The BBC continues on its long chosen road of opposition to Brexit, hostility to  populist movements, veneration of the world of elites and international treaties, and a slavish following to everything wokeish. In interview after interview we have the same tropes and tired  questions, nearly always asked from the point of view that the UK government is to blame for the world’s ills and more government and a bigger public sector would solve many of them.

All this requires an avalanche of sloppy thinking and a passion for olds over news. It also means a relish for unseen contradictions. Here’s a few questions:

Why was it so crucial to have a zero tariffs free trade deal with the EU, yet a similar deal with Australia or the USA would according to recent questions and features be ruinous?

If the BBC really is concerned about UK farming, why has it never examined the great damage done by EU policy and EU imports to our ability to feed ourselves from flourishing food producing  UK farms?

Why does the BBC not recognise England and go on about England as much as it does about Scotland?

Why does the BBC persist in wanting to break England up into Euro style regions, given the way elected regional government was rejected by electors when offered?

Does Manchester which gets plenty of BBC coverage speak for Liverpool or Blackpool?

Given the BBC dislike of border fences and anti migrant policies why hasn’t it run features on the Spanish frontier at Ceuta or the long border fences and walls of central Europe?

Why has it never explored the relationship between the so called austerity policies of the Osborne era which it disliked and following the Maastricht rules on state debt and deficits?

 

I could go on with many more. You might like to supply some.

 

 

Dear Grant

I enjoyed hearing your enthusiastic presentation of railway reform. I agree fully with the aims you have set for the new railway. It must indeed be passenger focussed, concentrating on the basics of punctuality, comfort, cleanliness and great service. I also agree that you need to harness more private capital and ideas, and allow more competitive challenge to ensure innovation and rising service standards.

Your example of extra cost and wasted effort concerning attribution of blame for delays was well made. 400 people in the train operating companies and Network Rail arguing over who had caused a delay and who should therefore compensate is not ideal. It also illustrates the need to remodel the railways under leadership who wish to reduce these kinds of costs. The danger will be that the train companies will still keep people ready to dispute their responsibility for delay, as presumably their new contracts to run the services will contain penalty clauses for poor punctuality, whilst Great British Railways may keep the transferred staff from Network Rail and still engage on the other side arguing that it was not their fault. Simpler contracts with more objective data to quantify risk and blame would obviously help but will not eliminate all disputes with contractors.

As Great British Railways take over responsibility for timetables, there is a need to ensure they wish to challenge past patterns in a pro passenger way. Various Councils and local communities will be lobbying for faster and more direct routes, and for more frequent services. There needs to be a fair way of evaluating these bids, assessing value for money and likely demand levels. There also needs to be a good review method to examine line capacity. Network Rail tended to a cautious approach on line capacity, with a reluctance to expand it to accommodate new services. There are various ways of increasing the capacity, including the faster roll out of digital signalling which allows more use of the lines safely, and more by pass track sections to allow more fast trains to dodge the stopping trains on the same line. Faced with demands for more and different services there may well need to be decisions taken to expand some line capacity to allow competitive challenge. How will such decisions be taken?

It will also be important at this time of massive change in work patterns and travel needs for the railway to adapt to the new train  travel demands, not to defend out of date service provision geared to five day a week commuting. Budgets need to allow changes to services and timetables, to permit improved capacity where needed, but to avoid subsidy for little used services which once commanded a decent number of passengers.

As they take over responsibility for service standards there will need to be decisions about how companies are rewarded for service innovation and good quality. How much can they expect to make by way of return from innovation? When and how will good new developments be rolled out across the network through other companies? Will there be any innovation franchise payment or one off contribution to the development costs for the innovator?

As they take over responsibility for routes will there be easy methods  by which communities and rival companies can offer to provide a more frequent or more direct or faster service to a named town or area than the current Railway offers? If so, how will this be assimilated and used? The Hull Trains service is a good example of a challenger company delivering a better service for Hull passengers, but it was all too rare under Network Rail when potential service providers often faced a variety of obstacles which defended incumbents.

