Economic and Taxation Policies: Jobs, Growth and Prosperity

Lord Saatchi Excerpts

Thursday 13th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Saatchi (Con)]

My Lords, if you want a bigger slice of cake, the best thing to do is bake a bigger cake, then everyone gets a bigger slice. That, as my noble friend Lord Elliott knows very well, is how Mrs Thatcher tried to give a whole generation of young people, including me, the hope of a better life. Her famous bigger cake was economic growth—the only way you could have confidence in the country’s future and your own. Instead, we now have the exact opposite: a general feeling of disillusionment.

Recognising the national mood, the Prime Minister recently asked his officials for an uplifting plan to stimulate economic growth. It has yet to see the light of day. The reason for postponement is said to be “lack of content”. I went to the fount of economic wisdom, the London School of Economics, and very bravely asked a roomful of economics professors whether any of them had a brilliant idea for how to get economic growth in Britain. Their response? They laughed; it would take a complete change in the entire culture of the society—inconceivable, unimaginable, impossible.

Well, whisper it, but maybe the professors are wrong about what is possible and what is not, because there is one proven way to change the culture of a society; it is called the law. Smoking bans, seat belts, abortion, capital punishment, slavery, homosexuality, contraception—I can go on. We all remember, with warm approval, Lord Denning, Britain’s most senior judge, who said:

“Be you never so high, the law is above you”.


We all like that idea; it means a lot to us.

I will take a moment to describe, just for the sake of the argument, what it would be like if one was to file a lawsuit against the Government—the people v the UK Government. That has a good ring to it, does it not? The Government would be the defendant. We would of course be very humble about such a lawsuit and concentrate only on tax, because current tax law is an ungainly camel, designed by a committee that has been in standing session for 200 years.

This is how such an indictment of the UK Government might look. There are five counts here. Count one is conspiracy to enslave United Kingdom citizens and make them unnecessarily dependent on the state. Count two is conspiracy to force United Kingdom nationals to claim benefits to pay higher taxes. Count three is solicitation of multiple tax revenues by stealth. Count four is the attempt to obstruct, interfere with, impair, impede and defeat the right of United Kingdom nationals to independence. Count five is conspiracy to provide material support and resources to mesmerise and anaesthetise United Kingdom citizens.

How would such a case end? I suggest, just for the sake of the story, that on the morning of the trial the Attorney-General of the United Kingdom would come out on to the top of the steps of the Royal Courts of Justice and say something like this: “Without any admission of liability or wrongdoing on the Government’s part, today the British Government have withdrawn their objection to this case. We have reached an out-of-court settlement with the claimant. This will avoid the expenditure of court time and taxpayer money in prolonged litigation”.

In front of the astonished crowd, the Attorney-General would then continue: “The Government agree to bring forward legislation at the earliest opportunity to ensure the following: millions of British people living below the official poverty line no longer pay income tax; a massive saving in the administrative cost of collecting tax or distributing benefits; a huge change in the attitude of millions of British citizens who thought it was pointless to go out to work because benefits produce more after-tax income than working; a dramatic fall in immigration as the army of young unemployed British people is motivated to get a job; total clarity about tax; the share of people’s income tax used only to pay interest on Government debt, now 30%, is to published every year; and the effect of a frozen tax threshold will be subject to full disclosure”. Finally, the Attorney-General would say, “Economics will become a compulsory subject in the national curriculum”.

Is such dramatic action necessary? Surely we can keep muddling through, can we not? Well, maybe not, because maybe this time democracy is not working. Yes, we can and do change the Government every few years from one political party to another. That is true, but nothing much seems to change, does it? It is same old story over and again. The King himself recently showed firm, decisive leadership—

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Lemos) (Lab)]

Can I ask the noble Lord to bring things to a close?

[Lord Saatchi (Con)]

Perhaps we need something similar to end our economic problem—someone to take away the stale pudding now on our plate and bring us a lovely, big, freshly baked cake.