Positive Money at Party Conferences

Prime Minister Andy Burnham has made big promises since coming into government. He has pledged to end “40 years of neoliberalism”, strengthen public control of essential services and infrastructure, and significantly devolve economic power across the UK.

Delivering on these lofty ambitions, as well as taking urgently needed action to fix crumbling infrastructure, and to mitigate and adapt to the climate and nature crisis, requires significantly increasing public and private investment. 

The UK’s public financial institutions, including the National Wealth Fund, British Business Bank, and National Housing Bank, have huge potential for increasing public investment. But that potential is still untapped, which is why last month, alongside the Trades Union Congress (TUC), Prospect Union, the New Economics Foundation and more, we called on the government to give the National Wealth Fund more firepower.

And later that month at Labour’s Party Conference in Liverpool, we brought together a panel of experts to discuss how and why we could do just that, including Professor Mariana Mazzucato, the TUC’s Kate Bell, CEO of the New Economics Foundation Dr Danny Sriskandarajah, and Clive Lewis, MP for Norwich South. 

We also attended the Greens Party Conference in Brighton, where we were pleased to see the adoption of an economic policy motion reflecting several of Positive Money’s policy recommendations. 

This includes measures to strengthen and diversify the banking system so that it better serves productive investment and communities and small businesses across the UK, adopt a broader suite of tools to address inflation driven by supply side shocks, and improve management of public debt.  

From windfall taxes on banks, to public finance and improving how the Treasury works with the Bank of England, as we look forward to the Autumn Budget, we’ll continue to advocate for policies that can drive the step change in green investment and action on the cost of living that we urgently need. 

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