Building more affordable homes, the creation of a national public service scheme and more investment in children should be at the centre of Labour’s next manifesto, according to an exclusive survey of Labour party members conducted by Progress.
Increased funding for skills and vocational training to boost productivity, tax reform, the creation of a democratically elected House of Lords and a greater priority for drug-treatment in prisons were also high on the list of respondents’ choices.
The results conclude Progress’ year-long progressive deficit dialogue, which has sought to encourage party members to debate priorities for a third Labour term in office. The survey asked members for their thoughts on how to close the inequality gap, eliminate the democratic deficit, improve public services, strengthen the economy and increase Britain’s role in the European Union.
The survey was conducted in the September/October edition of Progress magazine, at events in Birmingham, Manchester, and Newcastle, and at our annual conference in London last month.
Tackling inequality
With house prices remaining prohibitively high, party members’ highest priority for reducing inequality was the building of more affordable homes. This issue polled 13 per cent more than any other in this section and was clearly the most important area of concern for respondents.
However, the next two priorities – targeting child-related benefits towards children in poorer households and introducing greater teaching of parenting skills – suggested that party members view investment in children as critical to reducing inequality.
Beyond the three top priorities, the next most popular choice was for the termination of charitable status for private schools. This clearly goes beyond the government’s announcement in the Queen’s speech that private schools must prove their value to wider society in return for retaining their charitable status.
Closing the democratic deficit
After slow progress in the second term on House of Lords reform, party members view the creation of a majority-elected second chamber as a priority for closing the democratic deficit if Labour is returned to office next year. The drive towards a democratic upper house stalled in early 2003 when MPs were unable to agree a way ahead.
Accountability was also the main issue in the second most popular choice for closing the democratic deficit: a call to reform local government funding to create a transparent link between local taxes and local services. The third-highest priority in this section was the creation of a written constitution.
The continuing hostility of many Labour party members to voting reform was also demonstrated by the survey. The idea of replacing the first-past-the-post electoral system with proportional representation only polled 10 per cent of the vote. This result suggests groups like the Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform and Make Votes Count have their work cut out if they are to persuade the party to repeat the commitments of Labour’s last two manifestos to keep Britain’s electoral system under review.
Building stronger public services
The high priority given by party members to investing in children continued when we asked about how we build stronger public services. Building universal children’s centres in every community proved to be the most popular response. The next highest was the reform and increased funding of drug treatment in prison to break the cycle of addiction. And in third position, only a small number of votes behind the reform of drug treatment, came the idea of creating a national public service scheme that rewards young people for working in their communities.
After the three most popular responses, there was a group of six options that all polled very similar levels of between six and eight per cent. Interestingly, contrary to government statements, issues of antisocial behaviour were not seen as the most important for our respondents.
Maintaining a prosperous economy
Our survey produced two overwhelming priorities, both polling approximately a quarter of the overall vote each, when members were questioned about how they would like to see a third-term Labour government build on the prosperity of the past seven years.
Most support went to the idea of investing more in skills and vocational training in order to boost Britain’s productivity, a priority in Gordan Brown’s pre-budget report. The survey also produced strong support for the second-placed priority: the need to create a more progressive income tax by taking more low earners out of tax, reducing the number of those on middle incomes paying the top rate of tax, and introducing a new higher rate of tax. In third place, respondents wanted to see Labour create a stronger savings culture in Britain with government-matched savings accounts for low and medium earners.
Perhaps surprisingly, given the high media profile of ippr’s proposal to reform inheritance tax, this option failed to poll strongly in our survey. Only nine per cent of respondents chose the option of using the proceeds from reform of inheritance tax to increase government contributions to the Child Trust Fund.
Enhancing Britain’s role in Europe
In the European section of the survey, reform of the Common Agricultural policy was the clear priority for respondents. However, the survey also revealed a high level of support for a coordinated asylum policy across the EU. The third most popular response, which polled 21 per cent of the vote, was for the announcement of a post-election referendum on Britain joining the euro, with the government recommending a yes vote.
The survey did find, though, little desire among party members to see the government push Turkey’s membership of the European Union, despite the Council of Ministers giving the green light for accession talks to begin.