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.

On Thursday I was one of the speakers at the Oxford Union debate on the motion “This House believes the right cannot represent the interests of the working class”. I was dismayed by the dated, arrogant, condescending and foolish motion. It was as if we were still living in the mid nineteenth century, with Marx telling us all to see things through the prism of class. Then there were three classes of rail carriage and liner cabins, in an age when people with money hired domestic servants and many adults including all women still did not have the vote. Today most of us are workers, and many workers now work with brain and computer. Machines dig ditches, speed the construction of buildings, make things in factories where before hard labour was needed from the hand and arm of man. All adults have the vote, and many adults aspire to what a class campaigner would call a middle class lifestyle. The many want and expect a good home of their own, a family car,  tv, washing machine and holiday away that were the prerogatives of the better off seventy years ago.

The proposers of the motion elided “working class” with poor as the left seeks to do. There was no allowance in their backward looking view for the better paid workers , and every assumption that the minority that is temporarily on benefits is the norm and the core of their “working class”. There was no recognition that centre right parties often get elected, represent the workers and go on to get re-elected. There was even less understanding of why that should be. The left in the UK have never forgiven Margaret Thatcher for having great appeal to many of their chosen working class. They ignore the popularity of policies which allow people to keep more of the money they earn, to own their own homes and to gain a stake in the wealth of the nation through their savings, pension plans, ISAs and the rest.

The arrogance of the motion was poignant a few days after Angela Rayner’s important quote that “for too long we (Labour) have given off an air of talking down to people and telling people what they need, or even what they should want or what they should think.” The Oxford union narrowly voted down this archaic foolishness. Many people want a hand up, not to live on hand outs. Politicians should not seek to lecture people on what they should believe, think and want, but should seek to compete to offer people more and better service related to their problems and above all to their aspirations. The aim of debate is persuasion, not stern correction.  Most people aspire to live in a better home they own, to own a better car, to have some money in the bank and to have more freedom to choose. Few aspire to live on benefits in a rented flat under the control of the state as paymaster, landlord, policeman and social worker. I pointed out that the students at Oxford, assembled from so many backgrounds and all income levels, are surely united in seeking a better life for themselves through personal effort. By excelling at school and College they aim for well paid jobs and comfortable homes. Why seek to deny this upward mobility to others or pretend that the right does not have policies that can help achieve these aims?

Having raised the issue of GP appointments with the Secretary of State and Simon Stevens, Chief Executive of NHS England I was pleased to learn that NHS England has directed GPs to ensure that they are offering fact to face appointments:

Dear colleagues

UPDATED STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE (SOP) TO SUPPORT RESTORATION OF GENERAL PRACTICE SERVICES

Guidance on the phased easing of Covid-19 restrictions continues to be issued by government, in line with the Coronavirus roadmap out of lockdown, with services following and adapting accordingly.

As such, ahead of government rules on social distancing changing from 17 May, we would like to draw your attention to the Standard Operating Procedure which will be published shortly, and which will update and replace previous guidance.

• • Half of all general practice appointments during the pandemic have been delivered in person, GP practices must all ensure they are offering face to face appointments. As the chair of the Royal College of GPs has said ‘once we get out of the pandemic and things return to a more normal way of living and working, we don’t want to see general practice become a totally, or even mostly, remote service’, so while the expanded use of video, online and telephone consultations can be maintained where patients find benefit from them, this should be done alongside a clear offer of appointments in person.
  • Patients and clinicians have a choice of consultation mode. Patients’ input into this choice should be sought and practices should respect preferences for face to face care unless there are good clinical reasons to the contrary, for example the presence of COVID symptoms. If proceeding remotely, the clinician should be confident that it will not have a negative impact on their ability to carry out the consultation effectively. The RCGP has published guidance on ‘Remote versus face-to-face: which to use and when?’. We are asking CCGs to prioritise support to practices who are reporting very low levels of face to face appointments.
  • All practice receptions should be open to patients, adhering to social distancing and IPC guidance. This is important for ensuring that patients who do not have easy access to phones or other devices are not disadvantaged in their ability to access care. Receptions will not yet feel like they did prepandemic – for example where space is very constrained patients may be asked to queue outside. Individuals with COVID-19 symptoms or who meet criteria for self-isolation should continue to follow public health guidance. Posters providing information about the symptoms of coronavirus and to direct patients that have symptoms or a positive test result in the last 10 days not to enter the building are available on the Public Health England Campaign Resources Centre website.
  • Patients should be treated consistently regardless of mode of access. Ideally, a patient attending the practice reception should be triaged on the same basis as they would be via phone or via an online consultation system.
  • Practices should continue to engage with their practice population regarding access models and should actively adapt their processes as appropriate in response to feedback.

Thank you for your continued hard work and for your ongoing commitment to continuing to deliver the highest quality general practice services.

Dr Nikki Kanani, Medical Director for Primary Care

Ed Waller, Director of Primary Care

The first law of government is  that it continuously expands. This  is buttressed by the fourth law, 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.

I begin by saying how much I agree with our colleagues from Northern Ireland who rightly want Northern Ireland to be as fully part of our internal market as it always has been and as the Northern Ireland protocol says it should be.

I urge the Government, with our Northern Ireland colleagues, to urgently negotiate a solution with the EU so that we can have full access to and from Northern Ireland for normal commerce, or, if the EU is determined not to allow that to happen, to take the administrative steps necessary to make sure that our internal market works smoothly and argue the case that the Northern Ireland protocol states that that is part of its objective and so should be enforced.

