inflationary. And then the other big thing that I don’t think is talked about enough is the US debt position. I think Donald Trump will produce quite a big tax cut – that would be my prediction for 2025 – that’s inflationary. And then what does that mean about the US fiscal situation? The US debt has doubled in a decade, gone to $36tn. That is astonishing. And it’s running annual budget deficits of $2tn a year. Now, am I expecting the US government to default on its debt? No. Am I thinking that the US is somewhat a special case in the global economy based upon its fundamental strengths? Yes, I am. But that is worrying. You can’t get that level of debt running at … it could be close to 8% of GDP, without some degree of shock. And I do worry about, is that coming in 2025?

PL: Thinking about trading partners, obviously a big focus for our government right now, and over our side of the pond the government’s repeatedly ruled out rejoining the single market or freedom of movement. But we are seeing – we’re recording this episode just before Christmas – we’re seeing Downing Street not ruling out the fact that we might have to abide by food and farming laws, or that the European Court of Justice might come back into play now. How significant is all that going to be, Iain, if that’s the only way they can get these trade deals done?

IW: I think the UK has struggled with what our stance is on Europe for hundreds of years, and certainly you’d think since the Second World War, it’s a case of where are we in relation … a decline of empire, what does that then mean? Do we side with the US? Do we come into Europe? Are we a Goldilocks in that we’re in the middle, just right in terms of that distance between Washington and Brussels. And I still think the government of the day, like previous governments, are deciding how to do that, certainly in the context of post-Brexit.

PL: What do you think, David? Do you think closer ties with the EU are now more politically acceptable, more acceptable to voters?

DW: Certainly, one of the really striking things during Keir Starmer’s final months as leader of the opposition was how he went up to Grimsby, for example – I remember interviewing him there – and he was just unequivocal that “Brexit is safe in my hands”. That was the message that he was delivering. And he put down these red lines on the single market freedom of movement. At the same time, the manifesto was quite clear that it wanted to … that Labour wanted to strike a deal, which would helpfully minimise food checks and things, all the things that are being pushed into the ‘very difficult’ pile. If you can resolve those without it becoming a totemic issue, there’d be a lot of relief. There’s already warning alarms going off amongst Brexiteers of different tribes and different stripes that “Hang on, is something slippery going to happen?” And all the talk of the re-set is being very closely watched. We saw the Chancellor having the first meeting with European heads of finance, and certainly in what used to be Remain land, there’s a huge, huge pushes and huge optimism at the moment saying this is actually the moment where the UK is actually quite positioned to get a good deal, because you’ve got France and Germany in a great state of chaos. The situation in Ukraine has reminded everyone of how we actually need the Brits. And you’ve seen things like the European political community, this sort of shadow EU almost, where Britain’s being welcomed precisely for that reason. And with Trump coming in, uncertainty about NATO, suddenly people are finding that we’re no longer seen as the sort of dodgy, annoying neighbours, but there’s a lot of bonhomie.

But the one thing that is terrifying everybody in Westminster at the moment, around the tables in Portcullis House in both Labour and Conservative circles, is what on earth is Reform going to do? And when you see them taking council seats in Merseyside and places, and South Wales particularly, is you hear MPs saying, there was always a stigma if you had been a trade unionist in a Labour-voting family to vote Conservative, there isn’t that stigma about voting Reform at all.

PL: And of course, if we’re thinking about food and farming regulation, the farmers are already fed up because of the Budget.

DW: Exactly. It would have to be presented as something that was making them more prosperous and their lives better. And the problem is that the good will has been torched so quickly.

PL: Yes. Further afield… obviously there are other places to do trade deals, aren’t there? I think we’ve just signed one off with Malaysia – the Trans-Pacific Partnership. What are we thinking we might see elsewhere? Focus on India and the Gulf, and obviously we have China to talk about as an issue. Who wants to pick that one up?

IW: China is a big part of the global economy. I was in China, actually, when the presidential election was taking place. And in many respects they’re facing the same problems as we are, both as an economy and as a profession. How do we incorporate AI? How do we deal with sustainability? And as a profession, how do we ensure that it’s an attractive profession for young people to go into? How do we regulate it? It was really striking some of the similarities. So I think the government stance is probably the right one. Speak with them about economic matters; be cautious about security matters.

PL: So, MI5, as we understand it … reported this morning anyway … that pushing for China to be added to this enhanced tier, section of, well, security protocols really around where people involved with Chinese companies, the Chinese state, they would have to register, wouldn’t they, to do business here? Would it matter? Do you think that would be a problem in terms of putting off Chinese investment?

IW: I don’t want to stall and prevaricate on this. I just … the devil would be in the detail of what that would actually look like. I think that would be really important, and certainly our members would want to look closely on that.

