Here's the irony. The money is there.

The money is there. Right.

But the plumbing to get that money into our businesses, which is the same thing

as saying growth tomorrow, isn't there?

So that's a plumbing problem. We can solve plumbing problems.

We can solve it. With the political will, with the political will because it's all plumbing

problems. If the money wasn't there, I'd be

far less optimistic. But the money is that it's even here at

home. It's here.

It's actually here at home as well.

Welcome to Merryn Talks Money. The show in which

People who know the markets explain the markets.

I'm Merryn Somerset Webb And this week I'm speaking with Andy

Haldane, former chief economist at the Bank of England.

Andy, welcome to Merryn Talks Money. Merryn, it's wonderful as ever to be

joining you. Well, the UK knocks around number

six in the world in terms of GDP as a whole, go down to GDP, per capita GDP

per head. And we're actually knocking around 26,

27, which I think is something of a shock for most Brits were poor.

We're not getting any richer. Our economy is a mess.

Even our housing market is a mess. I find it quite hard to find those

optimistic bones in my body right now. And, you know, even as we speak.

And we're speaking, by the way, on Tuesday the 21st, just as I was waiting for you

to come on. I was having a look at what was going on

on the stock market. And I see that.

Crest Nicholson is down 39% in a matter of minutes on a profit warning.

I mean, quite bad profit warning. But nonetheless, just another example to

me of the extraordinary fragility of everything in the UK at the moment.

So listen, I'll tell you what, Andy, let's start with some of those miseries.

Got to take this seriously enough. Let's start with the UK fiscal

situation. We really do have a very major problem

there and it makes it really hard for us to start doing the things that we need

to do. And the classic problem that of course

is defence. We know we have to spend more money on

defense, but we simply don't have the money.

The fiscal situation is just too tight, so let's start there.

Is there any hope that you can find in the UK's fiscal situation?

There's absolutely hope and I fear you punctured my balloon before I even inverted it there.

That. All right.

The let's start. Listen, the starting point is not as

anyone would wish. Growth is too low, inflation is too

high, and the fiscal position is far too precarious.

That is why when the world sneezes, the UK catches a cold.

And this year has been another example of that being the case.

We are a, you know, high beta leveraged bet on the global economy and this

year's demonstrated that as if we needed proof.

None the less and all matters fiscal. I agree with you.

We are in straitened fiscal times. You know, our debt stock relative to

national income has trebled over the course of this century.

We have yet to run a fiscal surplus this century.

We're shelling out now north of billion pounds each year just in interest

payments. So I would say there is very little, if

any, fiscal space left unless some hard choices are made about cutting spending.

I think we are taxed out as a nation. We are maxed out when it comes to

borrowing. So the knife must fall on public

spending if we are to chisel out some more room for defence spending, which

surely we must, which surely we must in these insecure times.

Sorry, let me just interrupt you before you move on to the but which I'm really

looking forward to, really looking forward to the but, you know historically when you look at UK

taxes, GDP numbers, you know, all countries and one of the odd things

about countries and tax rate, all countries seem to have their own limit

when it comes to the percentage of GDP they are prepared to stump up in tax and

historically for the GDP for the UK, it's knocked around that effect 37% and

we're now heading for over 40%, which seems unsustainable anyway.

Yes, Yes. And I think we are.

I mean, even the Office for Budget Responsibility in its report around the

spring statement a few weeks ago pretty much said as much, albeit in slightly

closeted terms, that we are reaching the point where any further rises in the tax

rate risks shrinking revenues, ie by disincentivizing, whether it's working

or bolstering the business or wherever it might be made, we may even be there

already, we don't know will only be up see over the next couple of years

whether we've already raised rates to that point, to the Laffer curve before

everyone goes Well, do you know what I wonder?

Exactly. So, you know, wherever precisely we are

certainly near to that point. So the name of the game, if we are to

cut ourselves some fiscal slack, will be about spending cuts.

And so where do those cuts spend? Again, whether those cuts come again

before we get to the budget, which, as I say, I'm looking forward to.

Where would those in your mind, where would they come?

I'm one of the numbers that I keep looking at, and some incredulity is the

fact that welfare spending is now the same or slightly higher as the total

income tax take. Now when we talk about welfare spending,

when getting pensions. But nonetheless, if you say to a young

person today, by the way. Every penny.

Every penny that you pay income tax is going and welfare is going on.

