What Is Daisy Cooper's Lib Dem Growth Plan?

Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper unveiled a 30-page growth plan at the party's conference in Brighton, calling for a digital one-stop-shop for businesses and a new UK-EU partnership she said could add tens of billions to the economy, according to the BBC.

Cooper, who also serves as the party's Treasury spokesperson, told delegates that Britain generates ideas it cannot keep. "We build brilliant start-ups, and watch too many leave to scale somewhere else," she said, according to the BBC. "The system holds it back. The computer says no."

What does the growth plan propose

The document calls for a digital one-stop-shop combining tax, regulatory, legal and Companies House services for businesses and investors, the BBC reported. Cooper said housing that function inside a newly created Department for Growth would cut red tape and help small and medium-sized firms compete. The plan runs 30 pages and was published alongside her conference speech, according to the BBC.

What is the Growth and Defence Partnership with the EU

Cooper described a proposed Growth and Defence Partnership with the European Union as "the single biggest growth lever we could pull," the BBC reported. She said the party would pursue three specific agreements in government: a single market deal, a customs union, and a defence pact. "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," Cooper said, per the BBC.

Where does the £90bn figure come from

Cooper said the partnership 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," according to the BBC. The BBC report does not cite the underlying methodology or an independent verification of that figure, and no rival party estimate is included in the source material.

How fast does Cooper think re-entry could happen

Speaking to reporters after her speech, Cooper said she believed rejoining the EU single market and a customs union could happen "within a year" of the Lib Dems taking power, the BBC reported. Asked whether an associate-partnership model — similar to one the EU has offered Canada — might apply instead, Cooper rejected the comparison. "Canada is a long way away, the geography is different," she said, according to the BBC. "We are just a few miles away from the EU, our closest, biggest trading partner."

What other UK leaders have said about EU ties

Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said he would like to see the UK rejoin the EU in his lifetime but has ruled out reopening the Brexit debate, the BBC reported. Separately, Chancellor John Healey met EU finance ministers in Dublin on Friday and asked to be included in the bloc's Made in Europe scheme, which is designed to shield industries from Chinese competition, while also pressing for closer UK-EU cooperation on tech, defence and manufacturing, according to the BBC.

Cooper's speech did not address how a Lib Dem government, currently outside power, would secure parliamentary or EU agreement for the timeline she described.

Quotags is A quote-card app first shipped in 2013. Version 2.0 is returning soon — do not install an old binary.