Britain’s economic settlement is no longer delivering what it once promised.
For too many people, hard work no longer guarantees rising living standards. Growth has been too weak, too uneven, and too often driven by asset inflation rather than productive investment. Wealth has become more concentrated even as economic insecurity has spread. Public services, after years of underinvestment under the Conservatives, have been stretched to breaking point. And confidence that politics can improve people’s lives has been eroded.
These problems did not begin with this Parliament, nor can they be explained by any single government or crisis. They have deep roots in the economic model that has taken shape since the Global Financial Crisis – a model that has struggled to generate broad-based prosperity, and too often relied on redistribution to compensate for structural weaknesses in how the economy creates wealth in the first place.
That is why incremental change within the existing framework is unlikely to be enough.
This contribution from Tribune Labour MPs begins from a simple proposition: if we are serious about delivering the change people voted for in 2024, then we must be willing to interrogate the system that has too often prevented it.
This is not a manifesto or a settled blueprint. It is an attempt to develop a clearer theory of economic change – one that tests how growth, fairness, and credibility can be better aligned, and how economic policy can deliver tangible improvements in people’s lives within the institutional and political constraints Britain faces.
It starts from a political economy grounded in a clear set of priorities.
An economy should work first and foremost for those who earn their living through their labour rather than through rent-seeking. It should back entrepreneurs and businesses that invest, innovate, and take productive risks over the long term. And it should support communities that have too often seen living standards stagnate while opportunity has become more concentrated elsewhere.
That means asking difficult questions about the balance between work and wealth in the tax system; about whether our economic institutions and fiscal rules are fit for long-term renewal; about how we support productive investment rather than rent extraction; and about the role of the state not simply in managing decline, but in building productive capacity and economic resilience.
It also means recognising that trade-offs are unavoidable. Not every interest can be protected simultaneously. Building a coalition for economic change requires being clear about whose side economic policy is on – and being willing to challenge interests that benefit from scarcity, asset inflation, or regulatory gaps.
The contributions collected here begin by exploring those questions through four broad themes.
First, whether Britain’s economic institutions and fiscal framework are suited to an era that requires long-term investment, rather than short-term crisis management.
Second, how to build a tax system that is fairer, simpler, and better aligned with modern sources of wealth and economic activity.
Third, how social investment and market reforms can reduce the cost of living, making households more resilient, and increasing the long-term demand in the economy.
And fourth, how to support stronger, broader-based growth by creating a stronger, more active state that is capable of stabilising inflation, generating investment, and sparking dynamism.
The supplementary chapters will zoom in on specific areas of the economy: youth employment, small and medium-sized enterprise, progressive tax reform, democratic renewal, inclusive growth, affordability, and place-based economic development.
Across each of these runs a common thread: that economic reform is not simply a technical exercise, but a question of political economy and democratic renewal.
Too often, debate in recent years has treated growth, fairness, and fiscal credibility as competing objectives. The argument running through this collection is that they must instead be understood as mutually reinforcing.
We do not present this as the final word. They are an invitation - to challenge assumptions, test ideas, and help build a broader coalition for economic renewal.
Because the economic status quo is no longer defensible. And if politics is to regain trust, it must offer more than better management of decline.
It must offer a path to economic renewal.
Louise Haigh has been the Labour MP for Sheffield Heeley since 2015, and is a member of the Executive Committee of the Tribune Group of Labour MPs.
Yuan Yang has been the Labour MP for Earley and Woodley since 2024, and is Secretary of the Tribune Group of Labour MPs.