In this Institute of Economic Affairs podcast, Head of Media Reem Ibrahim interviews John Penrose, recovering government minister, Chair of the Conservative Policy Forum and Director of the Centre for Small State Conservatives. The conversation examines Britain's economic decline through decades of missed opportunities, comparing the UK's sluggish growth to the United States where compounding effects have created a widening wealth gap. They explore structural problems across childcare, housing, rail, energy and healthcare that have remained unfixed for decades, with Penrose arguing that supply-side reforms similar to Thatcher's approach are essential to revive Britain's economic engine.
Penrose advocates for fundamental welfare system reforms to eliminate benefit traps that discourage work, proposing that benefit withdrawal rates should never exceed the top rate of income tax. The discussion covers pension reform, moving from the current pay-as-you-go system to fully funded personal pots, and addresses the NHS as a bureaucratic system that spends significant taxpayer money without delivering outcomes comparable to other developed nations. They examine how regulatory burdens in childcare create expensive, rigid provision that doesn't match what working families actually need, arguing for deregulation to allow market-based solutions.
The interview concludes with analysis of immigration policy challenges, including outdated refugee conventions written for a different era, and the political difficulties of implementing genuine small-state reforms. Penrose explains his Centre for Small State Conservatives' mission to develop policies that create "bigger citizens who need smaller government" through upstream prevention rather than expensive downstream intervention. The conversation addresses why the Conservative Party must return to its supply-side reform roots to tackle Britain's fundamental structural problems that neither increased spending nor current political approaches have resolved.