Some kind of benefit spent. That that hurts.

That hurts. Well, I mean, the only two places where

you find yourself some real money is either

the NHS budget or the welfare and pensions budget.

And to be clear.

So the welfare and pensions in total is north about a third of

£1,000,000,000,000 per year. Which 330 something billion.

Yeah. Yeah.

Which actually the larger part goes on pensions rather than welfare.

Indeed, it's the pensions that's been rising more rapidly that rather than the

welfare bit. So I would say on the assumption, which

is not an unreasonable assumption, that the NHS has some special status and

indeed given our health challenges, it'd be hard to take the knife to that any

time soon. I think then the axe would need to fall

if you funding yourself a decent chunk of change.

I'm talking, you know, real money, tens of billions.

If we're on debt, on defence, if we're shy of 2% of GDP and need to guess at a

three now percent of GDP, that's an extra

1% of GDP, around 30 billion per year. You're not getting that out of any

budget of an NHS or welfare pension. So I think looking seriously

at the triple lock, looking seriously at the allocation of

welfare spending is I think, a syndicate known

as getting to a more defensible position on defence.

And there's been talk about war bombs, defence bombs, launching a specific

class of, of golf for defence that make sense to you.

I mean I look at that and I think, well I tell you how that could really work.

It was being suggested by a few people. It would really work if you said, you

know what, we're going to look at these new bonds and specifically the defence.

I mean they're not only hypothecated the UK, but why not at this point

if you made those defence guilt free of inheritance tax.

So on this, two things. One, I think that is an avenue, but I

wouldn't pursue it as an alternative to doing something on spending.

I think the market's tolerance for this, the credibility of the UK's fiscal

position first is buttressing and buttressing means this government

demonstrating it has the ability to make difficult, politically difficult choices

around spending. I think without that, any further

borrowing risks. A raspberry from the markets subject to

that. Do I think that's something that could

be separately labelled and separately

marketed? I think probably yes.

Would that require a tax sweetener, either inheritance or maybe even as part

of a temporary extension of the ISA allowance?

Yes, I think

as you know and have you spoken about extensively, I think you're right to

speak about it. We have north of £2 trillion

parked up in cash, earning negative real returns, bringing some of that into the

equation in a sort of Patriot bond, a war bond.

I think that could be quite good marketing and quite good fiscal

arithmetic. So, yes, I think that ought to be an

option on the table, but as a complement to rather than substitute for doing

something on spending. Okay.

And I suppose none of this would matter. None of this would matter at all if the

economy was growing properly. I mean, one of the, this is the core

problem. This is the core problem.

If the economy was growing properly, you know, in real terms by 2%, 3%, 4% a

year, if GDP per capita was growing at any particular speed, then we wouldn't

particularly have to worry about cutting spending because these problems take

care of themselves. But that's right.

It's it's just not it's just not this way we can deal, but which is not going

to be just not yet. And you're right.

I mean, growth is the great redeemer for debt problems, public debt problems

in particular. You grow your way rather than digging

your way out of a a debt problem so that that ups the ante on us.

Making good on the oft heard claim from politicians over many decades that

Merryn, people have had growth as their number one objective.

Here's here's the but here's the good news right yeah.

If there were a martian or any of planet actually an alien

looking at the not the public balance sheet, but the private balance sheet of

the UK, you would say in aggregate it is in rude health.

Okay. And should those fiscal deficits that

have been running for the whole century, actually both households and companies

in the UK are running financial surpluses.

And if you look at their balance sheet fundamentals, levels of debt, both

corporate and household, are at modest levels by historical standards.

So in terms of the balance sheet fundamentals of UK policy, we are poised

for liftoff. There is plenty of fuel in the tank,

plenty of ammunition there to be fired. Balance sheets are poised to be put to

work. Investment spending and the like.

So, you know, this is one source of optimism.

If the private balance sheet was broken, as well as the public balance sheet,

that would be a council of despair as it is.

Private balance sheets are in pretty good shape.

Not everywhere and for every company or household, but in general they are.

That's nice. But you have to.

But you have to then look at that and say, fine, That might be a reason why

people aren't spending and investing. Yes.

And something has to change to incentivize them to do so.

And a very high tax, very high regulation, very politically uncertain

environment make that difficult. It does.

It does. So

what's getting in the way? You know, why are they saving rather

than spending their balance sheet while they're not putting it to work?

