Jeremy Hunt

My point will be very straightforward.

I mean, in that budget, as you may or may not remember, I signed up the NHS to improve productivity by 2% a year.

And my plan had I been...

The government being re-elected would be to roll that across the whole of the public sector.

So, yes, I was very conscious that the implication of doing that is more restraint on public spending.

But I think that is what we have to do if we're going to get growth.

I do.

And I think that it's really interesting because let's just – if I can just do this segue between what Robert was saying and what you were saying.

So tax is very highly politically charged for all our lifetimes.

Tories have wanted lower tax.

Labour's wanted more money in public services.

So it's like very politically charged.

I deal with that in the book.

But there's a whole lot of things in the book that are not ideological at all, like making it easier to build things, making the NHS more efficient.

And, you know, the two quickest wins, I think, well, actually, probably the three quickest wins would be to bring down energy prices, to get more people off welfare into work and unlock the power in our regions.

And, you know, this is so interesting.

So the interesting thing is that you can go back 30 years.

And there has been no shortage of effort by national governments, all the way back to Michael Heseltine in Liverpool, George Osborne's Northern Powerhouse, Boris Johnson's levelling up, what Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are doing with their place-based programme.

But nearly all of those programmes, one way or another...

have involved the Treasury giving money to the regions.