PL: Yes. David?

DW: It’s interesting that China has excited passions very much in Westminster, simply because so many people have found themselves possibly being sanctioned, or they have been … the Hong Kong issue in particular is something that cuts very, very deeply. It doesn’t necessarily dominate the headlines, but there is a sense that Britain negotiated a historic treaty, and there’s a feeling that we’ve essentially accepted without making too much fuss, I guess – because you don’t want to make it too obvious – a bit of a humiliation in a lot of areas, and we realise we don’t have much leverage there. Certainly among senior Conservatives, there’s a huge desire to take a leaf from the Americans and be a bit more assertive on this and say, well, we need to make clear that on this and so many other issues this is, and so on, and they’re all part of the same foreign policy establishment a lot, and there is huge concern about industrial espionage and future technology.

So I think there’d be great appetite in politics for a tougher line. But you can certainly see how if you’re a government that’s absolutely focused on trying to get investments and growth, doing anything which totally alienates one of the world’s greatest economies is something you’d approach with extreme caution.

PL: Looking back to Europe, we mentioned France and Germany earlier. Obviously we’ve seen governments collapsing there. Frances, growth prospects for Europe?

FH: Well, they’re not looking particularly rosy. Even we might be beating them in terms of growth, but that’s not saying much either, I’m afraid. But yes, it’s unfortunate that they are struggling, and they have a lot of the same issues that we do. I think we’ve talked about this before, about lack of dynamism and we just don’t seem to be there. I mean, you look at the US economy, and it is special to a certain degree, because they seem to be able to keep producing the productivity gains that they need for growth. Europe and the UK can’t – or certainly haven’t, to date. And I know this is a focus for the UK government, and Europe has the same problem. And without this, this push, they’re going to keep having lower growth rates.

Obviously within the EU you’ve got different countries doing different things. Spain’s growth has been much better, but then there’s Germany obviously, and France to a lesser degree, but Germany certainly really struggling. So, yes, given the amalgamation of them all, and… going back to that Ukraine point, that could help. Certainly, if we do get an end to that conflict, and what then might come out of that potentially could be beneficial to the EU and to the UK.

PL: In terms of reconstruction?

FH: Reconstruction, yes.

PL: The UK is pretty embedded on the reconstruction front there already, as I understand it?

FH: Yes. But ultimately, UK, Europe have the same issues. We seem to lack this dynamism, which causes us to have lower productivity, and that’s one of the things we need to change. You can tinker at the edges, you can try and sort out infrastructure and things like that – which are very important, don’t get me wrong, but ultimately we need that drive. Where’s the drive coming from?

PL: Iain?

IW: If you look at that broad sweep of European history, I think several things are really important. I think the 2008 global financial crash was perhaps more important than we realised at the time, even though it was pretty important at the time. And then you look at COVID, and then you look at the Ukraine conflict and the inflationary and energy shocks that arose from that. I come to a statistic that I find really striking. This is UK-based, but I think you can see it across all of Europe, which is: in the two decades prior to 2008, productivity growth per year in the UK was round about just above 2%. Since 2008 it’s been 0.4%. We haven’t grown for something like 15 years – not really. And living standards have stalled and stagnated as a result of that. And that’s true of Europe.

I particularly want to highlight what Frances said, which is we haven’t got that market dynamism. We haven’t got the ability for low productive parts of the economy to move, to be disrupted, into higher productive parts of the economy. We’re facing it, and hopefully things like the Industrial Strategy will help deal with that. Europe is certainly facing it. But of the top 50 tech companies around the world, only four are European. Where are the Googles and the Amazons? Why aren’t they being formed in the UK? In Europe? We’re better than Europe on that, but I still think there’s a real stagnation and lack of competitiveness that I think the UK and indeed most major European economies have to deal with.

PL: As you say, we have capability here, tech, biotech. We’re leaders in origination of ideas. Why can we still not, apparently, take them forward with such success as they do on the other side of the Atlantic. What is that?

IW: I think there are a whole range of different questions and a whole range of different structural challenges that we’re going to have to deal with in the next decade. We’re an ageing population: that has some degree of stagnation, although it would be wrong to say that older people don’t have that degree of energy and innovation. Paul McCartney is playing for two-and-three-quarter hours around the world at the moment. At the age of 82, that’s fantastic. So it’s wrong to just say it’s the young people who drive innovation, that’s not the case. But an older population puts enormous strains on public finances.

