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- Herausgeber: Biteback Publishing
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Serie: Why Vote
- Sprache: Englisch
The Conservative Party wants to win the 2015 general election with an outright majority. But what should be the party's purpose in government? In this unique guide, Conservative MP Nick Herbert explores the values that have ensured the party's success for the better part of the last hundred years, and sets out how they should be applied to build another Conservative century. Why Vote Conservative 2015 proposes a radical Conservative agenda to reform political institutions, bring government closer to the people, personalise public services and lower taxes.
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For Jason, a true Conservative
Contents
Foreword
This book is not an account of the Conservative Party’s achievements in government, or a compendium of its policies. Others will produce that, and there is a strong story to tell. Conservatives can be proud of what has been achieved by a government that inherited from Labour the worst deficit in peacetime history: bringing spending under control and restoring economic growth; capping welfare; reforming schools.
Instead, the aim of this book is to reflect on the challenges facing this country, and suggest how the next Conservative government should apply its principles to deal with them.
A general election will soon be held. It is easy to see the dangers of Labour forming the next government, with the inevitable undoing of our achievement in rescuing the country’s economic fortunes. We must not let that happen. And a major part of the agenda for the next Conservative government is clear: a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU within three years, and continuing action to deal with the deficit.
But what else? Conservatives yearn for majority government; to be able to kick the Liberal Democrats all the way down Whitehall. Now we must be clear about what we would do with this power.
It has been said that the Conservative Party exists to hold power, as though this could license an administration without purpose. It could not. Conservatism exists, as Quintin Hogg wrote, ‘for the sake of promoting the good of the country’.1 But so, he noted, do other parties. We therefore have to explain the good we wish to do, why our vision is better, and why it is more likely to succeed than that of others.
It is also said that, after the defeat of socialism, we have entered a post-ideological age, in which voters care little for the claims of capitalism against collective provision, but simply wish to see the country run well. Yet there are enduring ideological differences fundamental to the choice facing the public. The left’s blind faith in the state allowed school standards to fall unchecked; it promoted generations of welfarism that trapped the weakest in poverty; it caused the excessive public spending that brought this country to the edge of bankruptcy.
If a previous Labour leader, Tony Blair, attempted to persuade his party that collective provision could not endure, his current successor has no such mission. Ed Miliband is the most left-wing Labour leader since Michael Foot: hostile to markets in the private sector, even more so to those in public services; unrepentant in his support for higher spending, taxation and borrowing; unreconstructed in his support for the welfare state. He supports deeper European integration and opposes a referendum on the EU. There is indeed an ideological choice at the next election, and we must frame it clearly.
It will not be enough, however, to point to the dangers of a Labour government, real though they are. We must also set out our stall. That requires us to assess the problems facing the country, and say how we will fix them. Today, in an age of disillusionment with politics, the greatest danger lies in saying only what we think the public want to hear. People are not only deaf to promises without conviction, they deeply mistrust them. It is not just our responsibility to say what we believe, it is the only way to win a hearing.
Our case should be that Britain is facing serious challenges that conservatism is best placed to meet. Only if we continue to fix the economy and ensure global competitiveness will living standards be protected. This requires much more than standing still and managing public services well. With an ageing population, rising costs and ever higher public expectations, nothing less than a transformation of the welfare state and public services is needed.
In this book, I argue that conservatism does not apply a single ideology to contemporary problems. As John Buchan said, Conservatism is ‘above all things a spirit not an abstract doctrine’.2 We can identify principles that should guide us as we shape a modern Conservative agenda. But we must not repeat our opponents’ mistakes and claim that a single doctrine can right every wrong.
To take just one example, we need more houses; it is clearly right to extend opportunity. But we must also protect the countryside. This reflects the tension which exists in so many policy choices because of the rival claims of Conservative principles.
If we ignore the failures of the planning system, we will fail a generation for whom property ownership is becoming an ever more distant dream. But if we lazily conclude that planning restrictions simply need tearing up, we will fail future generations by destroying the national asset of the countryside. The Conservative solution will acknowledge the force of both claims. It will turn an eye to people’s needs now, and propose reforms, while being sensitive to the reasons that saw the introduction of planning controls in the first place.
The Conservative writer Graeme Archer eloquently expressed the importance of this tension in the Conservative condition, describing himself as ‘a mixture of gloom for what has gone and optimism for the future … Two horses pull the Tory chariot: the trick is not to allow either to pull us out of kilter.’3
The most powerful moments in the most recent chapter of our party’s history have been when we have re-told Conservative truths. When David Cameron spoke of aspiration; when George Osborne liberated pensions; when Iain Duncan Smith challenged welfarism or when Michael Gove drove through education reforms, our hearts beat faster, not because we knew that these policies were right, but because they spoke to our core beliefs. Holding to Conservative ideals, it turns out, energises our party and is popular in the country. As my colleague David Willetts, author of an earlier edition of Why Vote Conservative and a leading thinker about modern conservatism, has said, ‘Mrs Thatcher’s government showed that the Conservative enjoys the luxury of being able to stick to his principles knowing that they also work in practice.’4
It was a new incarnation of conservatism, more than three decades ago, which rescued this country from what some thought was terminal decline. Today’s economic and political challenges are different, but equally profound. In the age of fierce globalisation, no country has an entitlement to success. But if we have the courage to take the right decisions now; if we are willing to apply our principles, a regeneration of conservatism can once again ensure Britain’s prosperity.
