Sustainable growth and prosperity
Globalisation, demographic changes, technological advances and climate change are transforming the world economy.
Growth in productivity in the UK, along with high and stable levels of employment, will support long-term prosperity. In recent years the UK has made progress on narrowing the productivity gap with its main comparator countries. This year's Budget builds on this progress and aims to improve productivity including:
- measures to ensure small firms have access to the resources they need in the current climate, including a temporary 20 per cent increase in the funds available through the Government's Small Firms Loans Guarantee; and measures to promote investment in small companies;
- a package of over 20 tax simplification measures and the outcomes of three tax simplification reviews, aimed at both simplifying tax calculations and reducing the red tape for small companies;
- consulting on the introduction of regulatory budgets, which would put a cap on the new annually recurring cost of regulation for business;
- further implementation of the Leitch Review recommendations to help individuals gain the skills they need to enter and progress in work and to build on improvements in the UK skills base; and
- the publication of a new framework of infrastructure procurement to ensure value for money and effective scrutiny.
Productivity - output per hour worked, UK = 100
