There is a simple fairness test for any political programme. It is not about the words we use but the difference we seek to make as a party. It is about how we share power, wealth and opportunity more widely in our country.
For me, the fairness test asks how we create a just society where each person is a full and equal citizen of our land, irrespective of birth, class, wealth, race or sex. It asks how through solidarity we can build a society in which collective strength compensates for individual weakness. It asks how we can create a country where privilege is not handed down from generation to generation but success is earned on merit. It asks how we can build a Britain where self-respect and respect for others are the hallmarks of our communities and where the fight against poverty and oppression is our mission in the wider world.
It was in answering these questions that I joined the Labour party. It was to deliver on them that we created New Labour. And now, ten years after becoming party leader and six-and-a-half since I became Prime Minister, I believe we can claim with confidence that New Labour is passing the fairness test. Up and down this country, and – thanks to our efforts to reduce international debt repayments – in developing countries across the globe, the difference a New Labour government makes to the lives and life chances of people is now clear.
When we talk of being ‘for the many not the few’, it is not just rhetoric. It is shorthand for our political programme. Just like our conference theme this year – ‘A future fair for all’ – it is a sign that we have achieved an irreversible shift, in the terms of political debate, in a progressive direction. Creating a fairer future has been the driving force behind the policies we have pursued and, because that has been so central to how we have governed, we have altered the political landscape of our country.
It is the prism through which today’s politics are seen – so even the Conservatives have to sweeten the bitter pill of their policies by claiming they are fair. This provides us with an immense strength because, as long as our actions are as good as our word, as long as we continue to meet the fairness test, we can continue to determine the terms of political debate in our country.
So how are we doing? The minimum wage we introduced is now helping over a million people and their families. It passes the fairness test. This year’s rise to £4.50 an hour is welcome. If we want to continue to pass the fairness test we will want to see the minimum wage continue to rise – and a concentrated effort to make sure no employee is denied the basic decency it brings.
We have already lifted 500,000 children out of poverty. Sure Start is giving some of the poorest children in our country a better start in life. There has been increased help for all pensioners and extra help for those in most need. All pass the fairness test. For the future, our task is to eliminate child poverty within a generation and to achieve for all the security, dignity and independence in old age previously enjoyed by only a few.
Unemployment is now lower than for a generation. There are more people in work than ever before. The New Deal has helped cut youth unemployment by 75 percent. Tens of thousands of young people have been given the chance to show what they can achieve. The New Deal passes the fairness test, of course. And it is worth remembering that it was financed through a windfall levy on the profits of the privatised public utility companies.
To pass the fairness test in the future we have to continue to bear down on the scourge of long-term and youth unemployment and build up the package of opportunity, training and support we can offer to help people into worthwhile work. The fairness test also demands we take action on affordable childcare and affordable homes in the interests of equality of opportunity. Our progressive goal is to get closer to full employment, so that all have the chance to share in the generation of the nation’s wealth.
I believe our economic record stands comparison with any government of modern times. Inflation and mortgage rates are lower than for decades – saving families hundreds of pounds of year – and in sharp contrast to the sky-high interest rates and record repossessions of the Tory years. Independent experts say Britain has weathered the world economic storm better than our competitors. On any reasonable assessment, New Labour’s economic policies pass the fairness test too.
Our economic performance allows us to put record and sustained investment into the vital public services. High-quality, universal public services put our values into action. They have a crucial role in delivering a future fair for all.
We are now seeing the results around the country. There are new schools, new hospitals, shorter waiting times and waiting lists for treatment, lower crime and improved school results. There are thousands more teachers, doctors, nurses and police officers – and thousands more being trained and recruited.
Britain is now firmly in the world premier league of education performance. Our exam results have never been better. Patient surveys show over 80 percent of people are happy with their experience of the health service. Maximum in-patient waiting times have been reduced: first to fifteen months and now to twelve months. Crime is down overall, too. The street crime initiative led to a dramatic reduction in muggings. We want to use the lessons we’ve learnt to keep reducing all crime, because we know that high crime hurts the poorest communities most.
Passing the fairness test in the future means we’ve to keep up the effort and keep making improvements in all these areas. Radical reform is the route to greater social justice. For without good schools, good hospitals and an effective criminal justice system, without more well-paid and well motivated staff in our public services, Britain will become more unequal, not less.
In a modern consumer society, without reforms to deliver more individually tailored services and more choice for users of public services, we will lose the consensus for tax-funded public services that has sustained them over the years. If we are to pass the fairness test in the future, we cannot afford for middle-income families to abandon public services in favour of private provision any more than we can ignore the needs of the poorest in how they are provided.
We have to continually seek to strengthen the sense of social solidarity in our country to ensure we continue to win the argument that health and education services should be funded through general taxation. Winning that argument is essential to passing the fairness test in the future.
Overall, I believe New Labour in government is passing the fairness test, which is why fairness has become such a key political battleground. Of course, there is a great deal more to do and in some areas improvements have been much more substantial than in others. But there are real signs, thanks to record investment, consumer-centred reforms and the fantastic efforts of our public servants, that public services are turning the corner and the changes for the better we are seeing are permanent features, not temporary improvements.
No party of the centre-left should be happy to rest on its laurels. We must be hungry to see further and faster progress. The whole party must have a genuine dialogue with the country on how best we can make Britain still fairer, how we can spread prosperity and opportunity to every community and every family. In short, how we can go on passing the fairness test into the future.
That’s the challenge facing us. The fairness test itself is simple. Meeting it, continually, now and into the future is the hard bit. To do so, we have to constantly renew our commitment to creating a fairer country. There are barriers that still stand in our way, not least the deep health inequalities that scar so many communities. And, inevitably, new trends, new technologies and new threats will mean new barriers to overcome.
But if we can continue to find modern solutions to make our country fairer for the future, I believe the big prize will not just be further progress towards the just society in which we all believe, but a fundamental change for the better in our country, which no government of the right will be able to reverse.