We’ve heard some terrible analogies ahead of today’s autumn statement. The worst is the “fiscal black hole” concept being used to justify large tax rises and spending cuts.

With high government debt and jittery bond markets, a plan for reducing government borrowing is highly desirable. How quickly and how far policy should be tightened, though, is a matter of judgment, not an objective science.

As chancellor, Rishi Sunak committed to getting the debt-to-GDP ratio falling by the third year of any Office for Budget Responsibility forecast period. The £60 billion of tax rises and spending cuts we hear are “necessary” to close today’s “black hole” is little more than a growth-sensitive guesstimate of what’s needed to hit that arbitrary target. No natural law says this is required, let alone ideal. The chancellor, of course, determines the rules.

Definitionally, a “black hole” is not a measurable “gap”, in any case, but a region in space with a gravitational field so intense that no matter can escape. Colloquially, it references a place where things disappear without trace.

What has disappeared with this “black hole” narrative is the consideration of other economic goals. Facing a recession after a decade’s stagnation, Liz Truss’s “growth, growth, growth” focus, for example, has vanished entirely with the loud drumbeat for fiscal tightening uber alles.

This single-minded budgeting focus is regrettable. Not because deficit reduction inevitably harms long-run growth. It does not. Nor because the UK needs a sugar-rush fiscal stimulus. With high inflation, now is the worst time for demand-boosting measures. No, it’s worrying because a rushed hurtle towards deficit reduction may lead to investment cuts or tax rises that compound the growth problems we’ve suffered, or else crowd out reforms that might alleviate them.

A new pro-growth campaign group, Britain Remade, reminds us of the stakes. Before the pandemic, the median British family was already about £13,500 worse off than American households and just under £6,000 worse off than German families.

This isn’t surprising. Productivity growth alone drives sustainably higher living standards, but labour productivity has increased by only 6 per cent since 2008, against the 25 per cent in the previous 14 years. The result? Weak wage growth, pessimism and volatile politics. We cannot afford another decade of policy treating growth as a “nice to have” afterthought.

That’s why I really hope Jeremy Hunt has at least considered growth in formulating his choices. Higher GDP per capita can come only from more hours worked, a better-skilled workforce, more capital investment, a better allocation of workers and capital or more entrepreneurial innovation.

In reviewing each tax or spending decision, the chancellor should have asked several questions. Will this encourage people to return to the labour force or to take on more hours? Will it facilitate more human capital or better job training? Will it attract foreign direct investment or provide incentives to spend spending on plant, machinery and buildings? Will it remove barriers to workers and businesses operating where they’d be most productive? Does it reward entrepreneurialism or support research and development?

If the answers are “no” or that the policies harm such goals, then we risk repeating the error of the 2010s. Deficit reduction need not weaken our economic potential. Elevating that aim above all else, however, can lead to decisions or omissions that can.