The government's 2010 Comprehensive Spending Review was anything but comprehensive. The cuts to government spending were modest, and large swathes of state activity were barely touched. Britain will remain a heavily regulated, high-tax, high-spend economy. Instead of totally reviewing the functions of the state and how the government should achieve its objectives, in most areas the spending review was merely a pruning exercise. This monograph advocates a different approach. The authors provide strong evidence that high levels of taxation and public expenditure are hampering economic growth. They also examine the role of the state in key areas and find that current policies are extremely inefficient, imposing high costs but delivering poor results. By combining substantial spending cuts with fundamental reform, outcomes can be improved at the same time as taxes are reduced. Britain can become a dynamic, low-tax economy with welfare systems that no longer penalise work in the way they currently do. At the same time, individuals and families would benefit from high-quality healthcare, education and infrastructure that was focused on consumer interests rather than producer interests

The west is in crisis Governments have grown too big, living beyond their means - and ours. The true costs of extra officialdom have been concealed. Parasitical politicians have been hopeless at holding to account the elites who now preside over us. As a result, Western nations are mired in debt and chronically misgoverned. Should we despair? Actually, no. Precisely because the West's Big Government model is bust, things are going to have to change. The West is on the cusp of a dramatic transformation driven by the failure of her elites, technology and maths. At the precise moment Big Government becomes unaffordable, the internet revolution makes it possible to do without it. Be optimistic. We are going to be able to manage without government - and thrive. The old political and economic order is about to give way to something vastly better.

Originally published: London: Allen Lane/Penguin Books, 2014.

Amidst the debates about ‘austerity’ a number of vital debates in public finance have been sidelined. Because the reductions in government spending – small though they have been so far- have been designed to reduce the government’s borrowing requirement, there has been little discussion of whether the size of the state should be reduced in order to facilitate long-run reductions in the burden of taxation. This book traces the history of the growth of the size of the state over the last 100 years whilst also making international comparisons. There is a particular focus on recent and projected future developments which shows that, though the total level of government spending has not decreased significantly in recent years, there has been a big redirection of spending from some areas to others. The authors then examine the evidence on the relationship between taxation and economic growth. As well as reviewing recent literature, they also undertake new modelling that higher taxes are detrimental for growth. In the final part of the book, the whole UK tax system is reconsidered in a proper economic framework. The UK has one of the world’s most complex tax systems and its incoherence has increased over the last five years. Sweeping reforms are proposed to the system which wold involve abolishing around 20 taxes and the development of a simple, predictable tax system based on principles that should gain wide acceptance.

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