I mean, part of it's the way of the world, Let's be honest.

The world is a noisy, uncertain place. And I totally get the desire to squirrel

away some money for a rainy day. And let's be honest, this year once

again has brought a whole sequence of eight weeks of rainy

days since the Iranian crisis struck. So some of that is just the way of the

world. But you're right, a chunk, a chunk of it

is domestically induced self-harm, if you like, which is uncertainty around

policy, which has been very acute over the past few years, both Budget 24 and

Budget 25. Took the legs from beneath the animal

spirits of companies and households, either because of fearfulness of tax

rises or in some cases because of actual tax rises.

So we need government and policy to sign the Hippocratic Oath and to genuinely do

no harm. I think the spring statement did a

reasonable job on that actually, and that it was a it was a

much smaller, no news event, and that was better than

some of its predecessors. But more than that,

the government, this government and previous ones need to get serious about

providing the enabling environment for spending to take place, for animal

spirits to be revivified, for balance sheets to be put back to work.

We have and you discussed this previously, we have a crazy tax system

in this country, not just the level of rights which we've discussed, but its

complexity now 21,000 pages among, if not the longest in the world

taking a chainsaw or a pickaxe to that rather than the pruning shears is

absolutely what was needed and is true of tax is also true of regulation.

Again, I used to be a regulator that was like, you know, but nonetheless, the

individually well-intended actions of now more than 100 regulators in the UK

nonetheless can collectively add up to a quagmire.

And that is where we find ourselves and on both regulation and to a lesser

extent on tax. This government, like its predecessors,

has talked big and acted small, and that is that will need to change if we are to

have companies and households put their balance sheets back to work.

Yeah, I mean, I think you're absolutely right that in many cases it's over.

Unless the rate of tax, particularly when it comes to corporate activity and,

you know, starting a small business, for example, or anything like that, you

know, you don't tend to think about the actual rate of tax when you do that.

What you do think about is the admin hurdle, the admin and regulatory

hurdles. And these are so difficult and we know,

you know, in the great tax the Billionaires saga that we hear all the

time, we know that actually the majority of the tax comes from, from corporates,

from small businesses and a lot of that will maybe some of it's deliberate, but

a lot of it is just I can't do this admin, this is just too hard.

Similar to their own small business few years ago,

I've felt the full force of that and have been absolute.

You know I heard the. Howls of derision.

But now, having sampled this myself, I'm completely with small business

owners and thinking this is an endless and rising tide of compliance, which,

again, you know, individually well-intentioned.

But the collective consequence, I think, is is an overburdened engine of the

economy because, of course, corporates are the engine of the economy.

Yeah, and it's an interesting, utter failure of the public sector to

understand the the extent of the friction that is involved.

I mean, we always say when it comes to write about investing, we talk about

investing in personal finance a lot. And one of the things that prevents

people investing prevents them sorting out their personal finance is friction.

It's admin. Literally.

There is nothing in the world that people hate more it more, I guess.

But in general admin admin is everybody's personal.

Hell yeah. Yes.

An overly complex admin of that. The oozes from every pore.

So there's lots that could be done. I mean the good news is because there's

a risk there of us disappearing down a plug hole again, I blame you

is we need to be flexible with the political will and a degree of political

skill. These are fixable problems.

They're not intractable the difficult, but they're not intractable problems

to to solve. And in the spirit of

adding in a further dose of optimism. Whisper it quietly.

But UK PLC might be the most innovative nation on the planet right lately.

So you look at the pipeline of venture capital backed businesses that

are growing like Topsy, and we rank this be businesses, you know, north of 25

million a year revenues and not not yet unicorns not yet with wings but

nonetheless the Colts and thoroughbreds that are

rising at real pace. The businesses we know.

The wellspring of job creation, of value creation on of productivity generation.

If you rank the UK on the absolute number of those Colts and thoroughbreds

short of unicorns, but nonetheless with a potential to grow wings, we rank third

behind the US and China in numbers and on a per capita basis, because guess

what? A lot more people in China and the US

and around the UK, we are towards the top of the pops.

So when it comes to potential scale ups, the unicorns prospectively of tomorrow,

we are an innovation nation. We are smashing the lights out relative

to the rest of Europe and arguably even relative

to the US. The key metric is, of course, to nurture

those colts and thoroughbreds to enable them to grow.

The way to become. This is slightly the problem, isn't it?

