How Labour can win a mandate for change

The spending squeeze will be dramatic and tough, requiring a very different governing strategy for Labour.

The spending squeeze will be dramatic and tough, requiring a very different governing strategy for Labour

The hard reality facing an incoming Labour government in 2015 will be the imperative of consolidating the UK public finances. According to the IFS Green Budget, public sector net debt in Britain by 2018-19 will reach £1.6 trillion: such levels of debt are a heavy constraint on future spending, leaving the UK vulnerable to higher long-term interest rates and rising debt interest payments.

That’s why Labour has signed up to a deficit reduction plan that will require an incoming administration to reduce departmental budgets by 31.2 per cent year on year outside the ‘protected’ areas of the National Health Service, schools, and international development. This is after five years of spending cuts in which a host of departmental programmes have already been cut by the coalition government.

The spending squeeze will be dramatic and tough, requiring a very different social democratic governing strategy.

The fundamental challenge for a post-2015 Labour government will be to reshape the British state – forging a model of governance which is not only leaner and more efficient, but better equipped to meet the social and economic challenges of the next decade. As resources get tighter so demands on the state are rising – the product of an ageing society and rising inequality fuelled by the ‘scarring effects’ of the great recession.

This is what Jon Cruddas, Labour’s policy review co-ordinator, describes as “the opportunity of austerity” – building a model of statecraft which is properly attuned to contemporary circumstances: decentralising power, investing in the capacities of local communities, building a new political economy after the financial crisis.

Of course, reform is inevitably easier when there is more money around. The Blair-Brown governments instigated major reforms of key public services, but had the resources to award year-on-year pay rises to public sector workers. As the going got tough politically, Labour was able to progressively improve the position of the poorest pensioners and families with children. The post-1997 governments did not have to choose between helping the most disadvantaged parts of Britain and addressing the aspirations of ‘middle England’: they could invariably afford to do both.

A Labour government after 2015 will not be in such a fortuitous position: it will face tough choices and trade-offs across the terrain of public policy. New models of reform will be needed. One fruitful debate being opened up within Labour circles concerns the objective of breaking down centralised concentrations of power, both of the state and the market. As Cruddas recently told the Local Government Association:

“Our country has suffered from decades of excessive centralisation in the market and the state. People feel that their opinions are ignored and their interests as workers and citizens excluded.”

In the post-war years, Labour defaulted to a statist model of social democratic reform, harnessing the power of central government to build a universal welfare state and National Health Service while creating the conditions for economic stability and full employment. Then, imposing change by pulling administrative levers in Whitehall seemed appropriate and legitimate; moreover, centralised dictat appeared effective.

Not so today. Labour has to emphasise the importance of ‘moral’ as well as ‘mechanical’ reform – allowing new centres of governance and power to emerge across the UK as an antidote to the central power of market and state.

In practice, that will mean policy delivery by devolving financial powers for infrastructure, skills, economic development, and welfare to work to new ‘city regions’, ensuring accountability through directly elected mayors. There will be greater use of pooled budgets in local areas, building on the previous government’s highly successful ‘Total Place’ model, driving efficiencies by breaking down silos and incentivising the integration of public services.

Moreover, any concerted shift towards decentralising power requires local authorities to raise more of what they spend locally, rather than through financial dependence on central government. The culture of arbitrary rate-capping and rigid financial controls overseen by Whitehall will have to end.

In an era of austerity, governments have to work alongside communities: the ‘big society’ was a proxy for replacing the state with Burke’s ‘little platoons’. But civil society and active government should always work in partnership as a means of advancing social justice and the public good. A bold demonstration would be transferring borrowing powers to local government to expand social housing, setting a headline target of half a million affordable homes within a parliament.

The electorate acknowledge that Britain is facing major upheavals: no party can promise more growth, rising living standards, and increasing public spending. Making costed, credible commitments and creating effective systems of governance to secure them will be pivotal for governing success.

In an era of insecurity, Labour politicians will have to set out the painful choices that lie ahead, but also the opportunities for Britain if we have the courage to reform our institutions and our system of government.

