ADULTS are now back in charge of UK economic policy and tomorrow we get another thing not called a Budget but which actually is one.

This is the final chance to get it right. International investors have given a clear message which the Government must heed. If you try to borrow too much the cost of doing so rises dramatically which means money is wasted on interest payments rather than public services. Nicola Sturgeon and Co should take note of this lesson – the idea that a small nation with high debt and without its own currency should borrow more is sheer lunacy.

The financial markets which have forced a change both of course and of government have actually done us a favour.

We do need to encourage greater investment and productivity to grow our economy faster. Education, infrastructure, planning and regulatory reform all have a role to play in achieving that.

The additional point we should take on board is that we must stop piling up bills for our children and grandchildren to pay. We seem to like the Government riding to the rescue with cash to smooth all ills but we are reluctant to pay for the consequences. We think it is ok for public debt to be roughly on a par with the size of our economy when it is in fact not ok at all. Without financial resilience future crises cannot be faced successfully.

Except in exceptional circumstances, governments should generally restrict borrowing to what is needed to pay for investment, not for day-to-day spending. We need to get debt down, first falling as a proportion of the size of our economy and then in absolute terms and we need to get on with it.

We should pay for the public services we consume and we are a long way from that. We need to make and not just talk about the difficult choices between what we spend on public services and the tax we raise to pay for them, more borrowing is not the way out.

Of course there is always room for increased efficiency in any organisation, especially large ones like railways and health services. Yet, can anybody really say we have too many doctors or that social workers are overpaid? Are our roads too smooth, our schools too well-equipped or our armed forces too strong? Clearly they are not.

In the longer term driving supply-side reforms which benefit growth are vital but the bulk of the immediate adjustment needs to come from increased taxation.

The social care levy which was only recently introduced through National Insurance and is being scrapped this month was actually a well-aimed and very necessary measure which the Johnson Government had the political bravery to introduce and which raises a lot of money. It should be restored.

On income tax, thoughts of reduced rates should for now be banished. When we can afford to think of reductions again they should be for the lowest not highest paid. In the meantime the point at which the 45% rate applies should be reduced from £150,000 to £125,000. Broader shoulders should indeed bear a greater burden.

Capital Gains Tax is an appallingly designed tax, levied at too low a rate on gains which at times of high inflation are not really gains at all. Indexation relief should be reintroduced and entrepreneurs relief restored to a much higher level but Capital Gains Tax rates should be the same as income tax rates.

Crazy tax anomalies have to go.

Why can somebody keep non-dom status for 15 years and whilst living as though they were British not pay the same tax as the rest of us? Two or three years as a non-dom is quite enough.

Why is it that an entrepreneur who sells their business pays Capital Gains Tax on the gain they have made but if they die no inheritance tax is payable and their children can sell the business at its value when their parent died without paying any Capital Gains Tax at all? This double benefit cries out to be stopped.

Stamp duty should be levied at lower rates but paid by both buyer and seller to raise more overall. Those who have benefited from large rises in house prices have to contribute something.

We need to look at new taxes too. A delivery tax for example or 5% VAT on ready meals.

The country needs leadership and for once it feels ready to be told the truth rather than platitudes. The UK Government has a golden opportunity to put the country’s finances on a sounder footing and if we want to be fair to our children that opportunity should be grasped.

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