1The Case for Conservatism, 1947
2 Preface to A. Bryant, The Spirit of Conservatism (1929), p. vii, quoted in Ideologies of Conservatism, E. H. H. Green, 2002
3 Article on ConservativeHome, 14 August 2014
4Modern Conservatism, 1992
Chapter 1
Introduction
Conservatism is a disposition not an ideology. It rejects the intellectuals’ conceit that it is possible, let alone wise, to bring about radical change ‘upon a theory’5 in favour of a solid grounding in history and experience. The Conservative temperament demands that we should recognise that the world is too complex and too diverse to be ruled by a single principle, and that even, or perhaps especially, in times of tumultuous change, we have a duty to proceed with caution as we consider the radical changes that may be necessary for our society. The Conservative opposes revolution, not change. Benjamin Disraeli put this most clearly:
In a progressive country change is constant; and the great question is not whether you should resist change which is inevitable, but whether that change should be carried out in deference to the manners, the customs, the laws and the traditions of a people, or whether it should be carried out in deference to abstract principles, and arbitrary and general doctrines.6
This may not appeal to the tidy minds of the men whom Edmund Burke decried as ‘sophisters, economists, and calculators’,7 but it focuses on something much more important: the quality of people’s lives and government’s role in making these better.
Ours is a globalising age. Ideas, technology, money and people move faster, farther and more cheaply than they ever have. Each of the main parties is defined by its reaction to it. UKIP fears the change as a threat. Labour denounces it as a platform for exploitation. Liberals welcome it as a blessing. We should embrace it as a fact. Globalisation brings huge benefits, while at the same time inflicting insecurity on people unequipped to deal with the increasing intensity of competition it brings. Our job in politics is to equip Britain and her people to meet its challenge.
This challenge cannot be met by a list of policies alone. It requires careful thought and honest reflection. Labour’s years in office inured voters to spin, and they rightly seek substance. We must follow a style of politics that conveys our intent and philosophy. Promises that are unanchored by a set of beliefs will founder; they will leave us without a clear direction; and they will leave the public with no idea of our motivation. We need to supply voters with an account of the principles that will guide us.
These principles, or values, are the root of our thinking. The values that inform conservatism are timeless, though the combination in which they are found and the compromises we make between them, in a spirit that pays respect to our cardinal virtue of responsibility, are modern. Each of the six principles which this book identifies – Nation, Security, Liberty, Community, Equality and Opportunity – provides a reason to vote Conservative.
Britain is once again emerging from a major economic crisis. Globally, it is generally considered to be the most profound since the Great Depression, but the last serious British economic crisis, which occurred in the 1970s, was also under a Labour government. In the modern era, where voters call for Conservatives when the economy needs fixing, we must never forget the importance of fiscal responsibility. It is vital not because economic performance is always the most important issue facing the country, but because good economic performance is a prerequisite for providing people with opportunity, contributing to global security, reducing crime and preserving our quality of life. A successful economy generates the wealth that allows people the security to plan for the future; it makes the products and services we enjoy; and it allows society, through moderate taxation, to marshal resources to help those less fortunate, to preserve our heritage, to safeguard the environment and to foster scientific discovery. It is essential to a civilised society.
Securing good economic performance is less a matter of knowledge than of will. Preserving sound money, low taxes and a market economy, all under the rule of law, depends on responsibility, Conservatism’s cardinal virtue. It requires politicians to resist the temptation to borrow when we cannot afford to pay back, impose high taxes when we cannot safely borrow, and undermine the market economy with regulation and political intimidation when we cannot tax. It is more important than ever to be able to exercise that discipline. The world economy is in the middle of another extraordinary transformation, a global revolution, that is dramatically changing how business is done, how customers are satisfied, how products are supplied and how services are rendered. A global ‘premier league’ is being formed, in which the rewards for participation far exceed those confined in national divisions. At issue is whether Britain can secure her place in it, whether her citizens can be protected from its threats as well as take advantage of its benefits, and whether the prosperity it generates can be shared fairly among them.
The next chapter of this book sets out the considerable challenges facing Britain. The following chapter examines modern Conservative values, and subsequent chapters explain how each of the values selected informs policy proposals to meet the challenges. The final chapter sets out the choice facing the country at the next election.
