Keir Starmer's Economic Strategy: One Year In, What's the Verdict?
After twelve months in power, the Prime Minister's economic programme faces its first serious test
One year into Keir Starmer's tenure as Prime Minister, the economic scorecard is mixed in a way that his supporters will find frustrating and his critics will find unsurprising. The structural problems that Labour inherited — low productivity growth, inadequate housing supply, an NHS under severe strain, and a business investment environment that has been suboptimal for years — do not yield to 12 months of good intentions.
What Has Gone Well
The government's record on clean energy investment has been genuinely impressive. The GB Energy programme is moving faster than many sceptics predicted. The relationship with the United States on technology and trade has been managed competently in a difficult global environment. Employment remains robust, with the unemployment rate holding below 4%.
What Has Been Harder
The Budget decisions of Autumn 2025 — particularly the increase in employer National Insurance contributions and the expansion of business rates relief reform — have generated more business community pushback than the government anticipated. The CBI and British Chambers of Commerce have both pointed to surveys showing a deterioration in business investment intentions following the Budget.
The Growth Imperative
The central challenge for the Starmer government is growth. Britain's productivity growth has been anaemic for 15 years, and the ambitious spending programmes the government wants to fund — on health, defence, housing, and clean energy — require a growing economy to remain fiscally sustainable.
The growth strategy has three main pillars: housing and planning reform to unlock construction and increase labour mobility; a green industrial strategy to generate clean energy jobs and private investment; and a technology and innovation agenda centred on AI. Whether these three levers can deliver the 2.5% sustained growth the government needs is the defining question of the Parliament.
Economics & Policy Editor
James Whitfield has been writing about British and global economics for over twenty years. A former BBC economics correspondent and Economist staff writer, James now serves as Economics & Policy Editor at The Great British News, covering everything from Bank of England interest rate decisions to the political economy of the UK's net zero transition. He read PPE at Oxford and completed an MSc in Economics at UCL.