Labour needs to inject investment into British communities as it tries to regain control of our streets - John Redwood

The government's stated main aim is promoting faster sustained growth so more enjoy higher incomes and a better standard of living.

Recent events remind us how fundamental the rule of law is to that aim. Riots and criminal damage have closed shops, threatened businesses and alarmed employees wishing to serve the public only to be surrounded by violent gangs.

Tolerance of low value shoplifting can escalate to large scale looting. Angry exchanges with shop staff can get out of hand. Foreign investors can be put off by seeing images of street battles.

We all wish the government early success in re establishing control our streets. To promote the faster growth they say they want they need to make further changes to other policies they are adopting.

Their claim to be the government of more house building to boost the construction trades will be in conflict with their proposed new laws to make it more difficult for landlords to own and rent out homes.

They will need to find ways to boost training for the many building trades where skilled workers are in short supply. They need to review the tax and regulatory difficulties in the way of more small businesses and more self employed.

Their ambition to expand investment in the U.K. has already been undermined by proposed government cuts in capital spending to help pay for inflationary public sector wage awards. If the budget goes on to hit tax relief for private equity as some briefings suggest that will make raising larger private sector sums for investment more difficult.

If the Chancellor increases CGT that too could discourage riskier investment in businesses. The further toughening of Non Dom tax rules will speed the exodus of rich people already underway, withdrawing investment money from the U.K.

The government has encouraged the Water Regulator to impose heavy fines for the bad practice of putting sewage into rivers. We all want to see the end to that, but to do so requires huge investment in more and better pipes all round the country. This in turn requires major investment money to be committed. Government has to decide whether we pay more for our water to cover the extra costs, or more in tax so more state money buys the new pipes. There is no free way of doing this. The more the private sector is taken out the higher the tax bills to replace the lost private capital contributions.

Growth requires a plentiful supply of affordable energy for business. Current policies are reducing our domestic energy supply by stopping new oil and gas production and closing all but one of our nuclear power stations this decade. Relying more on wind and solar leaves us ever more import dependent on low wind days and during sunless hours.

The UK has much dearer energy than the US leading to a growing exodus of industry. The government accepts the closure of all primary steel making in blasts furnaces, and plans for the import of half our food.

To grow the economy faster and to provide many more well-paid jobs that UK citizens want to take requires changes of approach to how we generate our energy, how we expand our infrastructure, how we incentivise work , how we tax enterprise and investment, how we subsidise farmers, and how we strike a balance between regulation and innovation.

Today the government needs to rethink its growth strategy as it throws all its efforts into regaining control of our streets.