Hello and welcome to The Rundown, a podcast from Politics Home with me Alan Tolhurst. This week is the sixth and final

episode in our series of Parliament's summer recess, speaking to experts, looking how Labour had performed

in their first year in office in some of the big policy areas. And we've stayed probably the biggest

until last as we focused this week on the economy.

Fixing the country's finances was their number one priority when Labor came into office last year,

promising to kickstart economic growth after a decade of stagnation, followed by post-pandemic

inflation and the chaos of the Liz's mini-budget. But after announcing there was a 22 billion

pound so-called black hole in the country's finances, Rachel Reeves announced 40 billion pounds of tax increases in her first budget as Chancellor. And despite saying it would be a one-off, this year sluggish growth figures means she finds herself in a similarly difficult position as she heads towards her second budget this autumn. So we need to discuss how well the government has managed the economy after being handed on undoubtedly difficult inheritance, whether they will chart a path towards economic growth this Parliament, and

delighted to be joined by Helen Miller, the new director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies,

and I've begun by asking her to assess overall how well labour has done so far.

Let me start with the assessment, I'll tell you the grade. I mean, I think it's a mixed bag, honestly. I think you can point to some things they've done that you can say this is good news. Yeah. The one that everyone points to is the planning reforms, and that's, I think, genuinely moving the right direction. They've done a big increase, or they're planning a big increase in investment spending. I think there's some good things to say about that. On the other side of the ledger, things like the employer, Nick's

increase, is going to be a drag. So passing grade, I mean, it's not a complete fail. But I think

overshadowing everything they've done, actually, maybe we'll keep coming back to this, is I think

they went into the last election basically not wanting to

talk about the big challenges. I mean, we were really clear in advance of the election that

they were going to have to do one of increased taxes, increased borrowing, or cut spending.

The fiscal trilemma, as it was term to. Well, we said there was like there's a conspiracy of

silence around that. Yeah. And of course, we were right.

They did have to do those things. But the way they sequenced it was to say, no, there's no problem here. And then it's a bring out the bodies we found a black hole. And then it's a one and done budget. And I think the consequence of all that is they haven't really opened themselves up enough space. Yeah. to talk about the bigger issues or to make the bolder reform.

So I really think that's overshadowed everything we've seen. up enough space to talk about the bigger issues or to make the bolder reform.

So I really think that's overshadowed everything we've seen because they've really very

tightly constrained their space for movement, I think, before they've really got out the

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