Simon Heffer:
Because Theresa May described her aims so eloquently just a few weeks ago on becoming Prime Minister – in her speech about enabling social mobility and returning to proper Conservative virtues of helping people move up life’s ladder – it may seem that the one she will deliver to her party conference in Birmingham this week could be an anti-climax. It shouldn’t be. Mrs May has made a positive start, not just by keeping her original promise by bringing back grammar schools, but by saying forcefully that she will ensure the public’s wishes are carried out and we shall leave the European Union, regaining full control of our borders in the process, hence the welcome news of her intention to repeal the 1972 European Communities Act.
But there is much more to government than that: and her speech will give her the chance, after nearly three months in office, to speak directly not just to her party but to the country about how she intends to govern us in the broadest sense. With Labour evaporating as a serious party in the eyes of all but a Marxist fringe of the electorate, and the Liberal Democrats in the morgue, the Tories have the prospect of winning the next election without breaking sweat. What Mrs May must do above all is dismiss any complacency, and pledge that she intends to govern to improve the lot of the country and its citizens, so that even a good opposition would struggle to beat her party.
Almost as important as her speech will be Philip Hammond’s because economic policy under the new regime has yet to be spelt out – and we have already heard the Chancellor’s potentially controversial plans to improve workers’ representation on boards. Mrs May, like all her predecessors, should take a lead in this. We are still spending and taxing too much. The fiscal system should be used to encourage enterprise, growth and the revival of depressed areas of Britain, but it is not. People who earn relatively little, especially, are paying too much tax because of the low level at which higher-rate taxes kick in.
Much can be done to encourage business through the corporation tax and VAT systems – there is no reason not to apply differential rates in under-performing areas. The silly “northern powerhouse” idea may be dead, but such areas – and parts of the Midlands and West Country too – can become magnets for growth if incentivised through the tax system. Mrs May should promise to do this: London is too overheated for the good of the rest of Britain.
She should commit to the welfare reform begun by Iain Duncan Smith, though Damian Green’s plan to scrap reassessment tests for sickness benefit claimants will not necessarily help that. We need a welfare state that helps the helpless, encourages the industrious and penalises the lazy and feckless. When we leave the EU the supply of cheap foreign labour will plummet: our idle indigenous population must get used to the idea that it will have to work, and take its share of society’s burdens.
As I wrote here recently, the NHS needs serious attention, with its payroll of non-medical staff being closely audited and reviewed. The ageing population puts a terrible, and growing, burden on the service. One of the most enlightened things Mrs May could do would be to implement the Dilnot Review of funding care for the elderly, by bringing in a hypothecated tax or an insurance system. The problem is awesome in scale, and may soon be intractable.
She should also make a commitment to a defence review, so we can protect ourselves in an increasingly dangerous world. If she wants to lose her job, an easy way would be to have us humiliated by the Russians because we cannot take our share of the defence of the civilised world, or even defend this country. And, as I noted last week, the disgraceful disrespect the state shows to servicemen and women and veterans must stop: Mrs May could do worse than to use her speech to renew and enhance the Military Covenant.
She should set out some prospects for our post-EU life: such as how the £13 billion saved each year will be distributed, notably to reassure those engaged in scientific and other research in our universities, and who have hitherto relied on EU grants, that their work will be able to continue. Farmers, too, will lose subsidies, and need assurances about post-EU agricultural policy. And it would be good to hear some plans to encourage the revival of our fishing fleet, once Brussels no longer tells us what we can or cannot do in our own waters.
Mrs May must advance infrastructure projects and stop delaying essential decisions. She should announce Heathrow Airport’s expansion, for the economic good of the whole country. She should scrap HS2 and invest the savings in rail all over Britain: getting more freight on the railways and lorries off the roads is essential as motorways grind to a standstill. A national policy to build housing on brownfield land must be launched – not just in the South-east – to tie in with a plan to stimulate entrepreneurship and create jobs outside London. Above all, Mrs May knows that grammar schools reform must go hand-in-hand with better schools for the less academically gifted – and encouragement of proper apprenticeships to ensure that every young person is of value in the jobs market.
Finally, she should announce a cull of about half the House of Lords, to make it credible again, and the repeal of the anti-democratic Fixed-Term Parliaments Act. The last, she should stress, is not so she can call an election next May, for one is simply not needed. She has plenty to do for the rest of this five-year term, and should be planning for the next one. There is always need for caution, particularly with a majority of 12: but with her party behind her, she must show this week that neither timidity nor treading water is part of her plans.
She must show that neither timidity nor treading water is part of her plans