The Social Liberal Forum hosted this fringe session - The Economy, Is something for everyone possible? At Spring Conference 2026.

The panel included:

 

As part of our work on the Economy, the SLF brought together leading voices on the Economy in the Liberal Decorates, to talk over Britain's economic opportunities and challenges. Discussion began from a shared sense that Britain’s economic problem is not simply that growth has been too slow, but that too much of what growth there has been has failed to reach the people and places that need it most. The panel kept returning to the gap between headline success and lived reality: an economy can look large on paper while still leaving families insecure, communities overlooked and public services under unbearable strain.

Rather than treating “growth” as a sufficient answer in itself, the conversation pushed toward a broader question: what would it mean to build a thriving economy, not just a bigger one? That meant thinking about who benefits, which places are being left behind, how the tax system rewards wealth over work, and why so many people no longer believe economic progress is meant for them. The strongest message from the panel was that economic policy has to become more purposeful, more inclusive and more rooted in the everyday experience of work, housing, health and opportunity.

 

1. Growth is not enough if it leaves people and places behind

The first major theme was that the UK needs something more explicit than a conventional growth strategy. One speaker argued for what was effectively a pro-poor growth strategy: an approach that focuses directly on poorer communities, poorer regions and those often described as “left behind,” rather than assuming that national growth will eventually trickle down to them. The point was not that growth does not matter, but that growth without distribution, place and social purpose is not solving the country’s underlying problems.

That theme was grounded in a broader critique of older economic assumptions. The panel suggested that for too long, policy has been shaped by the belief that if markets are left to function efficiently, good outcomes will follow naturally. But the reality discussed here was very different: long-term growth has not produced the shorter working weeks, wider security or fairer sharing once imagined, and too many communities still feel that prosperity belongs elsewhere.

York itself was used as a useful local example of these wider national tensions. The transcript points to severe funding pressures on the city council, deep housing affordability problems, a life expectancy gap between richer and poorer parts of the city, relatively high employment paired with too many low-wage and low-productivity jobs, infrastructure constraints, and the challenge of economic transition away from older industries. In other words, even a city that appears relatively successful can still contain many of the same structural weaknesses seen elsewhere in Britain.

This fed into one of the panel’s most important underlying points: economic success has to be judged by more than GDP. A place can have investment, development and strong headline numbers while local people feel no improvement in security or living standards. The discussion pushed against the idea that growth is a singular, self-explanatory good. Instead, it argued for a richer picture of success: one that includes resilience, opportunity, quality of life and the ability of ordinary people to feel that the economy is working in their favour.

 

2. Inequality is not abstract: it shapes daily life

The second big theme was inequality, but not only in the broad or statistical sense. What came through strongly in the discussion was that inequality is visible in the shape of daily life: in housing, in poverty, in health, in wealth, in the cost of living, and in the way opportunity is passed between generations.

One speaker made the argument starkly by pointing to the contrast between visible wealth and visible deprivation in the same urban areas: luxury developments on one side, poverty and disrepair on the other. The point was that GDP growth can coexist with exclusion, and in some places the symbols of prosperity can actually sharpen the sense that existing residents are not sharing in it.

The discussion then widened into a more systematic account of inequality. There was a focus on working poverty: the fact that employment no longer guarantees security, and that many people in poverty now live in households where someone is already in work. Children were identified as especially exposed, alongside groups who face higher risks of disadvantage more generally. That matters not just as a moral failure but as a warning that the economy is no longer reliably rewarding effort or providing a stable route upward.

The cost-of-living crisis was treated in a similar way: not as a uniform national pressure, but as one that falls unequally. Higher prices in essentials such as food, fuel and housing hit poorer households harder because a much larger share of their income is already absorbed by necessities. The same is true of energy debt and arrears: these are not just financial problems, but symptoms of an economy in which a growing number of households have little room left to absorb shocks.

Health inequality was another major strand. The panel linked poverty and poor health as part of a mutually reinforcing cycle: people are held back by bad health, while poverty also makes bad health more likely. The discussion went beyond life expectancy into quality of life, stressing that inequality shows up not only in how long people live but in pain, mobility, mental health and everyday wellbeing.

The same applied to wealth. A repeated concern in the transcript is that in modern Britain, work alone often does not generate wealth in the same way that assets do. Housing ownership, inherited advantage and rising asset values have widened the gap between those who accumulate and those who merely earn. This creates not only regional divides but intergenerational ones, leaving many younger people facing a very different set of prospects from those who came before them.

 

3. A fairer economy needs tax reform, long-term thinking and public belief

The third major theme was what a response might look like. Here the discussion combined policy ideas with a broader political challenge: how to design a fairer economy, and how to persuade people that change is real, relevant and meant for them.

A substantial part of the conversation focused on the tax system. The panel criticised the way the system often treats wealth more favourably than work, especially through differences in how earnings and capital gains are taxed and through the sheer complexity of reliefs and exemptions. The underlying argument was that Britain is not simply a heavily taxed country in any straightforward sense; rather, it is a country in which those with the greatest resources are often best placed to navigate and reduce what they owe. That weakens both fairness and the state’s ability to invest in the things that actually support growth.

Importantly, this was not framed as anti-growth. In fact, the opposite argument was made: there is no automatic trade-off between fairer taxation and economic success. The things that genuinely drive prosperity were identified as skills, infrastructure, resilience and investment, not tax advantages for those who are already doing well. Reforming the tax system, in this view, is not about punishment; it is about creating the capacity to invest in the foundations of a stronger economy.

But the panel also recognised that policy detail is not enough on its own. A striking point in the final section of the discussion was that people need to believe economic change is possible for them, not just desirable in theory. If growth is presented as an abstract national concept, people who feel excluded may simply assume it is something that happens elsewhere, to somebody else. That is why the panel kept stressing authenticity, lived benefit and visible routes into opportunity.

This is where the idea of a thriving economy became most important. The transcript suggests an approach based on several linked principles: resilience, wider access to skills, a healthier relationship between state and business, support for innovation and small enterprise as well as big investment, and a stronger commitment to fairness for left-behind individuals and communities. The long-term emphasis was especially striking. Many of the problems discussed – child poverty, weak social mobility, regional imbalance, wealth concentration – are intergenerational. They cannot be solved by short political cycles or by relying on GDP alone as the measure of success.

 

Conclusion

What emerged from the panel was not a single policy formula, but a clear direction of travel. The economy, it was argued, cannot be judged only by how much it grows; it has to be judged by who can participate, who feels secure, and whether prosperity is shared across regions, classes and generations. The discussion challenged the idea that fairness and growth are competing goals. Instead, it suggested that an economy marked by deep inequality, weak social mobility and declining public trust is itself an obstacle to sustainable prosperity.

In that sense, the question “is something for everyone possible?” was answered cautiously but seriously. Not as a promise that every tension can disappear, but as a call to build an economy that is more intentional, more honest and more human in what it values. The panel’s core message was that Britain needs more than growth. It needs an economy that people can see themselves in.

Share this page to spread the word.
Share Tweet