Addressing the UK’s growth problem is paramount and should underpin virtually every other priority when it comes to public policy. However, contrary to recent clamour, re-joining the EU, its Single Market (SM) or Customs Union (CU) will not provide a solution to Britain’s growth challenge, and should not be part of any pro-growth strategy. The Government needs to have the confidence to stand its ground on remaining outside of EU institutions. It should do so based on an assessment of the present situation, of which there are 10 key features:

On Monday, Japan’s stock market suffered its biggest fall since Black Monday in 1987. There was contagion as stock markets across the globe crashed.

Last Wednesday, the US Federal Reserve left policy rates unchanged at 5.25 per cent to 5.5 per cent but stressed its bias to ease. By Friday the Fed’s lack of action was already being seen as a policy mistake, as data showed US jobs growth slowing and unemployment rising in July.

Although the Fed described the economy as solid and drew attention to strong private domestic demand, the rate of US unemployment is 0.9 percentage points above the low seen in April 2023, often a harbinger of recession. Now the markets fear a hard landing and expect US rates to be cut by 1.25 points by December.

How the fiscal sums add up is an ongoing feature of the policy and political debate. Into this arena has stepped the issue of whether interest should be paid on the reserves of banks at the Bank of England (BOE). As it stands, this is costing us a huge amount of money. But to assess exactly how much could be saved, we first need to establish how we got here.