Successive chancellors from Kwasi Kwarteng to Rachel Reeves have searched in vain for rocket-propelled growth.
Yet it is the self-employed who, given the right encouragement, could become the new UK economic powerhouses to match, one day, even the American Amazon or Alphabet.
From small acorns, mighty oaks grow, but how many one (wo)man bands, start-ups in the UK, have moved to Aim, let alone the main market and FTSE?
Growth is stymied. Much is down to the often-shabby treatment of the self-employed as potential tax dodgers at every corner, with fabled tax demands even on Christmas Eve.
Is it time for HM Revenue & Customs to show a little bit of tender loving care to entrepreneurs and act as their HR manager – at least when it comes to pensions?
Given half a chance, a self-employed cab driver could be the next Uber billionaire, and a painter or decorator could be the next building magnate.
Indeed, an astonishing one in seven of the UK workforce, a huge army of more than 4.2mn people, is self-employed, often in low paid occupations, as mini-cab drivers, gardeners, painters and decorators.
These workers have few perks: often no paid holidays or sickness cover and rarely retirement provision.
With minimal chance to acquire capital or indeed save for a pension, their life chances are virtually nil, but this forgotten army could turn the economy around, with the right encouragement from HMRC, from savings sidecars for short-term money and pensions for the longer term.
Shockingly, around 55 per cent of the self-employed will have no pension savings to supplement their state pension in retirement, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies in its latest research.
Its compelling research has led the IFS to conclude: "The status quo, in which self-employed people have to arrange their own pension plans without assistance, is no longer fit for purpose”
An unnamed self-employed man aged 35-44, quoted by the IFS in its report, highlights the difficulties if you are on your own when it comes to pension savings:
"If you’re employed, somebody basically says: here’s a pension scheme set up for you – do you want to opt-out - yes or no?
"I appreciate it can’t be quite that straightforward for self-employed, but ideally, for me it’d be something similar where I don’t have to worry about setting the scheme up.
"I don’t have to consider various options. It’s a case of here’s a basic scheme, do you want it?’
Self-employed people have lumpy income and cash flow issues.
If they want to start saving in a private pension, without an adviser, they have to choose and approach a firm that offers a personal pension.
