Robert Paston

speaker

388 appearances 3 recordings 1 series first heard Apr 2026 last heard 10 Jun

Robert Paston’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 3 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 1.

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The Rest Is Money · 282. Are politicians living in a tax-and-spend dream world? · 27 May 2026 podcast

to make the structural changes, the long-term reforms that are necessary to actually improve our competitiveness and our growth.

Because this government is only the latest in a long line of governments who talk the talk of wanting to do something about growth and productivity and in the end do, you know, using a very technical phrase, bugger all.

But is it the problem in the UK that we've basically infantilised

whether it's local authorities or mayors.

And when you infantilise them, they are much more likely to get into difficulties because at the same time, you're not giving them responsibility.

And secondly, they're massively squeezed by all these surging costs, particularly things like social care.

So what do they do?

They find creative ways to raise money.

And we've seen a succession in recent years of local authorities effectively going bust because they've abused borrowing powers

For, you know, for example.

So, I mean, in the end, you know, it's the halfway house that has caused so much trouble.

Surely what we've got to have, I would argue, is a big bang.

where we decide these are the areas of policy where local authorities or mayors should know the requirements of their area better than central government.

And they seem to me the obvious ones are things like housing.

They are business construction.

They are infrastructure construction and they are skills.

And so in my view, you would want radical devolution there.

in those areas, and you would also want them – you'd want the connection with local people through tax-raising powers, and you would therefore give them much more ability to raise money locally.

One of the things – another thing we talked to Jeremy Hunt about was one of the reasons why planning and building is so much more efficient in France is because local authorities keep the revenue gain from the buildings.

Yeah.

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