A NATIONAL CARE SERVICE BILL
Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt MP is former health secretary
The government should introduce a national care service bill, to provide a universal system of insurance for older people against the risk of needing long-term care whether in their own homes or in a residential home. This comprehensive insurance system would provide peace of mind for older people and their families and will be the fairest way of ensuring that, as a society, we meet the needs of the most vulnerable in our community.
A MAXIMUM TWO-TERM PREMIERSHIP
Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP is former minister for Europe
Bring in fixed-term parliaments, and no more than two terms as a prime minister or minister. Announce that private members’ bills supported by 10% of the Commons with MPs from at least three parties would always get full second readings. Bring in democratic funding of politics by using the £27m given to the useless Electoral Commission, before Lord Ashcroft buys up every media source and uses money power to install rightist Europhobes as Tory MPs. Create an all-party Global Policy Institute to help parties develop knowledge about what is happening outside the UK thus leaving one Labour legacy equivalent to the Westminster Foundation for Democracy set up by the Tories. Labour has nothing equivalent to show for 12 years in office!
MAKE VOTING COMPULSORY
Rt Hon David Blunkett MP is former secretary of state for work and pensions
Two out of five Britons have not cast a vote in recent general elections. The younger the voter, the more disadvantaged and the more likely to be affected by government action on tax, spending and investment, the less likely the person is to actually cast a vote. The ‘they’re all the same’ slogan is repeated over and over again to them so that deep cynicism replaces healthy scepticism about politics and politicians. Meanwhile, those peddling this debilitating doctrine vote. The better off know that voting will be crucial to determining their own well-being and best interests. I’ve come to the conclusion that we should legislate immediately (in line with democracies like Australia) to make voting mandatory. This surely would transform the forthcoming general election into a true citizens’ plebiscite.
EVIDENCE-BASED EARLY INTERVENTION
Rt Hon Hilary Armstrong MP is former minister for the Cabinet Office and social exclusion
Any manifesto for the next election will have to be far more cautious and rigorous about public spending. Every penny spent will have to clearly make a difference, and support the priorities of the government. The challenge for all the uplift we have given to children is to develop that work in a more sustainable way. I am therefore urging the government to concentrate on evidence-based early intervention programmes, with systematic, thorough interventions that acknowledge the knowledge we now have about brain development in the first two years of life. Government should be encouraging local authorities to identify the key challenges facing children and families in their area, and then encouraging them to choose from evidence-based programmes that address the issues they have identified. This should be built in to spending agreements, so that authorities are rewarded for success, and penalised for failure, over a longer time.
A PROGRESSIVE FAMILY POLICY
Rt Hon Bev Hughes MP is former minister for children, young people and families
This government has put families to the fore as never before, with tremendous progress in giving families – particularly mothers – greater choice in how they combine work and family responsibilities. But we now need a step change to give both low- and middle-income families the solutions they are seeking, with more flexibility in how women and men can share responsibilities. A progressive family policy would: 1. Extend the right to request flexible working to everybody, monitor employers’ responses to ensure men are treated equally and appoint beacon employers to demonstrate the business case; 2. Scrap plans to extend maternity leave in favour of a year’s paid parental leave, extend paid paternity leave to at least 4 weeks, both to be taken flexibly, and progressively increase statutory maternity and paternity pay; 3. Roll up child benefit entitlement so that it can all be taken in the first five years of a child’s life; 4. Radically redefine public services, especially health, education and social care, as family services with a requirement to respond specifically to men.
STOP UNNECESSARY LEGISLATION
Rt Hon Nick Raynsford is a former minister in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister
We need to reform the messy and often haphazard processes currently involved in preparing, scrutinising and implementing legislation. In future, no bill should be introduced until it has passed the following tests, which would be subject to prior parliamentary scrutiny. Its objectives must be clear and necessary. It must not duplicate alternative options for achieving the same result. The means chosen to deliver it must be appropriate and effective. The organisations charged with implementation must be adequately prepared and resourced. The measures by which its effectiveness will be judged must be agreed in advance together with procedures for evaluating its impact. These provisions would both dramatically reduce the volume of ill thought out legislation which clutters up parliament and ensure a proper link between promise and performance. We should be judged by what we achieve, not by fine sounding but impractical aspirations on undeliverable pledges.
LICENSE MULTIPLE OCCUPATION HOUSING
Fiona Mactaggart MP is former Home Office minister
A last Queen’s speech must make a difference fast. That is why I would include a pledge to use the existing Housing Act powers to license all houses in multiple occupation. These dwellings, where more than one family lives in a house and shares basic amenities, are often occupied by recent migrants or students. They are reluctant to complain and when they do they risk eviction. Licensing protects them: they can be confident that the home is inspected and safe. It protects the neighbourhood, ensuring that issues like refuse collection and car parking are addressed. It can also promote community cohesion by ensuring that local authorities address issues of overcrowding and the need for services in areas where there are a large number of housing management organisations.
INTRODUCE FIXED-TERM PARLIAMENTS
Rt Hon Charles Clarke MP is former home secretary
In the current political situation Labour has to do all it can to demonstrate its practical commitment to clean politics. Two measures in the Queen’s speech would really help to achieve this. The first is to reform the funding of party politics on the lines set out by the Hayden Phillips report. The second is to introduce fixed-term parliaments, like just about every other democracy, to eliminate the ability of prime ministers to influence election timing for purely political reasons – a power which Labour leaders have in any case not been very successful at using. Both measures should be taken on free votes and the prime minister should take the opportunity to announce the date of the 2010 general election in advance.
A HOME ENERGY GUARANTEE BILL
Rt Hon Caroline Flint MP is former minister for Europe
Top of my list: a home energy guarantee bill, a scheme to retro-fit every home more than 10-years old, embracing the whole nation and not excluding middle-income households. The funding should be a partnership between homeowners, landlords and energy companies. Government should ensure access, quality and tax incentives. The bill would also give a guaranteed price to anyone selling electricity back to the grid of, say, 90% of the price consumers pay. The disparity between what people pay and what they would receive for selling back has been a big disincentive for those investing in renewables. People need practical incentives to invest in reducing consumption, not just ‘saving the planet’, and in so doing boost green jobs and manufacturing.
A SCHOOLS COMMUNITY ACCESS BILL
Malcolm Wicks MP is the prime minister’s special representative on international energy issues
We face years of public spending constraint. For the Conservatives this is their opportunity to cut ruthlessly the welfare state. Labour has a more radical opportunity – to rethink community priorities and to refashion expenditure in ways that meet the needs of people, rather than existing bureaucratic and institutional arrangements. One idea therefore is to use school facilities for the benefit of the whole community, by moving away from the absurd situation now where some schools are used for relatively few hours each day and lie dormant at weekends and school holidays. A schools community access bill would place a duty on all schools to open up their facilities to community groups, adult learning, and other local agencies (eg health clinics, police shops). New school management structures often inhibit proper use. This approach would produce maximum impac
t, save public money and ensure that expensive facilities – IT, new buildings and playing fields – were open to the public and not fenced off from them.