It's time to reclaim the state, writes Leonie Cooper AM.
As Left Foot Forward revealed last week, Boris Johnson’s new ‘Build Back Better’ council completely excludes climate experts and trade union representatives. But alarm bells should have started ringing long before then.
We were given a foretaste of this back in October, when Boris Johnson gave a landmark speech calling on the private sector to ‘rebuild Britain’. His wrong-headed approach is now being played out in the petri-dish of the pandemic, when community resilience is at an all-time low.
In his October speech, the PM labelled the state “Uncle Sugar” and said it must “stand back and let the private sector get on with it”. The Government has since rewarded multi-million deals to private companies, that happened to be run by their contacts, to procure PPE and testing equipment.
Another example is the scandal that has recently emerged surrounding the catering company, Chartwells. They’ve been given a lucrative contract to provide free school meals. Its former Chairman is a Tory donor.
I am pleased that the Government has finally listened to councils and has seen sense, choosing to relaunch its national voucher scheme earlier this week to cut out the middleman.
Despite their attempts to distance themselves from the debacle, is it is clear that Ministers originally came to the decision that a private contractor was better placed to make decisions about children’s food than parents – although they came unstuck when their list of instructions emerged, telling the company to provide so little nutritious food.
Sadly, none of this is surprising. We have seen the same incompetence played out by the Government before over their distribution of Healthy Start Vouchers to families living in food insecurity.
Their failure to tackle the causes of food poverty, or repair the damage of cuts to the welfare system since 2010, has contributed to the fact that 200,000 emergency food parcels were given out to Londoners by the Trussell Trust last year. This figure does not even include the surge in demand that has been placed upon independent foodbanks since the outbreak began.
The PM’s vision is outsourcing to the private sector the Government’s duty of care which society owes to the most vulnerable. It is becoming more dystopian by the day.
As the recovery finally starts, the private sector will play a key role in our economic recovery- driving job creation and the green economy forward. But the Prime Minister’s vision is not one of a healthy mixed economy, where the Government’s mission is – or rather should be – to secure access to food, a stable home and a job for those in need.
Instead, what is happening is that our public services will be downgraded at the expense of a crony-driven private sector revolution.
Since the first lockdown, local authorities have stepped up where the Government has failed. Their response to pandemic, despite massive under-funding has been magnificent. Yet, they are still being side-lined by Ministers and increasingly hamstrung by insufficient funding.
The Government resisted calls for more responsibility for Test and Trace to be handed to local authorities who know their communities better than Serco ever could, and instead chose to hand the company a contract that runs into the tens of millions. Now, with the vaccination programme, we are seeing Ministers repudiating the need for councils to play a more significant part in the rollout.
On top of this, as BBC Newsnight recently revealed, cash-strapped councils are also being made to foot the bill for the over-spilling public demand upon the Government’s self-isolation payment programme.
The ‘Everyone In’ scheme over the summer provided a perfect example of what can be achieved when the Government works collaboratively with local and devolved authorities, backing them with proper funding. As a result of the scheme, thousands of homeless people in London were given safe and long-term accommodation in hotels, protecting them from the spread of the pandemic. So, it was shocking to see the MHCLG refuse to replicate this over the colder and darker winter months with the emergence of the new more infectious variant.
We now stand at a crossroads. If we are to recover from this pandemic and tackle the inequalities it has starkly revealed and made so much worse, the state must be at the forefront. Our future must be one of Sure Starts, a functioning welfare state and a properly funded NHS, not a future purely driven by private interests and greed.
Leonie Cooper AM is the London Assembly Labour Group’s Economy Spokesperson.
To reach hundreds of thousands of new readers and to make the biggest impact we can in the next general election, we need to grow our donor base substantially.
That's why in 2024, we are seeking to generate 150 additional regular donors to support Left Foot Forward's work.
We still need another 124 people to donate to hit the target. You can help. Donate today.