5 Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790
6 Speech in Edinburgh, 1867
7 Burke, op. cit.
Chapter 2
The Challenge
We are living through a seismic transformation of the world economy and its societies: globalisation. Its roots are twofold: first, in technological change and, second, in its successful exploitation by newly independent countries, particularly in east Asia, who made good use of their independence. Those that have chosen to run themselves well have taken over the mass industrialisation pioneered in the West, brought their people prosperity beyond all precedent and dramatically lowered the cost of living for their Western customers. It has opened up huge opportunities for wealth, cultural enrichment and scientific progress as the peoples of the world are brought much closer together. But it has come at the cost of enormous dislocation in the leading Western economies and great insecurity for our most vulnerable citizens on which populists (in Britain, Labour as much as UKIP) thrive. Moreover, the sheer increase in global industrial output, in demand for food and water, and in the ease with which people can travel, has put immense strain on our climate and natural resources, as well as Western nations’ social welfare systems and immigration policies.
Not all countries, however, have seized the opportunities that the modern world offers them. In far too many cases their new rulers proved venal, corrupt, or, seduced by the illusory spoils of war, roused their people into destructive nationalistic ideological or religious fervour. The blood-soaked consequences of misgovernment laid waste to Cambodia and Rwanda and are presently being felt in Iraq. Extreme political incompetence or corruption has always bred discontent and revolution, but globalisation makes the instability impossible to confine. Jihadists travel to Syria’s wars. Images of massacre spur calls to international action. Distant upheavals up-end the fortunes of internationally ambitious companies, eliminating their investors’ savings and putting people at home out of work.
These crises have provoked two contrasting and equally inadequate responses. Some believe that the causes are merely technical, most notably, poverty and ignorance. They promise salvation through technical means: the transfer of resources and knowledge and enlightened scientific research alone. Others claim that alien, sometimes violent, cultures cannot be reconciled with our own, and counsel a return to splendid isolation as the surest means of security. Yet it is clear from humanity’s experience since the Second World War that political wisdom can overcome both ignorance and poverty: the advance of first South Korea and Taiwan and then China and India as they dismantled destructive economic systems has been astounding, and it is still only decades since the most civilised countries in the West descended into barbarism never exceeded elsewhere. Nor is it viable to pull up the drawbridge: not only would we thereby deny ourselves the opportunities that this fast-globalising world provides us – opportunities that will certainly accrue to others if we do not take them – but also we cannot by isolation secure ourselves against the threats it poses.
This chapter will identify eight major challenges for the United Kingdom which globalisation either brings or exacerbates:
First, a demographic time-bomb created by a pay-as-you-go welfare state in which we are ageing without saving.
Second, increasing regional inequality as London takes a full part in globalisation while other regions are left behind.
Third, excessive levels of public spending and debt that have created a high tax burden.
Fourth, fierce global competition that requires government to reduce taxes, deregulate, provide better infrastructure and improve skills.
Fifth, a technological revolution that will require the state to re-shape the way it provides services.
Sixth, high levels of immigration and population growth that have caused public disquiet and placed pressure on public services.
Seventh, environmental changes and pressure on natural resources that will affect our prosperity.
Eighth, and finally, world disorder which threatens our national security.
1. Ageing without saving
The acute banking crisis may be over, yet the most serious financial problem facing Britain is its long-term fiscal sustainability. Our population has been ageing without saving. The projections are striking:
Better health is creating an increase in life expectancy in many countries around the world. Together with falling birth rates, this is contributing to an ageing population. The UK is no exception. According to the Office for National Statistics, the number of people aged sixty-five and over in the UK has already increased by 26 per cent since the mid-1980s – to 10.8 million in 2012. The number of people aged eighty-five and over more than doubled over the same period to 1.4 million and the percentage aged under sixteen fell … Population ageing is projected to continue for the next few decades … By 2037 the number of people aged eighty-five and over is projected to be 2.5 times larger than in 2012 … The population aged sixty-five and over will account for 24 per cent of the total population in 2037, while the proportion of the population aged between sixteen and sixty-four is due to fall.8
Both public and private debt have already reached astonishing levels. Public sector net debt is currently £1.3 trillion (77.3 per cent of GDP)9 and household debt is at 165 per cent of GDP.10 Around two-thirds of household debt consists of mortgages,11 whose outstanding value is concentrated in London and the south east, where house prices are extremely high compared to earnings. This increases both the amount of debt (and indebtedness relative to incomes) needed to own a home, and the risk that, should house prices return to their long-run average levels, people would suffer from negative equity. Both as a nation and as individuals, we continue to live beyond our means. Where private debt is an obligation that people choose to undertake, public debt is different. It entails a promise by the government to bondholders that it will impose the taxes on future generations who did not benefit from the public services used, and who in many cases were not old enough to vote for the government that authorised the expenditure. It is a major intergenerational injustice.
