The UK has been doing relatively well in what I call the new normal for economic growth – it was the leading G7 economy last year. We shouldn’t expect to go back to the sort of growth rates we had before the financial crisis.
The fundamentals in the UK economy look reasonably sound. We have a government that is pursuing economic policies that will encourage business and support economic stability so I am relatively optimistic.
Recession has still left its mark. Unemployment has come down but real wages have taken quite a squeeze. People who relied on interest income; have to cope with much lower levels of income.
We have made a lot of progress in the last five or six years and will actually move into the seventh year of economic recovery in the second half of this year. This is not widely recognised, that this is a recovery that is now going on for sometime some of the memories and traumas of the financial crisis will fade and that will help with consumer and business confidence.
Deflation is really a problem when the prices are falling sharply and the money values of things in the economy fall sharply at the same time, like the money GDP, asset prices, wages etc. We have moved away from that and what we are seeing now - if you want to call it deflation - is quite benign.
You got a government now that has an ambitious agenda in terms of trying to improve the economy of the UK. They are trying to invest in infrastructure, they want to create more apprenticeships, improve the skills base.
When I started my career at the CBI in the mid-1980s we were talking about the need to improve infrastructure and skills. Getting beyond the talking about it and actually delivering it is the big challenge.
It will be encouraging to see George Osborne talk about ambitious programmes of tax reform. Some areas of the tax system are over complicated and contain many anomalies that have not been addressed for many decades.
He has taken low earners out of income tax but they and their employers still pay an awful lot of national insurance still pay a lot of national insurance. That’s one issue he could address.
The EU is a very important part of our economic progress and the way our economy functions for over 40 years now. There is a danger we take it for granted and we don’t recognise the reason the many companies invest here is that we are fully part of the EU.
The problem we have is a low level of interest rate in the UK which was designed to get the economy out of recession. Now that is happening we need to gradually readjust the level of interest rate back up to a higher level and do it in a way that doesn’t create a big shock for the economy.
The Bank of England should have started to move the rates up before now. I still think they are going to start the process later this year and one thing that they may encourage them in that direction is that the US rates may move up later this year.
The structure of financial regulation has changed quite a bit with the Bank of England taking more responsibility. The jury is out on how these things are going to work.
I started working as a shop assistant at Boots when I was in the sixth form at school. My first full-time job was a petrol station manager which also is a very interesting job.
When I finished university in the early 1980s, we had all sorts of problems with industrial relations. The biggest change I have seen is that the UK economy has got itself back on its feet in various ways.
What I enjoy most or what I am good is communicating economics to the business world. That’s what I have been doing throughout my career.
If things go wrong, don’t get too despondent. Try and work out what you need to do and how you need to change your actions or plans in order to cope with the new situation.
When I was a teenager I used to listen to the radio quite a lot and I fancied being on the radio. I achieved that because I get on the radio and TV quite often.
I am a member of couple of rock bands and I play the guitar and the bass guitar. I enjoy listening to music. I also play the church organ so I have got range of different musical interest.
My most expensive commitment are my children. I am not a great consumer of expensive material goods. I believe in investing in your family and in your children.
The London housing market has become quite frothy. As wages go up, the housing market becomes more affordable. The big challenge for people trying to get on to the housing ladder is affordability - the high level of house prices relative to their incomes and that is being made more challenging since the financial crisis because the lenders are not looking to lend such high ratios in relation to the value of housing.
I think the groups who have found it most difficult over the last few years are savers because some of the things that they expected that you would get a rate of return at least covered inflation is a bit more. They have really struggled to achieve that. Okay inflation is very low now, so you can get an interest rate slightly above inflation but it’s been a very low interest rate environment and there are limited options for small savers to go into other forms of investment without risks they may not want to take.
Mortgage holders have had a good run. A period of exceptionally low interest rates.