In addition to that, we need to update and revive our infrastructure. And then, on the back of Ukraine, we can’t rely on the United States to defend Europe. Europe has to come together and make sure that we can defend ourselves. That’s incredibly expensive. If we’re going to have, what, 2.5%-3% of GDP, that’s going to be in the order of trillions of pounds over the next few decades. So this all comes at a cost that can maybe act as a drag on competitiveness, but we really have to take advantage of our comparative strengths to make sure we can unlock that growth. Otherwise, we’re facing stagnation; we’re facing discontent from electorates. And we know what happens in Europe when you see falling living standards and an electorate – particularly middle class – that feels that their lives are not getting any better.

PL: David, is there something in the notion that we’re just not as good at telling positive stories about ourselves as an economy and as an entrepreneurial society? Is there something around the fact that perhaps the new government hasn’t succeeded in creating a positive narrative about some of the things they are doing to move these situations forward?

IW: There is such a declinist narrative in this country. It’s fascinating. The interesting thing is you go to, say, Dublin, which is just a tiny distance away, and there are so many things that are in common, but the sense of a future that’s going to be better than the one that’s gone before is something that you pick up also in a lot of Eastern European countries, where people are like, wow – they can see the assets in front of them.

PL: Yes, optimism.

IW: Exactly, and even though they actually face often far greater threats to stability than we do. So I think it’s a case of just trying to engender, especially amongst younger people, some sense that you are not doomed to have a poorer standard of living than your parents. And I think that’s a huge issue at the moment, and it’s a huge political one as well, which all the parties need to tackle.

PL: Frances, what do you reckon? I know this sounds quite intangible, it’s not a data point, but it has consequences, doesn’t it?

FH: Oh yes. I mean, confidence does drive growth, because it helps people feel better about spending. They’re not worried about spending. And the UK economy is driven a lot by consumption, particularly private consumption, household consumption. So it is really important to have that, and generally it’s important to have a narrative that’s positive, that you’re looking forward, feeling that there are better days ahead. I do think that maybe the British are slightly more … you tend to look perhaps more to the negative. I don’t know, but you’re feeling that there does need to be much more of a drive to the positive outcomes that we could have. But there needs to be something behind that to drive it, and that probably at the moment will need to come more from government.

The trouble is, with the Budget, with Trump coming in, there’s been a lot more pessimism around than perhaps you would have expected … well, certainly than I expected to see towards the end of the year. So we need to see some positive news stories coming out about what the government plans to do to push some of these forward. The planning side of things – and they seemingly are going along at quite a clip on that – maybe they could do more around that. The only problem they have with that is, of course, for some people, they won’t like it because they don’t want big, huge developments on their back garden, etc. But equally, I think they ought to target less around the housing side, more around the “well, we’re getting businesses connected to the grid. We’re trying to push that side forward.” Because, to be fair, that’s where the productivity is going to come. It will help, obviously, having more houses, because you’ll free up people to be able to hopefully move around the country better, to be able to get the jobs wherever they come up. That’s very important. But equally, you need businesses there for people to work at. And so I think that there’s definitely more of a push on the business side, where the planning application process is terrible, and that would free up for firms to get connected and be able to push forward their growth plans, which will help ultimately.

PL: Iain, you’re the one who monitors business confidence. Where is it now?

IW: Throughout 2024 it’s actually been relatively high compared with its historic average. And we’ve done the Business Confidence Monitor for something like 20 years, so we’ve got a good spread about where sentiment has been over those shocks like global financial crash, COVID, Ukraine, and the historical average is about +5. At the moment it’s +14.4. We’re waiting on Q4 for Business Confidence Monitor, but in the light of the Budget, I think that might change. There was hint in the last BCM that confidence was just coming down, just on the back of rumours about tax increases. And of course, we had NI increases from the Budget. A lot of the burden that the Budget provided was put on business, and that will have an impact on sentiment.

PL: With this all in mind, I’m going to ask you for your predictions for the UK in 2025. Threats, opportunities … David?

DW: It’s one of those things where someone’s tossed the coin and it’s in the air, and it could land on either side. Because as far as … housing, Angela Rayner has actually come out as one of the most recognisable members of the government, and she has decided to own this issue to an incredible degree and is running forward with it. And they’re willing to take on the NIMBY show instinct. Now that displays a lot of political courage.

If that translates into people thinking that, yes, our kids, our grandkids are going to get a house, or the kids themselves think “I have a reason to save for something, it’s not a distant, distant dream…” If that allows people to start families earlier, if they’re affordable and childcare costs aren’t so horrendous, this could be a historic moment.

The problem is that everybody loves the idea of houses being built until it’s right next door to your own. And what we’re going to see is house building coming forward at the same time as lots more pylons and things. And the one thing that – especially in Britain, but all across Europe – really creates agitation is when people feel that they don’t have control any more over their immediate environment.

PL: Frances, what do you see?