One of the areas where Network Rail often blocked progress was in property. The large Rail estate is suitable for joint ventures and development attached to the rail lines. The large central City stations have now received attention with several undergoing extensive mixed use redevelopment, but the large bulk of stations, sidings and yards on the network have not. Worst still Network Rail can be a problem for others seeking developments on their land nearby, as in my constituency where Network Rail wanted a substantial payment  from the Council for wanting to place a bridge across the railway line to cut risks at the level crossing and to allow more housebuilding in the area.

None of this is easy. It will require a good constitution and objectives for Great British Railways, the choice of flexible and imaginative leadership and strategic Ministerial supervision to carry it off.

Yours etc

 

 

The proposed reorganisation of the railways has at its centre a wholly admirable concentration on the passenger. We are told there will be a new accent on

1, Punctuality.

2. Cleanliness.

3. More comfortable seats – also a campaign of mine given the way GWR substituted less comfortable seats for more comfortable ones when it switched from the 125s to the new Hitachi sets.

4. Good wi fi availability

The aim is to allow the reconnection of places where closure of lines and stations by the former nationalised industry left places without service, and to encourage service quality improvements in areas like catering.

The issue is can the  new structure deliver these straightforward and desirable requirements? Great British Rail, a public sector body, will have ultimate control of trains and track, timetables and service levels. They can use and harness a wide range of local community groups, local government partnerships and private sector companies to bid to provide and manage services.

I asked for some assurance that Great British Railways will have the powers and the will to  innovate and accept challengers to the status quo. We do not want them delivering existing timetables and clinging to them when it would be possible to change them for the better. We do not want them delivering current levels and standards of catering or wifi or other on board services when we want new and better.

The government made several good arguments about the way rail travel shrank badly under nationalisation, with  high fares, line and station closures, poor catering and poor punctuality. The Secretary of State remined us  how the privatised railway doubled passenger miles travelled after years of decline. Now we want something better that can adapt to part week commuting, new patterns of leisure travel and a more tempting offer to displace the car.

 

The cry has gone up from the Opposition parties that the government should reform social care. Labour in office promised to do so but found it too difficult and abandoned the idea. Mrs May in office made proposals which proved to be very unpopular and was unable to find a compromise reform which the Opposition parties liked. It turned out there are as many variants of social care reform as there are political parties. I have never personally pledged to campaign for social care financial  reform, and have always been cautious about the subject having studied various plans  and seen the degree of disagreement there is about both the objectives and the shape of reform.

Today I am inviting those interested to write in with their thoughts again on this vexed topic. I am particularly interested in what people think the aim of reform should be, as well as in the more normal question of who pays for the care people need?

I have championed changes to social care to improve the service for those who need it. This seems to be the forgotten issue amongst many reform plans. The government does need to set out again clear rules governing the relative responsibilities of care homes and the NHS.  Care homes whether private or public sector need to work closely with GPs and the local hospitals to ensure elderly residents have good access to free NHS care as they are entitled to. The NHS should not send patients back to a care home prematurely as some did during the pandemic with bad consequences for the patients and other residents at the Care home. GPs might like to offer – as some do -surgery times at established Care Homes to cover the residents needs as well as  making on line consultations and prescription renewal accessible. The local hospital needs good links and understanding with Care Home Managers. There is a temptation by Care Homes to send residents to the local hospital on a precautionary basis where better understanding and contact might allow the resident to stay with GP supervision in the Care Home.

I also wish to see decent standards of accommodation and catering. Where someone is supported by taxpayer money for the living costs in a Care Home the budget should be sufficiently generous to provide a decent standard and good pay for the Care workers. The sums involved may well need to vary around the country as property cost is an important part of total cost and property costs are very variable. A property based supplement to amounts should reflect objective property cost figures by area.

It is also important for Homes to have good programmes of activities for residents for those who wish to join in with them in public rooms or on outings. There must be quality of life as well as security and protection.

It has been a longstanding policy of Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties when in government that whilst all healthcare is free living costs are not free for those who have private income or surplus capital. Surplus capital includes the value of their own former  home if they   no longer need it as they are on their own or are  going to live out their remaining days in a Care home with their partner. I accepted this policy when my own parents had to go into a care home.  I helped them choose a good one and helped them sell their flat to pay the bills. Some now argue that there should be a higher permitted amount of capital that people can pass on to the beneficiaries of their wills. I think most accept that a rich person  on a large pension or with substantial wealth should continue to pay their living costs in old age. If the state does opt for a higher permitted capital amount then there will be the need for extra taxes on the rest of us to pay for this alteration to allow the inheritance. Should this line be redrawn?

