Back in late February 2020, when COVID-19 was only a looming wave of uncertain size and impact, Baroness Natalie Bennett put down an oral question in the House of Lords, scheduled to be debated on March 26: “To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to establish a formal inquiry into reducing the growth dependency of the United Kingdom economy”.
Due to early recess of Parliament as part of the Coronavirus Emergency Bill, reflecting social distancing measures, she received a written response on that occasion from Lord Agnew, Minister of State for Her Majesty’s Treasury and Cabinet Office, dated April 1, stating that “Our economic priority as a Government is to ultimately see the economy grow, therefore, we make no apology for ‘growth dependency’.”
In light of the evidence provided in our recently published policy briefing on Tackling Growth Dependency, this makes for a rather striking reply. As the author of the briefing, CUSP Director Professor Tim Jackson, showed in his book Prosperity Without Growth—and in a recent Science article for that matter—the carbon intensity of GDP growth (the climate emissions per pound value) can be reduced, but the two figures cannot be decoupled in the time necessary to meet the UK’s climate targets. “Relying on growth now is like relying on unicorn horn as a medical treatment, or alchemy to fund the exchequer”, Baroness Bennett writes on Politics Home.
On 30 April then, in a virtual sitting of the House of Lords, Baroness Bennett was given time to respond to the earlier reply from Treasury; and as part of the Covid-19: Economy debate, sought the government’s answer not to ‘how it will restore growth’, but—as summarised in her corresponding blog for Left Foot Forward—”how it will change its focus, its economic management and political approach, to focusing on ensuring that everyone in the UK has the resources for a decent, secure life, free from fear of not being able to put food on the table and keep a roof over their head”. So far, our economic management has relied on growth for employment, pensions and health; rather worrying in light of the very large fall in GDP as a result of coronavirus—and the years of recovery.
The reply—provided by Government Minister Baroness Penn—referred rather broadly to the Government’s financial “support for public services, workers and businesses”, with a view to “protect them against the emergency and ensure that our economy recovers quickly”. Bennett’s supplementary question on whether the Government will be “making plans along the lines of the German Government’s 2018 report on the precautionary post-growth approach” was left widely unanswered.
Progress in the limits to growth discourse may be slow, but it will remain the APPG’s agenda to tackle the unsustainable growth dependency of the UK economy; to articulate a different kind of economy in which the pursuit of wellbeing takes precedence over the pursuit of growth in GDP.
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- A transcript of the Covid-19 and the economy debate can be accessed on the Hansard website.
- If you are interested in the wellbeing economy agenda, please see our policy briefings, including the recently published paper on Wellbeing Matters—Tackling growth dependency.