Aspiring Tory leaders are assembling manifestos that promise to grow the economy. One mistake they should avoid is thinking this necessarily requires more government spending or tax cuts. Debates centre on the wisdom of Rishi Sunak’s tax rises and are often characterised as if fiscal prudence and growth are mutually exclusive. Not only is this wrong on the merits, but it risks politicians ignoring ways to boost prosperity that would not cost a penny.

Candidates such as Liz Truss are right that growth should be the next PM’s priority. UK productivity improvements have been anaemic since 2008, behind only Italy in the G7, leaving us 25 per cent poorer relative to our pre-financial crash trend. Even if that path was unrealistic, we can’t be content remaining 15 per cent less productive than the United States or France, particularly with the Office for Budget Responsibility predicting slow growth for decades. Weak growth means lower wages, higher deficits and nasty, zero-sum politics.

Thankfully, better policy could boost growth, or at least the level of GDP, without compromising tax revenues or requiring vast new outlays. Relaxing arbitrary green belt designations and building density and height restrictions around the UK’s most productive cities could deliver more new housing construction. Cheaper homes, more permitted business development and lower industrial rents would allow workers to move more easily to better jobs, densify industrial clusters, and drive down costs for important sectors such as social care and supermarkets. The result would be higher productivity, delivering lower consumer prices or higher wages.

Tax reform would help, too. The government could raise revenues in ways less damaging to output by broadening existing tax bases as a quid pro quo for reducing marginal rates, improving incentives to save, work and invest. Bolder still, it could deliver a more thorough revenue-neutral shift from taxing investment and transactions (such as via stamp duty), to instead raising revenues from consumption, land values and goods with big social costs.

Bolstering free trade is another way to improve productivity. People often think free trade pits lower consumer prices against producers’ interests, but the key long-term benefit is how exposing domestic industries to more international competition compels them to raise their game. Prioritising cross-border recognition of professional qualifications and industry standards in trade deals would enhance options for UK customers, while raising our firms’ productivity.

Childcare has become an expensive, formalised, difficult-to-access service, devoid of options to support different parents’ needs. The government could increase the supply of placements by relaxing nursery staff-to-child ratios and requirements that childminders attend Early Years Foundation Stage courses, meaning more options and fewer parents missing job or shift opportunities.

Then there’s the controversial idea to replace motoring taxation entirely with a comprehensive system of user road pricing. By harnessing a market-driven algorithm that varies the per-mile road charge for a car by the time of day, traffic levels and location, road pricing could drastically mitigate congestion, greasing the wheels for higher-valued business activity by reducing transport costs and delays.

You may not agree with all ideas on this list and overcoming entrenched interests to deliver these reforms would be difficult. If candidates are serious about improving long-run growth, though, they must look beyond the conventional talking points on spending programmes and tax cuts to “boost” the economy.