Labour has published a report: New Britain, renewing our democracy and rebuilding our economy. Commissioned by Starmer and prepared by Gordon Brown, it’s one of those reports that we in this country are really good at. Extremely long (155 pages) and detailed, it sets out the nation’s problems at length with 29 recommendations. The Welsh government followed up with a similar effort of their own. If success was measured by the sheer number and length of these reports we would be top of the heap. Full of fine words and phrases it is I’m sorry to say, a meaningless effort with the appearance of a plan that almost nobody will actually read since we all know it’s only intended to be waved in the air to help win an election and not much more.
It talks of the 'case for change' as if anybody needs convincing that things are not going well.
Of the 29 recommendations, 10 are constitutional and 11 relate to devolution while 8 are loosely economic. I honestly don’t think our really serious problems are in democratic accountability. The problem is too many politicians who are incapable of making the right decisions, too much dogma, too little learning from other countries, or even less of sticking to a plan for more than ten minutes at a time.
Pumping public money into badly designed policies with projects led by greedy incompetents at the top is not the answer.
The real question is why do we import vegetables from Holland or Denmark? We have the same climate, the same rules, how can they ship simple farm produce to us cheaper than we can grow them here? Why are we importing eggs from Italy? Or apples from France?
Why do we import so many machines or manufactured items from EU countries? Why can they out-compete us? Why do they invest more? Or produce better stuff? It shouldn’t be that difficult to figure it out.
Brexit hasn’t helped. Would any global businesses invest here to help exports to the EU? I’m not sure any amount of public money would persuade them now.
The report says:
"Half the UK population live in areas no better off than the poorer parts of the former East Germany, poorer than parts of central and Eastern Europe. He [Professor Philip McCann] showed us that that half the population lives in areas where people are poorer than the US states of Mississippi and West Virginia and the quality of life is no better than in Tennessee and Alabama – some of the poorest states in the USA."
There are pages and pages of problems, much of it blamed on ‘over-centralisation’ but genuine solutions are few beyond devolving power to local leaders. How that’s supposed to help matters isn’t obvious to me.
It talks of ‘root and branch reform’ and declares:
"Our vision is of a United Kingdom awash with a new economic dynamism, released from the dead hand of over-centralised decision-making. Instead, our cities, towns and regions will be empowered to encourage the innovative research, the high level skills and the supportive infrastructure that will create new powerhouses of industrial growth that could rival and even outpace our original successes in textiles, shipbuilding, iron and steel in the years of the industrial revolution."
"The New Britain that we envisage will nurture the hundreds of emerging clusters of new industries based on new digital, genetic and green technologies that are already growing across the UK. It will ensure all of our towns, cities regions and nations have the power to support, participate in and benefit from the industries of the future creating highly skilled new jobs. And by doing this, we can bring real prosperity and life back to our high streets and town centres, and give young people the opportunities to fulfill all of their potential."
I can’t remember how many of these reports I’ve read over the last six years and more. It’s not so much fiddling while Rome burns but conducting an entire orchestra. You can always rely on the British establishment to produce thick important sounding reports with airy-fairy solutions. This one talks of ‘innovation hubs’ - whatever they are. I assume somebody thought it sounded good and bunged it in.
This is not to suggest all the 29 recommendations are useless, some like abolishing the House of Lords are long overdue. Others involve devolution to regional levels, again worthy I’m sure. Planning certainly needs reforming (see below).
But I wonder if any of them make a blind bit of difference to the average man or woman in the street? I don’t think so.
Our problem is attitude. Attitude to work, productivity, design, quality, investment, money, and to our fellow citizens. We think most of these aren’t seen as that important if they're thought about at all while the personal acquisition of wealth is placed above all else.
At one end of the scale is Baroness Mone and her husband who shared £65 million in what can only be described as 'commission' on a £200 million order for PPE during a pandemic. This to me is shocking. They are already rich beyond imagination and ‘earned’ the money by making a few phone calls. I would be ashamed to take any money if I thought it was helping desperate NHS staff.
Meanwhile, a lot of people are doing without food and heating, the economy is grinding to a halt, investment is stagnating and things go from bad to worse. Does anybody believe faffing around with the constitution is going to change anything?
Our problem is that everybody seems to know how to fix everything except those in government. But as soon as they get behind the wheel, they find the solutions espoused from the sidelines are either forgotten, unworkable, wrong, or can’t be implemented. As soon as they’re kicked out, another lot arrives and the process repeats.
Problems cost money to solve. Government-sized problems are very expensive. Money comes from tax and tax from businesses. Businesses need to compete and trade and we don’t have anything like the numbers of the world-class companies that we need. Brexit has made it harder for our lower productivity firms to sell into our largest market.
Talk of adopting the Swiss model was rejected but it wouldn’t work anyway. Switzerland has a lot of world-class manufacturing and a strong currency. They buy Swiss, invest a lot, and sell on quality. They can survive outside the single market because customers will always want their stuff.
They have the right attitude. Anybody who has been to Switzerland will know how clean, modern and efficient it is. You don't walk down a street and see weeds growing out of a store front. What is the difference between us and them?
Planning reform
Our planning system is a mess. I read yesterday that a development consent order for a 23km (14-mile) stretch of road has cost an incredible £267 million and hadn’t even been approved. Not a metre of tarmac has been laid and we are already at nearly £20 million a mile. This must be insane.
I bet a lot of this is from companies doing ‘studies’ on the impact of transport in the affected areas, the ecology, noise levels, air quality, and so on. I’m not suggesting the work shouldn’t be done but the staggering cost of doing it is just unbelievable. It’s as if the suppliers see the chance to make money.
Bizarrely, one of the reasons given is the constant changing of policy - precisely what Brown wants and many MPs keep doing - that is adding to the cost of doing national infrastructure.
"'Projects on the scale of LTC [Lower Thames Crossing] require more information, which takes longer to attain. When an application takes several years, the applicant may be dealing with a moving target. “The metrics are changing all the time,' Owen [a partner at Pinsent Masons] said. 'Natural England has a metric to measure the biodiversity net gain that a project needs to deliver, and I think in the space of a year we’ve had two or three different versions of that metric – we’re now on metric 3.0. That requires the applicant to remodel to do these full assessments to make sure the application is entirely robust and thought through'.”
"Owen added that there is also an issue with the National Networks National Policy Statement (NNNPS), which was published in 2015. Applicants use it to guide on public policy, but much of it is now out of date. '2015 was quite a long time ago, before net zero commitments, before the Environment Act and biodiversity net gain, therefore working out quite what the current policy is in certain areas based on an outdated National Policy Statement does itself lead to additional costs,' Owen said. 'An up to date National Policy Statement is critically important to the cost effectiveness of the process and getting through it as quickly as possible'.”
"He added that a new version of the NNNPS is expected to go out to consultation early in the new year with the hope of enacting it by the end of 2023!"
If there was ever a case for PR with governments formed in coalitions it's the constant tearing up of what the previous administration (or even the same one!) has done and starting again. A bit of certainty and stability would help a lot
Yet Brown doesn’t mention PR at all. It's almost the only constitutional reform he doesn't mention yet it must be the single biggest difference between us and EU member states (and Switzerland) where things at least work.
