The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change’s (TBI) second Future of Britain Conference, in partnership with My Life My Say, takes place on 18 July in central London.
The conference will bring together experts and political leaders to put forward practical solutions to the most pressing challenges, with the aim of building an action plan to supercharge growth and prosperity. It will showcase plans for a radical overhaul of the state in the light of a 21st-century technological revolution every bit as far reaching as the 19th century industrial revolution.
If Britain is to succeed rather than slip into managed decline, it must kickstart growth and deliver a new era of invention and innovation. It must move beyond the tired competing visions of the past and provide a practical policy-driven roadmap – underpinned by technology – to the future. Currently the state is unfit for purpose, with high taxes and ineffective public services choking growth, stifling aspiration and feeding the now common perception that things are just not working.
Between now and the Future of Britain conference, TBI will continue to seed the ground with crucial ideas to catalyse growth and demonstrate the possibilities that will come from implementing meaningful reforms.
These include:
Using digital platforms to allow more convenient and efficient access to public services with greater security and privacy measures that protect against identify theft and fraud, and catalysing growth in the digital economy.
Fixing the broken planning system to stimulate growth, approve renewable projects at scale and create jobs.
A ‘Decade of Electrification’ to enable Britain to meet its net-zero targets and transform the UK’s energy infrastructure.
Practical steps to getting a better relationship with the EU, including on trade, attracting investment and addressing the structural problems with the post-Brexit relations.
Deploying early intervention and smart use of technology to redesign the criminal-justice system so it targets the offender not just the offence, with victims at the heart of the process.
Major reforms of the NHS and education systems.
We can build a modern state that has a strategy for growth and a plan that deals with the reality of the world today, with the rise of China, a resurgent US and Britain’s new place in the world. We can do more than diversify our trading relationship for its own sake. We can position our new trading relationships so they reinforce an industrial strategy that builds on our strengths rather than hope that old industries will be resurrected.
This transformation requires radical investments, a revamped approach to public-service delivery and world-class infrastructure. It will also require vision, ambition, and consensus. In doing so, we will own our future.