The political system has compounded these risks by enacting promises in the form of fiscal transfers to the old through the state pension and the ring-fencing of budgets for public services that are mostly used by them, most notably the NHS. This predicament will only become more acute as the population ages and pensioners live longer, while at the same time the advance of medical technology has a double effect: not only is it increasingly expensive as more sophisticated and expensive treatments are made available and then come to be expected, but also its success contributes to extending life expectancy. The issue is not the fact of this progress, but the difficult question of how the money to ensure it is to be found, and how a sustainable fiscal framework that does not impose unbearable costs on future generations is to be developed.
This generation of pensioners may point out that they have paid into the system, and this claim cannot be dismissed. Even though national insurance pay-outs are no longer related to payments received as pensions,12 in an approximate sense the claim is true: they have paid their taxes during their years of work. But they only paid enough to support the previous generation of pensioners at the time at which they were working, as well as the other public functions discharged by the state at the time. Their taxpaying behaviour was consistent with an assumption that their children would be able to pay for them in their retirement, as they themselves had for their parents, without saving for their own living and healthcare costs in old age. The UK chose not to finance pensions through a contributory mechanism, or healthcare through a form of social insurance. It encouraged a mindset where people were reassured that the state would take care of their needs. But this pay-as-you-go system of social security is no longer viable.
Policy changes have made calculations of trends in state pension spending complex, but the expansion in the proportion of the nation’s wealth devoted to healthcare has been significant. As a share of government spending, the NHS budget has increased by 42 per cent in the last twenty years.13 If this rate continues, it will account for over a third of all government spending by 2054. In addition, the state pension currently accounts for £104 billion each year. This compares to £37 billion for incapacity benefit (which is disproportionately used by working-class men between the ages of forty-five and sixty-four),14 £26 billion on housing benefits and £5 billion on unemployment benefit. The government’s welfare reforms have already made significant progress towards improving the incentives to work and reducing the benefit traps that encourage dependency. The introduction of the Universal Credit will improve the situation further. Further short-term fiscal savings from benefit reform will be required, but the principal aim of the policy is to enable people to take control of their lives, escape dependency, earn money through work and develop self-respect. This will yield results over the long term as people remain in work and take advantage of the opportunities this offers them. The major costs of social protection are, and will continue to be, those associated with state pension provision.
State provision of pensions and healthcare free at the point of use, both financed through pay-as-you-go taxation, have nevertheless established strong expectations in the British people. It would be wrong to dash those expectations and impose the shock of financial hardship on people who would find it exceptionally difficult to cope, as their earning years are behind them. But if steps are not taken soon to reform the basis on which social protection is ensured in future, the chronic fiscal crisis will become acute. During a future recession, a government whose borrowing will have by then become too great could be forced to impose sharp tax rises and spending cuts in order to maintain the confidence of the bond markets. Reform is necessary to forestall the risk of future hardship.
2. Regional inequality
We are, in too many respects, not one nation. Britain’s regional inequalities are stark. Annual Gross Value Added15 per head in London, the richest region, is £37,232, whereas in the Tees Valley it stands at £14,710. As the difference between regions in the sources of household income show, the state attempts significant redistribution of income to even these inequalities out. The difference in the sources of household income bears this out. Whereas in London only 10 per cent of household income comes from benefits, in the north east and Wales the figure is almost double, at 19 per cent.16 Further redistribution is carried out by providing public services accessed for free. In the north east, a further 12 per cent of income is classified as being in the form of a ‘free’ public service or benefit, whereas in London only 7 per cent of income is.17 Meanwhile, residents of the north east derive only 9 per cent of their income from profit, while Londoners derive almost twice as much.18
This inequality is often attributed to the failure or underperformance of, for instance, the north of England. One think tank notoriously suggested the region should be abandoned.19 This is profoundly wrong. London’s success should inspire us to work out how other regions of the country can join it in sharing the fruits of globalisation. London, a city in decline after the post-war period, has grown into the largest and richest in Europe by some distance, and this is reflected in its entrepreneurial spirit. What has it done right, and how might England’s other great cities replicate it?
Though it now prospers thanks to globalisation, London was initially hit extremely hard by the same economic forces that have laid other regions low. Excessive union power and the invention of containerised shipping rendered its huge docks, once the British Empire’s gateway to the world, obsolete. At the same time, the east Asian tiger economies, some of them former British colonies, began to compete in earnest with the Western manufacturing industry. Unfortunately for Britain this transformation of the global economy occurred when our own economy was in the middle of its disastrous post-war experiment in socialism that, before 1979, Conservative governments were unable, or unwilling, to unravel. Nationalised industries found it impossible to adapt. Powerful trade unions prevented the introduction of modern labour practices, and when they did not get their way,
