It is not true to say that Westminster has all the big ideas and local government gets on with the small things – it’s the other way round at the moment, leader of Corby borough council Tom Beattie tells chair of Progress Alison McGovern as she tours the country meeting the Labour leaders who are governing Britain.
Alison: Tom, I’ve come to Corby today because you’re a pretty successful Labour group, having run Corby for some time and having won what was a resounding success at the elections last May. Can you talk me through why you think that you won, and what you took from it?
Tom:
We actually increased our majority here in Corby in the election last May. I now lead the largest Labour group in Corby for more than a quarter of a century. I believe that what we achieved here was recognition of the transformation that Labour has made to Corby over recent years. You can see that around the major redevelopment that has taken place. Our agenda has been one of regeneration through growth and our population has increased from about 50,000 just over 10 years ago to about 67,000 today. We’ve successfully built in that period approximately 6,000 new houses, including many new affordable and council houses, so our growth has been rapid.
Alison: In some parts of the country, the idea of having new houses or a growing population would be seen as a great risk, but you talk about it with relish, Tom. Tell me more about that.
Tom:
Well colleagues of mine have said that ‘you’re growing yourself out of office’ – basically, that I’m changing the way that people look at Corby, so that that solid-based Labour majority which has always been here will disappear because the demographics of the town will change. I’ve always taken the completely opposite view. I believe that if we can demonstrate the achievements we have made have been as a result of a Labour council, that will be reflected in the way that people vote, and that’s what has happened.
Alison: How did you persuade people that regeneration would be a good thing?
Tom:
We’re a town that took significant blows back in the 1980s. The steelworks closed, lots of job losses, people moved away from the town, the town was dying on its feet and we wanted to say to people that there is a future here in Corby. Corby shouldn’t just be seen as a deindustrialised place that is just going to wither and die – we’re better than that. We have an awful lot going for us: our location in the centre of the country could not be better. You look at our road links, we’re close to all the main motorways and link roads.
So all of that said to us, ‘Corby is in a good place. If we can persuade people that there is an agenda here about growing the town, then we can do it’, and there’s a willingness to do it. I also think that people in Corby have a spirit, I think it was a sort of pioneer spirit that brought people to Corby in the first place in the 1930s when the steelworks first opened and people moved here from all parts of the country and that created a real determination to make a good place to live as they had moved from someplace else, basically out of necessity because they couldn’t find jobs. They came from places where industry was in decline. So we tapped into that spirit, and I think what we said to people is that growth will bring benefits, it will bring increased prosperity, it will bring jobs, it will bring better housing.
Along with that we will improve the offer for people who live here because for a long time Corby didn’t have an awful lot going for it in terms of things to do, outside what would be perceived to be the traditional working-class things of going to the pub or club on a weekend. For years we didn’t have a cinema for instance. People had to go to the next town to go and see a film.
Alison: And now you have a cinema and a theatre?
Tom:
Now we have a cinema, we have a theatre, and we have created in the town centre where we are now a bit of a cultural/leisure quarter based around a swimming pool at one end, this building, the Corby Cube, with a library and a theatre in it, a cinema across there with associated restaurants. In about 12 months we’ve gone from having one restaurant and a McDonald’s on the other side of the street to having a half dozen restaurants and another one just about to open.
Alison: Now, some people will listen to you talk and think, this is not a classic Labour leader – I mean you haven’t said the word ‘poverty’ once yet. What it sounds like is an ambitious vision for Corby, that I have no doubt is driven by your values. So tell me about how your Labour values or the reason you came into politics led you to thinking that you wanted to change the place.
Tom:
My own values and the values of my Labour group are based around traditional Labour values and I would say that’s about improving the life chances and standard of living for all of us.
I spent 21 years as a full time trade union official. I worked as a national officer for Unite the Union up until I retired a couple of years ago. My view always was that the whole essence of trade unionism was about getting a better deal and improving the lives of people at work. OK, politics are part of that because you can’t do that simply through the process of bargaining, you need to engage in the political process to secure reform and legislative protections. I think our values are about ensuring that people have the best opportunities possible for them. So they want to live in decent houses, they want their kids to go to decent, good schools, they want to work in secure, well-paid jobs.
