First, Gordon Brown broke the constitution, now he wants to see it burn
His latest plan would mean less democracy, which is precisely how New Labour wrecked our system to begin with
Gordon Brown is as constant and unchanging as a slab of Grampian granite. Whatever the problem, his solution is always the same: more regulators, more politicians, more money.
His proposals for constitutional reform (which we should take seriously, since the latest poll shows Labour 27 points ahead) are a rehash of the reforms he oversaw in the late 1990s. In essence, he wants politics professionalised, formalised and invigilated.
That approach was not exactly a roaring success the first time around. Paying councillors did not improve the quality of local government. Scottish devolution did not, as George Robertson had promised in 1995, “kill nationalism stone dead”. Outside regulators did not make MPs more honest. Lords reform did not create a more diligent upper chamber. Yet, undeterred, Brown proposes more of the same.
It is a pity, in a way, because much of his analysis is spot on. The United Kingdom is indeed overcentralised. In no other European country (except Malta, which is effectively a single extended conurbation) do local authorities raise a smaller share of their own money. London has a disproportionate weight that no other capital city matches – though this has been true since the Middle Ages, and won’t be fixed by moving civil servants about or creating yet more regional development funds.
But if the grim Langtonian’s diagnosis is correct, his prescription is badly awry. By doubling down on New Labour’s mistakes, he is doling out more of the medicine that sickened the patient.
He is right, for example, that the act of voting has been cheapened, especially at local level. Not because the public is apathetic – there have been moments during the demented debates over identity politics, Brexit and decarbonisation when I wouldn’t have minded a bit more apathy – but because people have clocked that local elections make little difference. They don’t raise school standards or determine the pay of council employees or even, in any meaningful sense, set the rate of council tax. Two-thirds of the people who take the trouble to register don’t vote on the day.
Voting has ceased to be consequential because powers have shifted from elected representatives to appointed officials. Who cares what colour rosette your representative wears when the key decisions are made by the Highways Agency, the Planning Inspectorate, the
The plan to abolish the House of Lords is, in a sense, the least controversial suggestion in the entire document
Environment Agency, the Health and Safety Executive and the rest?
Brown and the Labour worthies who have co-authored his report retain a touching faith in the capacity of such bodies to do good. There is something faintly comical about their belief that they can pursue devolution by creating yet more statutory bodies. Among other things, they recommend a Council of the Nations and Regions, a Council of the UK and a Council of England, as well as an Assembly of the Nations and Regions to replace the House of Lords.
In fact, the way to push powers from Whitehall to town halls is by letting local authorities raise their own revenue and set their own budgets. Do that – at least to the degree that most other countries do – and we will see turnout rise and the quality of candidates improve. But while parties often muse about fiscal devolution in opposition, they never apply it in office. The thought of empowering all those opposition-held local authorities is too much.
“We support fiscal devolution, where relevant and beneficial,” says the report. “It is for the Shadow Chancellor to make any announcements in due course.” Yeah, right. Quite apart from the change-aversion of the Whitehall machine, Labour is more interested in redistribution than local autonomy. It will always, in the final analysis, keep rotten boroughs solvent through subsidy rather than letting them assume full control.
That same prejudice makes a nonsense of the proposals for a semi-federal UK. Brown is dealing with a genuine problem, albeit one of Labour’s own creation. The establishment of Holyrood, and the creation of a separate Scottish political and media establishment, has fuelled demands for further transfers of power. When Scots are given a binary choice between independence and the status quo, the numbers are fairly evenly matched. But throw in a third option – further autonomy falling short of outright separation – and it gets 70 per cent approval.
The trouble is that it is not at all clear what new competencies the Scottish parliament could acquire. It is already one of the most powerful subnational assemblies in the world. The one thing it lacks is full fiscal autonomy; but that would leave Scotland with a deficit equivalent to £2,200 per person.
That deficit is the logical consequence of the current arrangement. Why would Scots vote for lower spending when the Barnett formula guarantees that they get £6 for every £5 in England? A stronger link between taxation, representation and expenditure would create a space for right-of-centre politics north of the border. But, naturally, this is of little interest to Labour.
Because he won’t grant full budgetary control, Brown is left having to offer the kinds of policies that are intrinsically likely to create more grievances. He even proposes to give Scotland its own foreign policy – a step that would mark the end of the UK as a serious global force.
All this, of course, requires a written constitution. And not a minimalist document that would content itself with laying down the powers of various bodies. No, we are to have “an explicit constitutional requirement to rebalance the UK’s economy” and “new, constitutionally protected social rights – like the right to health care for all based on need”. These are precisely the kinds of issues that ought to be determined by our elected representatives. Placing them beyond the reach of general elections will worsen the democratic disenchantment that this paper is supposed to address.
Which brings us to the fundamental weakness that underlies Brown’s whole approach. Despite his professed concern for democracy, he instinctively trusts regulators and committees more than he trusts voters.
Much of the paper is taken up with proposals to circumscribe what MPs can do, through a “new Independent Anti-Corruption and Anti-Cronyism Commissioner”, limits on outside work and the like.
No doubt all this will be popular. You can always elicit a round of applause by demanding that MPs should be forbidden to do X or Y. But shouldn’t the regulator be the electorate? Until 1995, MPs were answerable only to their constituents. Then came sleaze and Nolan and the IPSA and various officials laying down what is and is not allowed. So, ask yourself this: has the calibre of our parliamentarians improved markedly since 1995?
The more we set up intermediate bodies to tell MPs what is forbidden, the more we replace a culture of conscience (“is this the right thing to do?”) with a culture of compliance (“is this technically within the rules?”). I can’t help feeling that treating MPs this way puts off talented candidates. And I have no doubt that making them wholly dependent on the state for their income will accelerate that trend.
Labour wants to ban nonparliamentary work, except the jobs that it deems desirable (“exceptions for employment required to maintain professional memberships, such as medicine”). Again, why should some committee decide that, rather than the voters of the MP in question?
More to the point, how does cutting MPs off from the wider economy improve their calibre? In a perfect world, being an MP would be a second job. They would all be expected to carry on with whatever they were doing before. They would get compensation for the time they had to take off from their main jobs, but not a salary. They would meet less often, and we would in consequence have a lighter government sustained by citizen-legislators.
Which leads neatly to the aspect of the proposals that has generated the most headlines, namely the plan to abolish the House of Lords. In a sense, this is the least controversial suggestion in the entire document. None of the three main parties supports the status quo. The question is what a replacement would look like. Labour’s preference for some kind of Bundesrat, or regional senate, is no more or less sensible than the others.
We may be sure, though, that the current system, where peers are unpaid and self-regulating, will be junked, and that we shall end up with a new tier of salaried full-time politicians. That, sadly, is always Labour’s answer. Which makes you wonder what the question was.