The Uk has now rolled over the EU deals with other countries as promised in the referendum. The draft Australian Free Trade Agreement could be the first of the new UK negotiated deals, which will go much further than the EU went in opening up opportunities for more trade and business activity. The Australian one will go some way to restore the losses we experienced with Australia thanks to EU protectionism against them. Australia is a key ally and partner, a fellow member of the 5 Eyes Group and a willing collaborator. For example, Australia is buying the rights and support to build  9 Type 26 UK designed  frigates.

The Agreement will sweep away tariffs and quotas, and open up services. It will provide great opportunities for the UK dairy industry to sell more UK cheeses, the whisky industry to sell more drink and the  car industry to sell more vehicles. UK consumers will have access to some great Australian products at cheaper prices, with a likely rise in interest in Australian wines as one of the  consumer wins.

Some now say we need to offer protection to our beef and sheep meat sectors through tariff quotas to limit the amount of product Australia can sell us at better prices. To argue in  this way is to seek to wreck the agreement. Australia has rightly  not signed Free Trade Agreements with any country whilst accepting tariff rate quotas. The people who think the UK needs this protection from food produced on the other side of the world did not of course offer any such protection from EU food products, where we have tariff and quota free food trade and plenty of EU imports. It is difficult to believe our beef and sheep meat sectors will lose out to Australia given the distances involved and the relative costs. Australia has  high standards of animal welfare and husbandry. UK beef and sheep meat are quality products with plenty of scope for us to export more and to sell more at home.

We owe it to ourselves and to Australia to do this deal. When we joined the EEC we turned our backs on Australia and other Commonwealth allies, placing heavy barriers in the way of their exports to us to give a big advantage to European product. Australia is a willing friend keen to promote our joint interests by freer trade. Doing a deal with Australia also gets us closer and sooner to a deal with CPTPP, the Pacific partnership countries. That is another large prize, a free trade deal with the fastest growing part of the world.

It is wrong that many GB businesses now find they cannot send their goods to willing buyers in Northern Ireland without a large amount of extra paperwork or even EU inspired bans. Both sides to the UK/EU Agreement opposed a hard  border on the island of Ireland. Both wished to protect the EU single market and the UK internal market, and allow NI easy access to both. That is what the Protocol says.

The EU has decided to use the Protocol to create a hard border in Northern Ireland against Great Britain. This border is not in the Irish Sea but is enforced against containers, vans and trucks on arrival in Northern Ireland. The EU seems to think a North-south border has to be open but an east-west  border needs to be tightly controlled by them. They should try reading the Good Friday Agreement which is about looking after the interests of both the Protestant and the Catholic communities in Northern Ireland. This heavy handed  approach by the EU violates the Good Friday Agreement as far as the loyalist community in Northern Ireland is concerned.

Lord Frost’s recent article is right in tone and content. He now needs to be careful in negotiations not to allow the EU to insert its controls in the way of GB/Northern Ireland trade. That trade should be regulated and policed by the UK and NI authorities. Of course they should make sure people are  not using easy access to NI to then send things onto the Republic which are not EU compliant. There is no evidence this is happening. The UK authorities have every interest in not allowing that. There is no need to submit trucks taking supermarket produce from GB to named stores in Northern Ireland to special checks in case they were planning to go on to the Republic, because they are not. In an age of computer manifests, truck tracking, pre filed journey and stock schedules trade should be allowed to flow. Any checks or audits that are needed in NI should be for the UK to carry out, and any needed in the Republic for the EU. There have been smuggling problems on the UK/Republic border during our time in  the EU which were always sorted out by co-operation from each side whilst respecting the different jurisdictions. .

Either the EU agrees sensible mutual enforcement with each jurisdiction taking responsibility on its own territory or the UK must simply impose that on the UK side. It is the best and most practical way of implementing the stated aims of the Protocol.