Patrick Diamond is a lecturer in public policy at Queen Mary, University of London

Progress annual conference is taking place this Saturday, 31 May, from 10am-5pm, at TUC Congress Centre, London.

Speakers include:

David Aaronovitch, Diane Abbott, Andrew Adonis, Hilary Benn, Chris Bryant, Liam Byrne, Vernon Coaker, Philip Collins, Stella Creasy, Angela Eagle, Maria Eagle, Charlie Falconer, Simon Fanshawe, Caroline Flint, Margaret Hodge, Owen Jones, Peter Kellner, Chris Leslie, Sue Marsh, Deborah Mattinson, Andrew Murray, Jacqui Smith, Stephen Twigg, Chuka Umunna and Stewart Wood.

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13 Responses to “How Labour can win a mandate for change”

  1. PhilJoMar

    31.2% year on year!….I don’t think so.
    Correction coming?

    It also appears that PD has given up on doing anything about tax avoidance/evasion…no…much better to slash and burn and hope something trickles down from above. To govern is to give up apparently…

  2. sarntcrip

    iAMA DISABLED PARTY MEMBER WHO CAN’T MAKE IT IT TO WESTMINSTER SHOULD BE BROADCAST OVER THE WEB IF INCLUSION IS REALLY THE AIM .
    INCLUSION IS CLEARLY NOT THE AIM OF THE CURRENT DISABILITY SHADOW WHO’S INTERVIEW TO DISABILITY NOW BETRAYED NO REAL POLICY FOR THE 1.4 MILLION UK DISABLED WHO’S VOTES COULD TIP MARGINALS ONE WAY OR THE OTHER THE ONLY DISABILITY POLICY LABOUR CURRENTLY HAVE IS NO, YOU CAN’T HAVE ANY MONEY TO REPLACE THAT STOLEN BY THE TORIES THAT’S 1.4 MILLION VOTES EXCLUDED BY LABOUR BECAUSE THEY DON’T HAVE THE BOTTLE TO BACK THE ROBIN HOOD TAX AS MUCH OF EUROPE HAS
    THIS FTT IS VICTIMLESS AND COULD HELP FUND A SOCIAL REBALANCING OF AUSTERITY INSTEAD OF LABOUR’S CURRENT POLICY WHICH STILL LAYS AUSTERITY AT THE DOOR OF THE MOST VULNERABLE LARGELY BECAUSE ED IS STILL AGREEING WITH NICK AND DAVE AND COULD NOT GIVE A TOSS ABOUT THE DISABLED UNDERCLASS CREATED BY THE TORIES LABOUR ARE TOO FRIGHTENED OF THE PRESS TO DO THE RIGHT THING
    ENORMOUSLY DISAPPOINTING IF ED CAN’T STAND THE HEAT OF A REAL LABOUR KITCHEN HE SHOULD GET OUT HE CURRENTLY LOOKS WELL OUT OF HIS DEPTH AXEL IS DOING A SHITE JOB SO FAR

  3. neilcraig

    What nonsense. A truly left wing government that wanted to win would promote economic growth as China has done. Allow fracking and nuclear power to reduce electricity prices, perhaps by 98%, end fuel poverty and allow industry to regrow. Denounce all the reactionary luddite lies about catastrophic warming used to keep us obedient.

    But of course to adopt that Labour would have to be a progressive movement rather than the reactionary, corrupt, mindless organisation it is.

    Which is why these precise policies are being put forward by UKIP.

  4. jaydeepee

    Mandelson protege tells us ‘Austerity must stay’. Get real. It’s a Tory shield to cover them whilst they pillage the public services.

  5. Ley Shade

    It’s funny. A far right party member, demanding a left party becomes more right-wing so that ”they’re more left”.

    I guess if you go far enough right, you become left eventually. But this only works for objects with a circumference. Without one, you continue infinitly in that direction. The answer to become ”more left” isn’t ”to move right endlessly”. But hey ho, UKIP isn’t exactly big on facts or logic.

    PS: UKIP promotes that exact opposite of those policies (adside from fracking). But hey, a minority of people who want to lie about their own beliefs and lie to gain support is fine. Just please, stop believing your a majority and that a lie outweights science – otherwise we’re all going back to the stone age =/

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