Progressive Liquidation of Unnecessary State Holdings (PRUNE)
Core Principle
The state should only own what is strictly necessary for its core functions (defence, justice, and border integrity). Everything else should be progressively transferred to private hands, local communities, or individuals. This reduces the national debt, lowers the tax burden, and removes government from areas where it has no legitimate role.
Assets to be Privatised (20-Year Schedule)
Assets will be sold via transparent Vickrey auctions over a phased 20-year period:
- The BBC
- UK Student Loan Book
- Forestry Estate
- Spectrum holdings (retaining only strategically vital bands)
- Remaining state stakes in banks, NATS, Royal Mail, railways, and ports
- State education sector (universities, colleges, schools)
- The NHS estate and operations
- Residential streets, shopping areas, villages and estates (via commonhold model)
- UK Fishing grounds (EEZ parcels with conditions)
What Remains in State Hands
The following are explicitly protected as strategic national assets:
- Motorways and major trunk routes (classified as national defence infrastructure) — see Roads Policy
- Strategic bypasses and relief roads around ports, airfields, and power stations
- Defence Training Estate (with potential expansion)
- Ancient rights of way
Use of Proceeds
Revenue from sales will be split 50/50 between:
- Paying down the national debt
- Permanent tax cuts (primarily reductions in HOT and other PETS rates)
Interaction with Other Policies
Privatisation works in concert with:
- WEAN — reducing the size of the welfare state that privatisation helps fund
- Planning Reform — enabling genuine private development of newly privatised land
- PETS — creating better incentives once assets are in private hands
Long-Term Vision
Future technological developments (such as hardened deep tunnels for strategic logistics) may eventually allow even more of the surface transport network to be privatised while maintaining national security requirements.
Privatisation is not an end in itself, but a means to restore responsibility, efficiency, and liberty while strengthening the state’s ability to perform its essential defensive functions.