In all likelihood, we are now only one year from Tony Blair calling a general election. When we faced the electorate in 2001, it was on the basis of both a solid record and the belief that, after eighteen years of Conservative government prior to 1997, Labour had a good case for arguing that it was deserving of longer in order to turn the country in a new direction.
Next year, we will, again, have achievements that we ask the country to reward: a strong economic record, sustained increases in public service investment (and some signs that these are bearing fruit), and a range of initiatives of which Labour party members can be proud (many of which – child trust funds, increases in child benefit – revolve around the government’s determination to meet its ambitious child poverty targets).
The government will also, no doubt, be called to account for the more controversial decisions it has taken (primarily, the war in Iraq).
As in 1997, and much more than in 2001, however, Labour will need next year to lay out a clear, progressive vision for where it wants to take the country. In ’97, New Labour’s vision of a New Britain had immense appeal, demonstrated as it was by a series of pledges that promised to address people’s day-to-day concerns: improvements in health and education, action on crime, macroeconomic stability and a promise to achieve all this without raising income tax.
As it did in the period before 1997 to such effect, Labour must now listen again to the country and be prepared to think radically about how it responds in a concrete fashion. We need to recognise that this process – and, most particularly, our response – must not be impaired by the burden of incumbency. Labour’s challenge is not to listen to the country in order to tell it that we are already meeting – or worse, have already met – its concerns, but to work out how we offer it bold solutions. So, here’s some advice from Progress to Labour’s manifesto writers:
Public services clearly remain high on the country’s agenda. Labour will have to reconcile the need to highlight the considerable improvements that have flowed from increased investment with a willingness to build the public services of the future: principally, this entails meeting the demand for choice and individually tailored services.
Choice in the NHS is not, as some believe, a euphemism for marketisation and privatisation; instead, it is, in a monopoly service, the best way – alongside accountability and a devolution of power to both local communities and individuals – to stimulate real improvements and to extend to the many the freedom which has been the preserve of the few who have private health insurance.
There’s little doubt that by the end of Labour’s first term, voters were aware that we had delivered big improvements in primary education. The rationale for this effort was clear to people.
While secondary schools are also now seeing a clear improvement, the rationale for, and the next stage of, Labour’s plans for education are unclear. Therefore, we need to reinforce Labour’s reputation on education by prioritising a big expansion of pre-school provision – building on the gains in nursery education to ensure that Britain offers the kind of services taken for granted in Scandinavia.
We should also, though, consider radical options on how we meet many of today’s unmet needs. Properly structured, a new civilian national service scheme could help boost the quality of care for the elderly, childcare, and the environments in which we live.
Funding high-quality public services that will continue to command the support of the middle-classes is essential. The alternative is an increased take-up of private provision by those who can afford it and the diminution of our public services to a shoddy safety net.
We are, however, close to the limits of what general taxation can fund. Lower and middle-income families cannot, and will not, accept higher levels of income tax and Labour should not consider it.
Moreover, it is utterly dishonest to suggest – as the Liberal Democrats do – that the kind of substantial funds needed to further improve public services can flow from any increase in the higher rate. We believe that the only possible justification for a higher rate increase would be to raise the thresholds further down the tax scale: taking more lower-income people out of tax and ensuring that those on middle incomes do not increasingly end up paying the 40p rate.
An alternative way to fund improvements in public services comes in the form of co-payment. Many find this concept frightening, assuming that it means individuals will have to pay for basic services like health and education. Healthcare free at the point of use and free primary and secondary education should continue to be funded by general taxation.
Labour needs to be clearer about this and should consider some form of ‘citizen’s contract’, laying out exactly what individuals and families can expect from general taxation. But we do not, and should not, rule out the use of co-payment in other areas where it can serve progressive ends, help fund new initiatives, and does not conflict with Labour’s drive for greater equity and social justice.
For instance, congestion charging and road pricing have clear environmental benefits. We might want to consider, too, how the cost of policing in areas where there are public order problems might be met by some of those – pubs and nightclubs, for instance – that are the principal sources of them.
Despite increases in investment, transport remains a difficult issue for Labour. Car use continues to rise, choking our roads, while public transport – short-changed by the Treasury for decades – struggles to keep up with the ever-rising demands on it.
Only difficult political decisions can ultimately beat road congestion – and challenge the notion that motorists have a God-given right to drive anywhere, anytime – and fund the kind of big increases in investment in public transport that the country needs.
The success of the congestion charge in London and new initiatives such as the Birmingham relief road (paid for by the tolls of motorists who use it) point a clear, radical way forward.
While overall crime levels continue to fall, too many people – from the leafy suburbs to inner-city sink estates – feel that their streets are no longer their own. Anti-social behaviour – graffiti, noise pollution, mindless yobbery – needs to be at the centre of a Labour programme to improve quality of life in a third term.
We should have no truck with those who view an assault on anti-social behaviour as somehow authoritarian or simply a ruse to woo the Daily Mail.
Instead, we should see this drive as essential to protecting the rights of those – often disproportionately from deprived communities – who want to be free from those who have no regard for their fellow citizens.
We need, therefore, to offer new ways to allow local communities to assist the police in reclaiming their streets. We should build on the success of anti-social behaviour orders and fixed penalty notices, with more community-based sentences for those who commit anti-social behaviour.
The Child Trust Fund is a Labour policy that needs to be talked about on every doorstep at the general election. When the fund starts next year, it will prove a major weapon in the battle to reduce a critical inequality: that of access to wealth in early adulthood. But there is scope to do more. Labour should consider making an explicit link between a reformed inheritance tax and baby bonds, as well as considering ways in which young people could gain extra credits for their fund by undertaking time in the civilian national service scheme.
However, as well as giving young people a good start in their adult lives, we also need to offer new ways to help families build substantial savings. ISAs have been hugely popular. Now we need to expand them; moving beyond tax relief on interest to tax credits. For instance, for those on middle incomes, the government could consider matching every £1 saved with a £1 refundable tax credit, up to around £750 per year per couple.
On pensions, too, government must do more to encourage people to save for their old age, and to protect those who act responsibly. We need to be much clearer that individuals must take out a second pension to supplement the basic state pension; we must regulate the private pensions industry far more stringently (to ensure that the Equitable Life scandal cannot be repeated); and we must consider how we guarantee the second pensions of individuals.
Labour’s second term has not been an entirely happy time for the party. If we allow them, our critics – both left and right – will happily turn the general election into an opportunity to simply pick over the past.
While there is much for Labour’s members to be proud of in our record, an election fought on these terms is not one worthy of our ambitions for an historic third term. A forward-looking domestic agenda, along the lines we have set out, will convince the electorate that while things have got better, Britain is by no means the best we can make it.