That we can be we can be first in terms of exciting companies and still 27th in

terms of GDP per capita. How do we keep those companies here?

I mean, you know, 20 years ago, companies of that size would already

have listed and the wealth but already have been shared around, and that's not

the case now. So how do we keep those companies here?

How do we encourage more of them? And crucially, also from from our point

of view, how do we get those companies to list and make the UK stock market

part of the equation? Yeah, yeah.

So lots in there. Let me pick up some bits of them.

So obviously the better the enabling environment.

All the stuff you mentioned earlier on. The more likely it is that they will

grow more like this, that they will stay.

So that's the kind of prerequisite, I think, for growing our own,

given that the seed corn is as plentiful and strong.

When we look at, you know, the UK scale, a problem is not a new problem.

It just so happens that we've got a particularly

good crop just at the moment. The obstacles are partly financial.

And looking for ways of widening that pool of

B, C or D, or indeed public listing of companies

smoothing. The passage of that, I think, is really

important. Mm hmm.

The engine of that, again, is not surprise to anyone needs

to be our own patient. Capital investors, pension funds,

insurance companies investing more in new capital C We are the only pension

fund on the planet that does not have a home bias towards our own companies.

Mm hmm. And that is ridiculous.

And that needs to change. And that then provides a mandate that

change. Sorry.

Would you mandate that change? No, I wouldn't mandate it, but I would,

you know, I would expedite our facilitation of that.

Bye. You know, that means looking at

regulation, you know, is what used to be called Solvency II, what's now called

Solvency UK. Is that getting in the way of us putting

those moneys to work? Is it the risk aversion of pension fund

trustees that's getting the work in the way of putting those monies to work?

Can we provide more tax efficient wrappers to enable people to put their

money towards UK companies rather than overseas ones?

I would. Oh yes, we can do that.

We should do that. I would work all of those channels, to

be honest, because as you know, this is many trillions of pounds.

Parked up in either overseas equities or in cash, none of which which is starving

UK plc of financial fuel it needs and all those Colts and thoroughbreds to

grow into unicorns so policies financial and fixable because here is the irony.

The money is that money is them right but the plumbing to get that money into

our businesses which is the same thing as saying growth tomorrow

isn't there. So that's a red plumbing problem.

We can solve plumbing problems. We can solve the political will with the

political will, because all plumbing problems is the most important problem.

Political will. I'd be far less optimistic, but the

money is that it's even here at home. It's here.

It's actually here at home as well. So we have the businesses.

We have the money to finance the businesses.

We replan the system and hey presto, you get business led growth, which of course

is the only source, only to have a growth of growth.

You can have that sustainable over the longer term.

So these are the reasons if you peer into the balance sheet fundamentals, we

have the businesses to enable the growth.

We have the money to enable the businesses to grow.

This is a plumbing problem that's eminently tractable Merryn and if we did

that, we could be smashing the lights out, not just at the start of the scale

up, but at GDP per head and all the rest.

So this is my frustration, but also my

excitement about what's possible when we look forward to those plumbing

changes coming through. And you let me ask you about your one of

your other areas of expertise, interest rates.

Now, there was an expectation before that war in Iran that rates would

gradually be falling and that that would be good for all sorts of reasons, but

that no longer looks like it's very likely.

Where do you see rates going from here? And mostly I'm asking, I think, on

behalf of the property market here. Yeah.

Oh, very good. Well look, like everyone else, my

strike computation at the start this year was that

inflationary pressures were were abating and really were they'd been abating for

the better part of of 6 to 9 months by the start of this year.

And if anything, I'd been a bit critical of my former employers, the Bank of

England, for not lowering rates faster than they had scheduled was justifiable

given that inflationary pressures have peaked at

one and were falling. Now the world has changed.

And we saw financial markets run very quickly to the side of the boat with an

expectation. Now, rate rises is not sure in the UK

and the US and the euro area as well. That looks to me like a very significant

overcorrection. Why do I say that?

I suspect lots of people were repeating the Ukraine Russia playbook.

And this is not that this differs from that in two very

fundamental and significant respects. First, the scale of shock, at least so

far tempting fate. And saying this so far is nothing like

on the same scale. That was a shock to the cost of living

of north of 10% in the UK at current energy prices.

We're talking short to positive thing of two or 3%.

So much smaller shock. What's more, that smaller shock to costs

is breaking on an economy that's very different.

In a labour market, it's very different than back in 21,22.

