During the summer of 2023, CPP has been exploring the options an incoming government will have for funding a policy platform to deliver fair growth. There is increasing recognition that, given demographic trends and the current state of public services, any future government will have to take a more active role and spending will have to rise.

At CPP we believe that pursuing fair growth, that reaches and benefits as many people and places as possible, is the best way out of the UK’s current economic malaise. But to create the conditions for fair growth - a skills system to bring a million people back into adult education, turning the tide on rising child poverty, affordable childcare, robust local population health systems, and stronger business ecosystems in underperforming local economies – substantial real investment is required.

The essays included in this collection outline some of the key questions and plausible options facing politicians and policymakers, including:

• reforms to taxation such as wealth taxes and excess profit taxes
• changing our fiscal framework, including fiscal rules and the devolution of fiscal powers

The essays helped inform the evidence base and framing of a citizens’ jury delivered by CPP in partnership with the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) throughout August 2023, which saw a representative sample of the UK population deliberate on the issues discussed in this collection. Our final report from this programme of work, to be published in Autumn 2023, will contain the findings from our citizens’ jury as well as policy recommendations for an incoming government that touch on each of the topic areas discussed in this collection.