Those things are universal. They’ve always been Labour values and I don’t see them as being new – that’s always what we’ve believed. Here in Corby we believe that’s what Corby people want. Don’t get me wrong, there are pockets of deprivation still here, we haven’t completely cured every ill, but we’re working on it as we all are. And like many other Labour councils up and down the land we have been hit hard by central government cuts to our funding. However, as our national leadership has urged we are very careful to place the blame for that firmly where it belongs, with the Tory government in Westminster. I want to accentuate the positive, though, I want to talk about things that can be achieved and we’ve done that successfully. I think people have recognised that. They’ve recognised that here’s a council that has Labour values as its core and those Labour values are about improving our lives and if Labour is about nothing else, it’s about improving the lives of working people, and I think that’s what we’ve done.
Alison: Do you get people talking to you about that?
Tom:
Yes, definitely. People outside of Corby often talk to me about that: ‘How do you do it? How have you managed to be successful?’
Alison: And what would you say to them? Because in many ways, often if you look at politics, because Westminster is based in London, there’s a lot of focus on, dare I say it, London boroughs, often the lessons there aren’t really relevant. It’s a fairly unique setting. Equally somewhere like Manchester, you’re not going to get that recreated but actually Corby is a town that is similar to lots of towns in Britain, but it’s just managed to grow and change itself in a way that other towns haven’t. What are the lessons for Britain and British towns from Corby and your leadership?
Tom:
I’d say be ambitious for the place you live in, work with the people who will help you deliver those things, and we work closely with various partners. I’m a fairly pragmatic and practical politician. I work very closely with my neighbours although we’re surrounded here in Corby by Conservative-controlled district authorities and we have a Conservative-controlled county council, but that doesn’t stop me from doing the things that need to be done to ensure that Corby gets the best out of what’s available. I would say, don’t be afraid to engage in partnerships with people who you would think aren’t your natural allies. I believe local government is about finding practical solutions to problems and working together to improve things. The ideological differences that exist aren’t as stark perhaps as they are at a national level. I think working with my colleagues locally, most of them have the same view of what they want to try and get, and that’s about making the place they represent better, it’s about finding practical, sensible ways of doing that. That’s what’s worked for us. We haven’t hunkered down in our bunker here in Corby saying it’s us against the world.
I think we’ve demonstrated that we’re a council that’s open for business. We’ll talk to people, and we’ll do the things that will attract business to the town and people who want to work and live here. We try not to put unnecessary obstacles in the way. One of the things that developers often complain about is the difficulty with some council planning departments, the time it takes to get decisions. We try to move quickly. I’m not saying that Corby borough council rolls over and does what the developers want. Far from it – we’re fairly hardnosed in our negotiations.
We have negotiated quite good Section 106 agreements with developers. Our swimming pool, for instance, was built as a result of the deals we had done and the receipts received on one of our new housing estates here in Corby. We negotiate hard. If developers are going to come to Corby and they’re going to make a profit, because that’s what they’re in business for after all, they don’t build houses out of the goodness of their hearts. They want to make money but we want to make sure that some of that money goes back into the community. So we’re not an easy touch but we do understand that we need to work with them, and we’ve developed these working relationships, and we’ve developed a reputation for being a place where if you want to get things done, we will help you.
Alison: Sometimes in local government there’s a bit of a reputation for, dare I say it, parochialism. Westminster is a place people think they have got big ideas and big visions, and in local government people are just interested in parish-pump politics.
Tom:
I think for too long there’s been this division between Westminster and local government with Westminster being seen as the place where people who have cut their teeth in local government end up. You make a name for yourself in local government and then the next step would be parliament. But why would you want to do that? I think local government is changing and the devolution agenda will hasten that change, despite the fact it’s complicated and at the moment a bit of a mess. But the notion of devolving power and resources from the centre to local people is a very powerful one.