Back then we had resurgent demand coming up against consumer constricted supply

post COVID, the results of which was an obvious bottleneck.

And we had cost push pressures, much larger ones alongside demand pull

pressures, and the result was inflation. This time we do not have those

frictions. Demand is soggy, the labour market is

soggy. Firms do not have pricing power.

Workers do not have pricing power. The upwards impetus to inflation.

Their thought will be significantly less unless the war is a forever war.

And as a result, I'd be surprised if the if the Bank and the Fed were to raise

rates this year, if energy prices remain at too close to where they are right

now, this is a time for sitting gleefully on your hands and seeing how

that happens pans out. And that would be you know, that would

be the mainstream economist's view. And very far, as you know, from being a

mainstream economist on this occasion, my tribe might even have got it right.

It's very, very unusual. What about house prices?

Obviously, as you know, we've been looking at house prices quite a lot on

this podcast and we're fascinated by the real terms decline that we've seen so

far across the UK and particularly in London, and that has positives and that

it makes houses more affordable. But of course, with mortgage rates

slightly higher than they were, however affordable they may look in absolute

terms, they still become less affordable as mortgage rates rise.

Yeah. Yeah.

Well. I mean, I suspect a bit like for

interest rates we might find for a period the housing market and tracking

sideways. I mean, it's not just about right So of

course we've seen. Many mortgage products disappearing off

the markets and fixed rates are picking picking up.

But this is coming alongside and on top, of course, of concerns about jobs.

We've had the jobs market now weakening.

Well, actually, for a couple of years it's been weakening.

But what initially showed up as reduced vacancies has latterly been showing up

as increased unemployment. But a report just yesterday

suggesting unemployment might pick up to closer to 6% to 5% later this year.

That might be overdone, but nonetheless, fearfulness of unemployment is a good

reason to hold off major purchases. Houses, of course, the consumer major

purchase. So I'd be surprised if any time soon

whether we see a turn turn in that market.

Nonetheless, if this war were behind us. If there were a stronger expectation of

rates being flat or perhaps even falling,

if people's inflation adjusted pay keeps on rising, let's bear in mind it has

risen for the last two years, and maybe in the second half of the year we could

see a degree of Perkins's. But nonetheless, I'd be surprised that

this is a year of, of of which the housing market turns decisively.

Yeah. As was when I look at the affordability

measures, one of the things I think is that the the people who would normally

be buying houses now, maybe the first time buyers are also the ones who have

the nine percentage points extra effective income tax to pay on the

student loans. And that's is a new dynamic.

And the housing market that might make it drag rather more than you might have

expected previously. Looking at the affordability numbers

completely, I mean, at a time when the I mentioned the jobs market was so key

for young people, it's dripping wet, isn't it?

And that is true. Both of those, if you like, without a

degree. And usually for those with a degree as

well, you know, rates of graduate unemployment are sky high.

And that's uncomfortable against a backdrop of them carrying around this

debt. And that leads us neatly, neatly, neatly

onto AI. And when I look at the unemployment

numbers for young the young today and how difficult it is for them to get

jobs, and everyone says, oh, well, as I taking all the extra jobs, I take my

graduate jobs, etc., I suspect that's not really true.

And in fact, there aren't any graduate jobs because that parts of the UK are

effectively in recession and people simply aren't hiring because the

environment isn't good enough origin. And we look at it and we're casting

around for a reason, but this may just be an entirely normal employment

recession of the type that we've seen many times before.

And certainly when I graduated, there were literally no jobs available.

Yeah. I mean, the evidence we have so far on

that, which is try to kind of tease apart you like cyclical unemployment

or in some cases not so much unemployment, but unwillingness to post

vacancies from the structural component. I can't find much of the second so far.

Now, I think if you are a God fearing CEO,

it's much easier to tell a story about AI as to why you're chopping vacancies

or indeed heads than it is because your business is struggling.

So I suspect it's being used as a defensive shield for a great many

businesses when the truth is rather more mundane, which is about sluggish sales

and and elevated costs, of course, for pretty much everything, including people

with national minimum wage and rights bill and all the all the rest of

it. So, actually, you know, in the spirit of

of a further optimism, I am optimistic about

how AI need not be the great job slayer that people worry about if we

play our cards right, if we play our cause right, how do we

get our cards right with a technology that we know so well?