 

The Spring 2021 official EU forecasts show the EU growing at 4.2% in 2021 and 4.4% in 2022, compared to their UK forecast of 5% in 2021 and 5.3% in 2022.  Yet when they put the detailed forecasts for each member state and for the EU as a whole in an appendix you open up the EU one and discover they have used the  numbers from the UK forecast instead. Not surprising they prefer the UK forecast, even though their version still  looks a bit low.

The UK and the US both have an active world of  think tanks and commentators on government. There is often cross fertilisation or influence across the Atlantic. In  the days of the close political relationship between President Reagan and Prime  Minister Thatcher the US came to the UK to find out how we were developing our new approaches to government and the public sector. I remember in particular a delegation arriving at Downing  Street when I was Chief Policy Adviser to find out why and how we were privatising nationalised industries, as well as other exchanges to  understand our approach to regulation and labour market management. Under Tony Blair the transition to President Bush was potentially uncomfortable, so the UK accepted the US pressure to back their military interventions in the Middle East. These proved damaging to Mr Blair’s reputation and popularity. David Cameron accepted the thrust of Obama’s policies and direction, and  persuaded the President to become a Remainer. They both supported the international rules based order as interpreted by the EU and others.

Today there is plenty of pull from across the Atlantic for Big government. The Biden Administration has to date decided on a radical left wing strategy of a large expansion of the state.  There are the three reflationary packages. The Covid Recovery package of $1.9tn has been enacted. The American Family Plan which wants to extend more benefits much higher up the income scales has been launched, alongside a large Infrastructure investment programme which takes a very wide ranging definition of infrastructure. These latter two will add another $4tn to spending over the years ahead if they can be legislated in full. They come with a big programme to boost unionisation of the workforce, and a strong wish to press the Green revolution .  The UK government will be willing collaborators with the Green strategy, and will reflect some parts of the recovery plan based around extra state spending.

It is important for the UK government to understand that President Biden is taking the easy way out with his left by giving into most of their wishes. It may be that he thinks their wilder dreams will be voted down by the Senate, or can be bargained away by the need to win  votes in Congress. This assumes he is more of a moderate as his words implied before election. Alternatively it is possible he was always hankering after the large state agenda he is  now revealing, but kept quiet about the full magnitude of it before the election. Either way this is time to agree with the US President when it suits us or he is right, but to keep our own supply of ideas going to ensure a strong recovery and a full exploitation of our new freedoms. There is a danger that the US overdoes the deficit and money printing bringing forwards  faster inflation and the need for a policy rethink.

The first law of government is the law of continuous expansion.

In a democracy good causes line up as lobbyists demanding  government gets  involved. They lobby for government to intervene in areas it does not currently manage. They demand new laws and controls on things they do not like. They demand more money and supply of things they do like from the state.

The official government machine encourages lobbying for more as they like growing their tasks. Ministers often dislike constantly saying No to lobbies and buy them off by offering them cash and laws to help them.

Oppositions usually take up lobby causes and press the government. If the government gives in they claim some credit. If the government resists they claim the government is mean, tough, insensitive or worse.

The media join in, running campaigns on behalf of lobby groups and behaving like Opposition parties.

There are very few lobbies the other way. The  causes of a smaller state, less government control of our lives and even of lower taxes have  very few lobby groups arguing for them as a counterweight. They are chronically under  represented in the media.

The second law of government is the Treasury is usually weak at spending control but gets blamed for underfunding.

The Treasury is hopelessly outnumbered by spending departments in government. It can only hope to exert effective control if the Finance Minister and PM or President work together, and if spending  decisions  are mainly taken in bilateral meetings between  the Treasury and the relevant spending department rather than in a wider forum .

Government departments can get more money by running things badly and demanding bail outs near the end of the year. They can get more cash by claiming it for crises or issues which come up in year. They can work with lobby groups outside government to create pressure for increases. Some are good at securing money for their next year’s budget under headings where they know they are unlikely to spend it all. They then vire this approved spending to another purpose later during the year, securing cash for something which might not have been approved if asked for originally.

It is commonly believed in government circles that a Treasury has too much control over spending and that a  Treasury makes spending judgements that prevent other departments doing a good job. This is usually a dangerous myth.  It comes from the proposition that new initiatives or demands need new money to pay for them. In practice there are often falling demands or waning initiatives elsewhere in each spending  department. There should be a more active pursuit of the things the department no longer needs to do at the same time as finding new things it is desirable to do.  Old government initiatives rarely die. They rest in some distant corner of an administrative office, and keep their budget line.

