Chancellors of the Future

PGS Economists Consider Post-Brexit Britain, by Jack Moyse

In November 2020, a group of Year 13 economists were tasked with devising a fiscally neutral budget for the United Kingdom following its departure from the European Union. The budget had to include a range of initiatives to support the UK’s objectives of environmental stability and self-sufficiency and needed to identify means of raising revenue to finance such investments. Despite a no-show from the opposition team at King Edward’s School, we still presented our plans (virtually) and had the pleasure of having it scrutinised by a panel of experts.

As part of our investment ideas, we proposed greater spending on carbon-neutral technology to satisfy the UK’s green agenda, whilst also budgeting for state bursaries to help disadvantaged students access university, making the UK more equitable post-Brexit. To pay for all of this, we set out a corporation tax hike and replaced the inheritance tax with a lifetime receipts tax which we felt would have fewer loopholes that the super-wealthy could exploit to avoid paying the tax. After our presentation, we faced scrutiny from the panel of judges who challenged the practicalities of how our proposals would work, especially in the current economic climate. I found it a really useful experience and would like to thank Mrs Worley for her help in organising this challenge.

Jack Moyse, Robin Cavusoglu, Callum Hellyer, William Hicks and Alex Bradshaw