I think we’ve demonstrated locally that we can do that and we do have a vision that isn’t just about the small-scale stuff. The stuff we’ve done here in Corby has been pretty large scale. We’ve transformed this town and you have to have a vision to do that. Of course, as councillors you do get involved in the day-to-day more mundane things, but that’s what people expect you to do. If they have a problem with housing or their bins haven’t been emptied they want someone to help them with that so of course you do that.
But I don’t think it’s true to say that Westminster has all the big ideas and local government just gets on with doing the small things. I think it’s the other way round at the moment if I may say so. I think the innovative thinking, the grown-up thinking, the Labour thinking, is in Labour councils. Up and down this country, Labour councillors are leading and managing, they’re leading the regeneration of their towns and their cities and their communities and there’s lots and lots of good ideas.
Labour centrally can learn an awful lot from local government. I’ve heard secretaries of state and shadow secretaries of state say, ‘We respect what you’re doing in local government and when we get into government we will make sure you get the support you need to do the things that you want to do. We’ll devolve all of this responsibilit’. But then they hold on to it.
I get that it’s never really easy to give power away, but they need to start thinking about it. I believe that there is real talent in Labour local government. On a day-to-day basis we’re in government, managing multimillion pound-budgets and making decisions that have a real impact on people’s lives. We’re not in government in Westminster but we’re in government in the towns and the cities and the communities of Britain and we’re doing a bloody good job.
Alison: Yes, I think that’s right. Just finally on Labour being in government, we have had one term in opposition in Westminster, another five years at least. That will be a whole generation of politicians who only ever knew opposition and not government. If you could speak directly to those politicians, what would you say to them? Why does power matter?
Tom:
It matters because you can’t do the things we’ve done here in Corby unless you’re in power. Being in power means that you have to take decisions that may not always be comfortable for you and you will have to compromise. Principles are important, of course they are. Quite clearly the principles that inform us and the principles I spoke about earlier are those Labour values. But unless you can gain power you will never be able to put those principles into practice and what use is that? You can shout from the rooftop here in Corby about the unfairness of life. Well, life is unfair, but here in Corby we address that unfairness and that imbalance and the only way to do that is getting into power, taking control of the levers of power, and making sure you use power for the better of the people you want to represent. Unless you’re prepared to do that, you’re just whistling in the wind.
Alison: Finally, then, Councillor Claire Kober, the leader of Haringey, recently said that she felt it was a really negative thing that Labour council leaders didn’t speak enough for the party nationally. Whether it’s Question Time or one of the other regular politics shows, we don’t have leaders of councils representing Labour on TV on that dialogue, and she said that she was challenging the party nationally to put the voices of Labour in government on the telly. So a quick yes/no question: the phone rings, it’s a Tuesday night, it’s Labour press office and they’re asking you to go on Question Time, yes or no?
Tom:
Absolutely, yes. Claire is absolutely right. There are a lot of good, strong Labour people in local government who could do that. Labour needs to get those voices out. There are some very articulate voices like Claire Kober and others up and down the country.
Alison: Labour politicians we’d all be proud of.
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Listen again to the launch event here
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Join Alison at:
Britain and the politics of place: Where next for Labour?
6-7.30pm, Wednesday 20 April 2016
Westminster Suite, Local Government House, Smith Square, London, SW1 3HZ
Speech:
Alison McGovern MP Chair, Progress
Reply:
Claire Kober Leader, London borough of Haringey
John Denham Director, Centre for English Identity and Politics
Peter Lamb Leader, Crawley borough council
Chair:
Theo Blackwell, London borough of Camden
Labour’s civic leaders, cabinet members and scrutineers recognise that the needs of communities are changing, often in ways which might not be apparent to lawmakers in Westminster. With this in mind, Progress’ chair Alison McGovern MP has been touring the country listening to some of our best Labour administrations to hear how they have transformed public services and pioneered progressive plans. Despite the central government-imposed cuts, they are leading the way on the living wage, on childcare and building infrastructure and new homes.
This event, which is kindly being hosted in conjunction with the LGA Labour group, will promote some of these great achievements and launch Progress’ Governing for Britain network so our national lawmakers and the wider public can continue to learn from our local councillors and AMs.