Lib Dems vow to end 'computer says no' economy to boost growth
Deputy leader Daisy Cooper also proposes a Growth and Defence Partnership with the EU in a speech to her party conference.
Lib Dems pledge to end 'computer says no' economy to lift growth
Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper has said the UK’s economic growth is being held back by a "computer says no" mindset.
She presented a 30-page growth plan designed to strip away obstacles facing business as part of her address to the Lib Dem conference in Brighton.
Cooper, who also serves as the party’s Treasury spokesperson, said too many ideas, start-ups and research begin in Britain but are then taken abroad.
She also set out a new Growth and Defence Partnership with the EU to undo the economic harm of Brexit, which she said is currently costing the UK £90bn a year in lost tax revenue.
Speaking on stage in Brighton, she said: "We build brilliant start-ups, and watch too many leave to scale somewhere else. We produce world-class research, and too little of it becomes a British product."
"Britain has the potential," she went on. "The system holds it back. The computer says no.
"This plan tears down the barriers to investment, to innovation, and to skills."
Cooper urged the creation of a digital one-stop-shop for businesses and investors, bringing together tax, regulatory, legal, Companies House, and general business services.
She said placing this inside a new Department for Growth would cut red tape and help small and medium-sized businesses compete and expand.
Cooper said a new Growth and Defence Partnership with the EU would be the "single biggest growth lever we could pull" by strengthening ties with Europe.
"It could turbo-charge our economy and start to reverse the economic damage of Brexit which is currently costing us £90bn a year in lost tax revenue," she said.
"In power, we will strike the deal on the single market, we will strike the deal on a customs union, we will strike the deal on defence."
She said the Lib Dems would say "what no other party dares to say" that Britain "belongs at the heart of Europe, and we will take her there."
Trying to set the Liberal Democrats apart from their rivals, she said her party would not choose "more punishing tax hikes from Labour or painful spending cuts by the Conservatives and Reform UK".
She criticised Healey for his speech earlier this month, which "contained no vision, no ideas, and absolutely no mention of Europe".
Cooper also attacked Reform and the Conservatives for being "locked in a race to the bottom without a single credible costing between them".
She pointed to how the new Shadow Chancellor Andrew Griffith had helped to deliver and defend the Liz Truss mini-budget, which she said "crashed the pound, it spiked your mortgage, it cost the country billions", and Nigel Farage backed the move.
"But the worst could be yet to come: Farage is modelling himself on Trump," she said.
"A President who has used the presidency to enrich himself, dismantled anti-corruption safeguards and pardoned crypto criminals.
"We cannot allow that kind of politics to take hold in our country -- We cannot afford to allow Nigel Farage to win the keys to No 10 or let the Tories put him there."