The third law of government is its expansion is built into all the policy programmes of centre left and left parties.

It is easier being a left Minister as you are going with the flow of continuous government expansion set out in the first law.

The left welcome the idea of higher taxes to pay for more government. They see higher taxes as a good in themselves. They enjoy inventing new ways of taxing success and attacking independence and enterprise.

The left seek to monopolise the votes of public sector workers by being a kind of extended Trade Union for the  state sector. They constantly seek better conditions of employment for public bodies, and more staff to carry out tasks, at the expense of the private sector.

The left believe public delivery of goods and services is morally better than free enterprise doing the job.

The left believe that people and families allowed to make their own choices and allowed to keep more of their own money to spend will make bad ones. Government is necessary to restrain and tax the successful whilst making the less well off dependent on the all providing state who can then control and direct their lives.They hope for gratitude for state hand outs they conjure, but rely more on making false claims about the threats to people they allege the right represents. They seek to create a myth that right of centre parties enter politics to harm others.

The fourth law states  that governments use the international rules based order to bind themselves into aims and policies which they place outside democratic control.

Some think governments undertake the international rules based approach to satisfy the vanity of rulers. They like to perform on the world stage, and are happy to sign grand undertakings to show their collective importance. There is more to it than that. International rules and commitments built into Treaties strengthen the powers of unelected officials and advisers, and reduce the number of areas that elected politicians can in future change. Officials negotiate  much of the detail and pre-empt future choices and options for Ministers and new governments.

In its most  developed form, EU membership, incoming  elected governments have so much less scope to change and improve things than in non EU countries. They inherit a vast amount of EU law which remains as a given with no EU level impulse to repeal or reduce. As Euro members they inherit an economic policy largely determined outside their state, with interest rates, budget deficits and other matters settled or controlled from the EU centre. The EU requirements are enforced through an EU controlled court with the power to fine, to withhold access to EU money and to impose other sanctions. It greatly reduces what elections can alter.

Some of these international bodies allow independence of thought and action. NATO, for example, leaves members free to decide whether to join a NATO mission or not in any given case. The WTO is a series of rules for freer trade with a dispute settlement procedure, where any penalties have to be proportionate to the infringement and of the same kind. The international Treaty obligations around climate change are mainly enforced through moral and political pressures. Increasingly the Climate Change framework does pre empt policy and  decisions in a wide range of governmental areas from energy and industrial policy through transport to agriculture.

The international rules based system has two main weaknesses. The first is that the alternative world view held by China, Russia, Iran and their allies allows them to behave in very different ways and sometimes to find and exploit weaknesses in the West’s approach. The open statement and predictability of the West’s approach is seen as a weakness.  The second is how the rules are applied by an elite of well paid unelected officials acting as  legislators and enforcers can cause a rift between a majority of the electors and what government is doing and saying. The more Treaty commitments a country makes the less power electors wield to demand change. The most important clause in a Treaty which dictates policies and laws to us is the exit clause.

The fifth law is Ministers who wish to make a difference have to find ways round the first four laws of government.

I have recently set out how Ministers can, for example make a difference by supervising and influencing quangos, or by taking back control from external bodies by legislation.

There are three main roles for Ministers to perform when supervising and sponsoring quangos or so called independent government bodies.

The first is to supervise the expenditures of public money. These bodies often rely on substantial grant income which needs to be agreed with Ministers and approved by Parliament as part of the annual national budget. A Minister can reasonably ask for a budget meeting with the quango to discuss their financial needs and to indicate to them likely financial support levels. There may need to be follow up exchanges depending on the negotiations within government with the Treasury about what is affordable.  The budget meeting is a good opportunity to review the aims and resources of the body, to press for better value for money and to define precisely for the following year what is expected and what is needed by way of financial support. This is a process which gets reported to Parliament and can be subject to debate if the budget of a quango becomes a matter of public or Opposition concern.

