The UK is facing a decisive decade of economic change, as we emerge from the pandemic, adjust to Brexit, and urgently transition towards a net zero future. Some hope these changes will help us overcome the stagnation that has seen the UK enter the 2020s with low growth and high inequality – be that via the home working revolution or green growth. Others see lower taxes or migration as a silver bullet. But the task of securing stronger, sustainable, inclusive growth that reaches all parts of the UK is much harder than much of this wishful thinking implies: the UK needs a renewed economic strategy to successfully navigate the decade ahead.

The Economy 2030 Inquiry – a collaboration between the Resolution Foundation and the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics, funded by the Nuffield Foundation – hosted a full-day conference to discuss the economic change that the UK is about to live through, and what a renewed economic strategy for the 2020s might look like.

Agenda

9am – Welcome from Sir Clive Cowdery

9:10am – The risk of stagnation

Baroness Minouche Shafik, Director of the London School of Economics
Lord Adair Turner, Economist and business leader
Mairi Spowage, Director of the Fraser of Allander Institute
Gregory Thwaites, Research Director at the Resolution Foundation
Torsten Bell, Chief Executive of the Resolution Foundation (Chair)

10:10am – The decisive decade

Dr Linda Yueh, Economist, writer and broadcaster
Lord Nicholas Stern, IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government at the LSE
Sophie Hale, Principal Economist at the Resolution Foundation
Dr Anna Valero, Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Performance
Lord David Willetts, President of the Resolution Foundation (Chair)

11:30am – David Willetts in conversation with Chris Giles

12pm – Lunch

1pm – Towards a renewed economic strategy for the 2020s

Dame Carolyn Fairbairn, Former Director-General of the Confederation of British Industry
Martin Wolf, Chief Economics Commentator at the Financial Times
Frances O’Grady, General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress
Professor Henry Overman, Research Director at the Centre for Economic Performance
Daniel Tomlinson, Senior Economist at the Resolution Foundation
Torsten Bell, Chief Executive of the Resolution Foundation (Chair)

2:15pm – Rachel Reeves in conversation with Stephanie Flanders

2:45pm – Closing comments