David Fellows: If the Conservatives won’t tackle Britain’s deep challenges, our future is bleak | Conservative Home

David Fellows has worked in various roles, including in the Cabinet Office, local government, and international development. 

As New Year breaks the UK faces serious challenges that successive governments have been reluctant to discuss let alone address.

The IFS considers that by 2029-30 the October budget will have driven taxation to an all-time high as a proportion of national income and government spending to a remarkable 5 per cent above prepandemic levels. Further increases seem inevitable. Louise Casey’s social care review, NHS, local government, and public sector pay in general cast an ominous shadow.

Then there is defence spending. These public spending pressures displace private discretion even before that discretion is further reduced by direct policy intervention.

Too many post-war governments have come into office ill-prepared and with election promises bearing little relationship to what followed. The Leader of the Opposition must avoid this by preparing a core platform around which to shape opposition, provide the basis for the election manifesto, and office. Consistency of messaging and quality of preparation will be key to securing public support and will contrast starkly with the opening sequences of the current government’s performance.

The potential reach of the basic work is vast so it needs careful framing, as set out below.

1. Opportunity for the regions

Any constructive government strategy must set economic growth at its heart and the fixation of successive post-war Governments that equates growth specifically with the development of the Greater South East (GSE) must cease. This stance has had a detrimental effect on the economic wealth of the country as a whole. It has crippled regional family support networks as young higher-earners inevitably drift southwards in search of an opportunity where they intensify the acute housing shortage.

A commitment to meaningful regional economic growth based on innovation and improved productivity must be the way forward. This would necessitate a public-private partnership where the public contribution is diverse and responsive to private sector vision and commitment. It has the potential to reduce housing pressures on the GSE, increase the national tax base, extend discretionary personal spending, facilitate the distribution of ‘carbon neutral’ energy to its users and even slow the plummeting birthrate.

A cohesive contribution to economic growth based on innovation and improved productivity requires the Government to apply its executive power and influence through, for example, tax incentives, government procurement processes, planning regulation changes, and the full-hearted engagement of technical and academic institutions. This surely requires local collaboration but, as I have previously advocated,the  Government must be fully engaged for revolution to succeed.

A focus on growth also addresses the preference within the private sector for a low-skilled externally sourced workforce. Better training coupled with productivity-boosting investment must eliminate the need for unskilled overseas labour that brings long-term costs to the state and a rapidly changing character to many communities that cause local anxieties.

I shall avoid comment here on the Levelling-up White Paper. It had some severe short-sightedness towards successive governments’ huge historic and continuing development bias towards the GSE. Nevertheless, it was a source of optimism for the regions that proved to be misplaced.

2. Defining a future for the Greater South East

The GSE has an immensely important role, not least in terms of financial and legal services, its attraction of international tourism, and its place as a vastly important centre of learning. Countless measures would improve life in this region but priority for other regions is long overdue so ingenuity must be shown to maintain and improve the GSE’s precious resources.

The Government must listen to the diverse needs and aspirations of the GSE but the detailed planning, financing, and operational control must lie largely outside government and the public purse. Any government support should be conditional on meaningful collaboration between GSE and regional institutions that facilitate the transfer of valuable expertise.

3. Establishing the NHS within a broader concept of national healthcare

The NHS is huge, cumbersome, and simply too heavy a drain on the public purse. The major question of health service strategy must be resolved by greater diversity of provision. Public and private facilities must be woven together much more effectively through the ready exchangeability of data, public purchase of private capacity (the current government may be developing an interest here but this is nowhere near sufficient on its own), training for medical personnel and tax concessions for private health service charges and insurance premiums.

Monolithic state provision must cease. Properly independent private provision must be accepted as a key component of the UK medical landscape.

4. Rolling back the cost and complexity of regulation

Enacting regulation is often the default posture of any minister needing ‘to do something’. Government has assumed too much responsibility for every misfortune. The cost for supervision and business for execution is huge and the concept of personal responsibility is lost. Added to this, the tax system is a bureaucratic nightmare, the planning system adds enormous delays and costs to development, and net carbon-zero emissions offer a new ill-thought-through subject area with huge cost implications.

A programme for rolling back regulation is urgently required and a more rigorous review process is required before new regulations are allowed to be developed.

5. Resetting international responsibilities

The notion of an effective defence pact between nations engaged in trade warfare with one another is ludicrous. The Government should seek compliance with Article 2 of the NATO treaty that places an obligation on member nations “to eliminate conflict in their international economic policies and … encourage economic collaboration between any or all of them”.This is inevitably a longer-term initiative but it is important.

6. Life support

The Government Accounts for 2022-23 record disability and other benefits at £158.3 billion. Of the individual service costs reported in the national accounts only Health at £211.6 billion exceeded this sum while State Pension and Pension Credit (£117.8 billion), Education  (£105.5 billion), Defense (55.5 billion) and Public Order (£43.9 billion) languished far behind.  Public commitment to benefit support must be rethought and a recent House of Lords Committee offers health-related benefits as a starting point.

7. Creating corporate control of the Government

Political leadership must be professionalised and that is not an easy task. The centre must have a creative reach across government and make government more coherent, efficient in operation, and effective in its decision-taking and messaging.

Improving the policy and delivery mechanisms must be of the highest priority. The Government must be better coordinated and held accountable by Number 10 but it needs the right mechanisms, structures, and people. There is also much that can be done through: relationship development between politicians and civil servants; ministerial training; improving the use of ministerial time; and the use of personnel from outside government. Ministers must gain expertise by staying with their brief for much longer periods both in Opposition and Government.

Conclusion

Successful leadership requires someone capable of identifying the key issues, expressing the hard truths, advocating practical if challenging solutions, and working effectively with others across government. This must be achieved while maintaining the Party’s confidence and identifying with the whole nation.

Whatever else the next PM wants to achieve if these daunting requirements are not fulfilled then the future is bleak.