Some of these quangos depend in whole or part on money they raise from charging user  fees and licence fees on those who use their service. Usually the fee levels are regulated under legislative powers by Statutory Instrument. Often these bodies want annual fee increases which will need SI amendment and therefore Ministerial and Parliamentary approval. Under weak Ministers there is a tendency to accept any fee increase proposal the body requests, and to hope that the Opposition in Parliament will not bother to query or debate it. As left of centre oppositions rarely object to higher public sector fees and charges it is particularly incumbent on Conservative Ministers to be vigilant in the public and user interest. This is another variant of the  budget review and conversation.

The second is to review and report on the annual performance of the body to Parliament. The Minister can ask to see a draft copy of the body’s annual report to review, or can require a meeting with the body after it has submitted its annual report to the sponsor department. This is another good occasion to review the aims and achievements of the body, to thank them if they have done well or to ask them to do better if they have not. It is a good idea for a Minister to show interest in the performance targets to be set for the ensuing year and in the performance achieved in the year under review. Again Parliament may if it wishes receive, read and debate the report of a government body.

The third is to require additional special meetings if the government wishes to change the aims and demands on the body, or if the body needs to report unexpected problems and difficulties, or if the Minister has become aware of a body of complaints and criticisms that are or will become public that he or she needs to answer. Such matters should of course be reported to Parliament unless there is some special good reason for confidentiality because for example matters relate to a vulnerable individual or to possible legal proceedings that must not be prejudiced..

Ministers are also entitled to become involved with recruitment to Boards of these bodies and to some of the senior  management positions. If there is to be a change of chairman or chief executive this is another good opportunity to review performance and ask questions about aims and targets for the future.

If there is a good  series of meetings for the more important quangos Ministers should avoid nasty surprises about the conduct and performance of these bodies, and the leaders of these bodies would stay well informed about the overall government policy context in which they are working and about the likely level of resources they will enjoy to carry out their tasks.  The bodies should remember they are governmental and part of a greater whole answerable to Parliament.  Ministers should remember they are  not the day to day managers , they  do not have quasi judicial powers over the regulatory work of these bodies and should not normally intervene in individual cases.

Ministers also need to be careful about accepting binding commitments in international Treaties. If they agree with the aims of a new International proposal they can state their intentions to follow it and to meet domestic targets without making an irrevocable commitment which will make it difficult for a future government to alter it.

There needs to be a strong Treasury dedicated to productivity and quality improvements in public services and capable of challenging moves to expand the areas of government activity.

 

 

 

 

The first law of government is that it continuously expands, and the third is the way left of centre parties make that their main cause. The process is aided by the way much of the media conducts the public debate, by the balance of lobby groups, by the very language used about government and by the budgeting systems used.

The media parades lobby groups who want more spent and more done by government as their daily diet of political news. They rarely give time to the few groups who want citizens to do more and for citizens to have more freedom. Anyone seeking a tax cut is asked what spending they will cut, whilst anyone wanting more public spending may  not be asked what tax they wish to put up.

The language of politics deployed implies government is virtuous and uniquely able to do what is right. Any abuse or inequality brings forward strong lobby groups for a government answer even though some of the abuses and inequalities have been created by previous government interventions. A mistake by a private sector company is exposed and pursued whilst larger errors by public services are often excused or glossed over. Any train problem for example is wherever possible directed to private train companies away from nationalised Network Rail and the public regulators.

The budgets are rarely expressed in pounds in the way the rest of us have to budget against a background of a fixed net income. They are recast in so called real terms. Commentators assume inflation linked increases and often require a special and higher inflation figure to be included. They often also assume already agreed increases. Politicians usually concentrate on so called new money, meaning a further increase in sums agreed over and above the base budget. The dishonesty of budgets distorts the debate, with debates always being about cuts yet public spending goes up every year. The complex ways of claiming increased money is a cut also makes it difficult for most people to join in, as a privileged public spending elite pursue their own arranged figures for their own benefit. All my political life I have heard about cuts, yet there has been a huge cash increase and substantial real increase  in overall spending.

The public sector gurus dismiss the idea of productivity gains in the public sector, or pencil in low figures for them. Whilst it is clearly true that to have a high quality health service you need plenty of good quality nurses and doctors, the rise of ever better technology should allow productivity gains. Many parts of the public sector are large administrative systems where computer technology should allow substantial productivity wins.