Mark Yale is a local Conservative campaigner.
Whilst I disagree with much of what Danny Kruger said in his defection speech there are two things I agree with. Firstly, that as a party we have experienced a year of “stasis and drift” and secondly that “conservatism is not over. It’s never been needed more”.
However, I disagree with his diagnosis that we are where we are because we have not been bold or controversial.
Does he not remember when we tried this approach in the last few years?
We elected in Boris Johnson a leader who was willing to be bold and controversial. He took the country to the brink of leaving the EU with no trade deal in place and oversaw the creation of the unworkable and wasteful Rwanda asylum policy. Or, what about Kwasi Kwarteng’s disastrous mini budget which controversially removed the additional rate of tax, amongst other bold ideas that destroyed our economic credibility.
The country faces many challenges. Labour’s economic policies have seen the interest rates on government debt rise to the highest in the G7, meaning we now spend more servicing our debt than we do on education. Whilst legal migration has fallen, thanks to policies brought in under Rishi Sunak’s premiership, the rate of illegal migration has increased and is now at record highs. NHS waiting lists are going back up despite Sir Keir Starmer’s promise to get them falling. This not only impacts on people’s quality of life but will also contribute to the ballooning welfare bill.
Instead of being bold and controversial as Mr Kruger suggest, we should in fact be the opposite. Boring and serious.
Reform have come out with a raft of policies that have mass appeal such as their promise to swiftly stop the boat crossings within two weeks, alongside making swingeing cuts to the civil service to save tens of billions of pounds.
If it were as simple as they make it sound, why have these policies not been implemented before?
That is because it is not as simple to fix the challenges this country is facing as Reform claim, and that takes me back to the point I want to make.
As a party we need to move away from policies and ideas that are populist in nature because they are not credible, are hard to deliver and the public still do not trust us after the chaos of the 2019-24 years.
Instead, we should focus on policies that are straightforward to explain and deliver, will not be marred in controversy and will achieve what they are meant to.
Whilst there are many areas that we need policy ideas for, I am going to discuss illegal immigration and the economy as these are the top two issues people come up with when polled. I will give some examples of policy that meets the aforementioned criteria of being straightforward, deliverable and uncontroversial.
On immigration we should move away from the fixation on unworkable schemes like Rwanda (even Italy which thought they had developed a system to legally process asylum seekers in Albania has seen the policy undone).
Instead, we need to come up with pragmatic policies which deter illegal migrants choosing us over the other safe countries they have passed through. Here there is scope for deliverable solutions, for example housing migrants on disused military barracks whilst they await the outcome of their asylum claim.
Military barracks are less enticing than urban hotels, whilst also moving those seeking illegal work away from the opportunities to work which are more commonly found in urban settings. Additionally, bring in ID cards for citizens and increase workplace inspections to crack down on employers using illegal labour. Combined these measures will make it harder for illegal migrants to find work, see them housed in less luxurious accommodation which should disincentivise them choosing us over other European countries.
Turning to the economy, we have been better at pointing out Labour’s economic failures (and there have been many) but we have yet to come up with our own economic policies.
We should set ourselves out as the party that is being honest about the state of the country’s finances and that serious change is required unless we are happy to continue with the tax rises, worsening public services and little money for investment in public infrastructure.
Again, there are straightforward policies that could be implemented and would show we are serious about reducing government spending, cutting the deficit and debt burden, alongside accelerating economic growth.
Reducing the spend on welfare through realistic reforms is a good starting point. Labour went about this in the wrong way and ended up in a situation where they were going to increase the hardship faced by those with significant disabilities. We need to avoid repeating this. Instead, our policy should be focused on implementable reforms that will have a meaningful impact.
For example, bring back face-to-face assessments alongside ramping up the number of re-assessments for sickness benefit claimants with a diagnosis where recovery is possible. The lack of face-to-face assessment and the ability to end assessments early if it is felt the claimant has a strong chance of meeting criteria (freeing up time for the assessor to take on extra assessments for a bonus payment) has contributed to the approval rate for new claimants jumping from around 40 per cent to 80 per cent. These suggested changes are not controversial, meaning it will be easier to implement them and will have the desired effect of making it harder to game the system and reduce the number claiming sickness benefits.
Welfare reform is popular, but we need to go further to get spending under control. Since the year 2000 the percentage of our GDP spent on over-65’s has increased by 2.5 per cent compared with an average of 1.5 per cent for most of our European peers. An interesting point was made in a recent FT article, which said that today’s children are more likely to live in poverty than their great-grandparents.
We need to set out how we will prevent spending for this cohort spiralling further. It will not be easy or comfortable for us to do, but it is a must. This will not only help get spending under control but also show we are serious about the priorities of young adults. Changing the triple lock to something more affordable must be part of this and will need a politician to be brave and make the argument for it.
Alongside cutting spending we need to be serious about stimulating economic growth, so we should prioritise reducing and removing taxes which have a negative impact.
Raising the threshold at which stamp duty kicks in on when purchasing a property is a good and simple place to start, as it disincentivises people moving for work which in turn affects productivity and stops older people downsizing and freeing up family sized homes. Not only should stamp duty on property be reduced but the stamp duty paid when purchasing UK listed shares should be reduced (ideally abolished) as this puts off investment in UK companies.
Mr Kwarteng’s budget showed that unfunded tax cuts are not well received by the market so we must not spook market’s and anger the bond vigilantes. To prevent this, we need to look for modest tax rises to offset the pro-growth tax cuts, but ones that will not impact growth or those on lower incomes. Here there are two which I think fit these criteria; reduce the tax-free amount that can be taken on retirement (but then index to inflation) and create an additional council tax band for property valued over £1million (£1.5million in London).
These types of policies will not sound hugely exciting on the doorstep, but being the serious party that has a credible plan to confront the challenges the country faces should be our message to voters.
As Labour continues to mess things up and Reform continue to offer fantasies (which Mr Kruger will now have to sell) we will appear as the serious and grown-up party with a clear strategy to take the country forward and deliver on the electorate’s priorities.
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