We know a lot about it, but we know understand very little about how it will

permit the economy going forward. Really do when you listen to that range

of views on it. And we did I don't know if you listened

to a great podcast the other day about LLMs and how they pretty much hit their

ceiling already. There's nothing more to come there.

And then of course, you have the other approaches into attempting to find an

ally which may take a little longer but are fascinating.

So it's it's very hard to even understand how this will develop, let

alone how it might embed itself in our economy.

No, that's all true. And,

you know, anyone who can say with confidence they know what the jobs of

the depths moral might be is, is that's a fanciful notion, I think, in this

environment. Nonetheless, are we equipping our young

people and indeed, so the not too young ones with the sets of agile, malleable,

fungible capabilities as distinct from specific skills to enable them to ride

the rapids of whatever the new technology waves.

So and we are not. And that's what I'm talking about.

You know, playing our cards right means equipping our young people with those

agile, fungible capabilities. What do you think they are?

Well, if you're sending a kids university today, and this is the

question we get asked all the time, so I've got to get you to answer it.

Is sending a kid to university today, What are you telling them to study?

Well, I'm not sure I would send them to university.

I think I think the NEET rate for graduates is now higher than for A-level

students. Yeah.

Yeah. So the big question about whether that

is the right thing, certainly the way it's been done historically, do I want a

block of three years studying something that is I've half thought about on my

ACAST form that that's less clear to me.

What are the sets of capabilities that will best enable me to surf the

waves of technology? Well, a degree of job experience, I

would say. Would you know that Penny, I think, is

now dropping, But the skills you accrete in the world of work, including, you

know, how to work as a team, how to how to negotiate.

There's what is sometimes called soft skills, personal skills.

Social skills are the ones that are least likely quickly to replaced by

machine, and the self-same would be true of certain classes of creative skills,

you know. So

creativity, the wellspring of creativity is

moving across disciplines, and our current degree courses tend to be

confined within disciplines. Yeah.

Yeah. I think we get even though we get the

jobs, we can guess what the capabilities that will be needed and then ask

ourselves is our schooling and further and higher education system equipping

kids with those capabilities. The answers are resolute.

No to that question currently. Merryn, and that would give me cause for

pause. Couldn't it be fixed?

Yes, everything can be fixed. This is great.

Again, brings us back to political will. I'm finding the political space to do

all these things. And if you are going back to university

now as a as a not a retiree, obviously, because an older person, what would you

study? Well, you know what

I. I am at the moment.

As you know, I am

intrigued about how we make lifelong learning a reality.

So something in that sort of education meets entrepreneurship space.

I'm not sure what the degree course would be.

Maybe it doesn't exist. Make your own.

Make your own. There are degrees in all finance

entrepreneurship programs in business. There are degrees in

education. But how we get learning and earning to

co-exist on a lifelong basis I think is among the challenges of our time.

I don't know if there exists a degree for doing that right now.

Maybe we should create. One years ago, a friend of mine up in

Manchester created a course in creativity.

Of course, contrary to popular belief, you can't teach creativity.

We know quite a lot about the creative process and what is needed, and that

that's the level of abstract thinking I think we need.

And so something maybe around the fusion of work business and learning

something, that's where the actions are. Fascinating, thank you.

And is there anything that we haven't covered, anything that is super

important that neither of you have mentioned and we should before we go?

Well, anything I'd say we haven't touched upon politics which are unusual

for you and me, and I've got no desire to deep dive into politics beyond saying

this. Among the the fiscal free solutions to

the UK's malaise is by empowering local leaders.

We are the most centralised country on the planet.

And that is not serving as well. Ultimately, if the name of the game is

growith, growth comes from the bottom up and comes from empowering local leaders.

But I don't just mean government. I mean businesses, universities, civil

society, and local places, too. So among the fiscal three measures I

would take were I am in power. Thank Lord, I'm not.

I would do diva properly because currently it's been day in a in a half

baked and halfhearted fashion. And we will not get growth until we

properly empower local leaders, plural and local citizens and were some some

way short of that merit. Thank you, Andy, and thank you for your

optimism you've given us today. I think we we and our listeners, we

appreciate that they get it often. Great as ever to chat to Merryn

conversation to be continued. But down like I say.

I like flipping the aphorism right, which is not where there's a will,

there's a way, but where there is a way there's a will

And if we can define the way we can summon the collective will, those animal

spirits are economy going and growing? I'm quite optimistic about that.