FH: Oh, I see a fight for the fiscal position. That’s probably the best way of putting it. I mean, it’ll be very interesting to see… the Spending Review obviously coming up, just to see how that’s going to be managed, because as we’ve alluded to, we’ve got defence that perhaps needs to be increased. We still don’t know how we’re going to get to the 2.5%. I know that they’ve said that that’s what they want to do…

PL: When it’s affordable, yes.

FH: How do they do that with all the spending commitments we’ve currently got? I think there’ll be a fight. The interesting thing then, of course, is how that’s handled between, say, number 10 and number 11? How do they deal with that situation? But yes, I think there’s going to be a general fight for the fiscal position.

What will be interesting, certainly from my side, is to see, now, do they try and square that by increasing borrowing and flexing those fiscal rules again, in order to be able to do that? That’s difficult – that depends how they think the markets might react to that. Or do they go to increasing taxes again, even though they kind of said that they wouldn’t, or do they try and reduce spending? Or are they looking at then having to reduce spending, but they said they won’t do austerity again. So I definitely think the fiscal side of things will be very interesting to watch in 2025.

PL: Nuts and bolts – where are we going to be on inflation and interest rates, do you think?

FH: The general view is that will start … well, has started nudging up again. And we fully expect that to … the general view is that could get up to about 3% towards the end of 2025. There are lots of other factors involved in there. There has been talk actually that oil prices might come down substantially depending what OPEC decide to do. So obviously, that would play a part. We don’t quite know how the NICS increase will feed through, whether that’s through increased prices or some other way. So there are obviously a lot of potential changes on the inflation side, but we are expecting inflation to increase, but obviously not dramatically.

From an economic perspective, we should see better growth next year, because apart from anything else you’re going to have more government spending, which obviously will boost growth. But the interesting thing will be to see actually what the confidence indicators are doing. Are businesses continuing to invest and are consumers continuing to spend?

PL: Base rate?

FH: At the moment, I think everyone … roughly speaking, a lot of people, are forecasting … Markets are looking a bit different. And actually, on the back of some data that came out this morning – and obviously we’re talking about 2025 but recording this in December – the markets have moved a little bit. But the general view is it will be interesting, because for base rate there’s going to be a toss-up, I think, within the MPC: if you’ve got slightly higher inflation coming through and stronger wage growth, that would suggest you’re not going to cut bank rate as much. However, if growth ends up being as weak as it has been towards the end of Q4 and that translates into 2025, well, what do you do then?

So what becomes interesting is then, well, what are they forecasting for 18 months’ time? Because they’re supposed to set bank rate on the basis of where inflation will be in about 18 months’ time. So very important to see how they forecast that. And then of course they have the real problem about communicating it. And just like the current government, communication has not been strong on that agenda, so they’re going to have to get that right, because if near-term expectations of a higher inflation and they’re cutting bank rate, that looks peculiar. So they’ve got to be able to communicate the reasons why very clearly.

PL: Iain, wrap it up for us.

IW: I’m going to be really negative.

PL: We’re looking for a ray of light somewhere, surely?

IW: I’ll hopefully end on a positive.

PL: Okay.

IW: I’m just going to pick up where Frances left off. I think inflation will remain stubbornly high. I don’t think we’ll be in double digits in terms of inflation, but I think it will be annoyingly and persistently at round about the 3%-3.5% – certainly above Bank of England target of 2%. That means that interest rates will stay higher for longer, and that means that’ll have a real drag on growth. I think living standards will not rise as much as we would like, and therefore you’ll see further discontent. You know – government all about growth, where’s the growth? Why don’t I feel better?

But the positive is, if the Industrial Strategy starts to kick in, if we have embedded those eight sectors, of which professional and business services is one, with a good, strong, ambitious, coordinated approach, that these are Britain’s strengths and this is what we’re going to do to really enhance our competitiveness and extend our reach across the global economy, to make sure that our country is prosperous, I think the Industrial Strategy could be the lift-off for really strong stability and sustained growth in the future.

PL: In a nutshell – 2025, it’s complicated, right?

IW: Yes.

 

FH: Since when has it not been over the last few years?

PL: Maybe this one particularly so, from what you’ve been saying.

Iain, Frances, David, thanks again for joining us. I must say, it’s not exactly the most heartening start to the year, but really, really useful as a guide to the key issues and trends we should all be watching out for. Thank you.

Accountancy Insights will be back next month. Meantime, Behind the Numbers, we’ll be looking at skills: which ones will be key in tomorrow’s economy? You can subscribe to Accountancy Insights on any podcast app, and we hope you will. Please do review us if you have a spare moment. We really do want to know what you think and what you’d like us to cover. Thanks for being with us today.