With just 12 weeks to go until his first budget, new chancellor John Healey is seeking ways to ramp up public investment, without busting the Treasury’s fiscal rules – and some economists are urging him to be bold. One way to fund some of that additional investment may be to exploit what Burnham called “any flexibility” in the existing fiscal rules. The Starmer government had already expanded these bodies, giving them additional capital, but the thinktank urged Burnham to go further. “People are getting a little bit hung up on the fiscal rules. But if the government increases borrowing, it is still borrowing: it will still put up borrowing costs and increase debt, creating more problems for the future.