I welcome many things in the Gracious Speech. I am glad that the Government give great priority to providing the resources to support the innovations and new ideas in the health service. The health service needs to build itself back on all the non-covid-19 treatments and procedures after its valiant fight against this awful illness, and it will take those extra resources that the Government are promising.

There are innovations in the way that healthcare can be delivered, treatment offered and investigations undertaken following the covid-19 period that I am sure our Secretary of State will be very keen to ensure the NHS works up professionally to make a better service.

However, I urge the Government to address a series of problems that seem to be cropping up in various parts of the country relating to some surgeries that are not up to the standards of the best or the good regarding access to healthcare and appointments.

I think everybody wants the reassurance that as the NHS gets back to a better balance in its working, everyone who feels they need an appointment can get through on the phone or on the internet and have early triage and early settlement in a suitable online or face-to-face appointment, depending on their needs.

We are hearing about cases at some surgeries around the country where people cannot get through, where the phone lines are restricted, where the timing of the phone calls is limited, or where there are not enough appointments on offer and no forward booking. I hope that there can be guidelines on minimum standards so that people everywhere feel that they have access to excellent NHS care just as most people do who have good surgeries and good doctors.

I welcome the animal welfare measures in the proposals. One of benefits of making more of our own decisions is that we can and should set higher welfare standards, and I am glad that the Government are taking that up.

I welcome the wish to do more for veterans, and we must ensure that the covenant is properly legislated for. I hope the Government will consider the whole issue of housing, because one unsatisfactory feature of some service careers and lives is that when people leave after many years of good service, they have no deposit for a house and there is no availability of one, because they have been living in service-provided accommodation for many years.

I hope the Government will consider more imaginative schemes that either support service personnel to buy a home of their own while still in the services, or help them with savings and the necessary arrangements to get the right combination of deposit and mortgage when they leave after many years of good service. We want our veterans to be better housed, and not to fall through the cracks because of the service they have given and their dependence on state-provided accommodation that lasts only as long as their service.

I hope the Government will take a stronger line on defending our fish and restoring our fishing industry. We must do lots of work before the so-called transition is over. Many Brexit voters look to the Government to provide that back-up to our fishing industry, and to ensure proper standards, regulation and control of our fishing grounds, and that our own industry is properly looked after.

I also hope we will soon get some VAT reductions or cancellations. VAT was imposed on a range of items that, if left to its own devices, the UK Parliament probably would not have chosen. That should be part of the Brexit bonus.

I hope the Government will work more, as the Gracious Speech implied, on national resilience. That issue is becoming common—indeed, President Biden is working hard on that in the United States of America. We have seen how, if we become too dependent on overseas interests, we must be careful in the field of energy. We have seen our French neighbours threatening Jersey over the energy supply that it currently receives from an interconnector to France.

I hope the Government will learn a lesson from that. Interconnectors under the sea are vulnerable if other countries are hostile to us, because of the physical location of the cable. We should move our policy from one of increasing dependence on more interconnectors to import energy, to one of wanting self-sufficiency and capacity in the United Kingdom. We always used to have that, and surely it would be a good source of jobs and investment if we set ourself the target of getting back to meeting our own needs in whatever suitable style the Government wish.

I am glad the Government are talking about broadband and threats to the internet. We must ensure that, with the right amount of Government support and a great deal of private-led investment, we get fast broadband throughout the country, for both business and home use, as that is a big part of our future.

We saw how dependent we have become on broadband as we made special arrangements for the pandemic, and many of those changes will live on in whole or in part. We therefore need that much better capacity and performance. The national resilience strategy must ensure some of the building blocks. Indeed, we literally need more building blocks, basic materials and capacity for the construction industry, but we must also produce enough of things such as steel and aluminium to have that resilience should problems emerge in the world’s supply system.

I am pleased that the Government will consider public procurement. Now that we are free to make more of our own decisions, it is right to review the huge sums of money that the Government spend on buying in goods and services, and ask ourselves whether, while preserving sensible competitive process, we can ensure that more of that money is well spent on United Kingdom supply. In some areas I feel that we resort too easily to the overseas option, and at a time when other great countries around the world are taking steps to ensure more of their own internal capacity, the United Kingdom must do that as well.

Building back better should be about making sure, with that right mixture of public demand—perhaps sometimes with public pump-priming, but more often with a lot of private investment—that we start to replace some of that lost capacity and substitute for some of those imports, because our balance of payments deficit is still very large.

I was very interested to see a quote from the Labour deputy leader, the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), in recent days, where she said:
“Working-class people don’t want a handout or someone telling us what we should think. We want the opportunities to do it for ourselves.”

I think those are a great couple of sentences. In a way, the Government have got there first, and quite a few of the things that the Government are saying and some of the things that the Government are doing in this Gracious Speech are about just that.

Levelling up is not about making people more dependent on the state throughout the country with a sort of competitive bidding process to see who can get the most money from the state; it is about spending state money intelligently and making state interventions intelligently where only the state can go in areas such as transport and support for those in difficulty, while at the same time generating many more good private sector jobs, allowing many more businesses to flourish and allowing many more people to gain skills and trade for themselves. Through that we can have a more diverse, more private sector-led economy in the areas of the country that have not been as prosperous or have had higher unemployment than we would like.

I welcome everything in the Queen’s Speech, which promotes a great recovery and offers many more hand-ups for people, so that they do not need so many handouts. We need to have that active promotion of success and ensure that people feel they have opportunities. We have to make sure that companies feel they have opportunities, that there will be more better-paid jobs, that we help people who wish to train for them and that training is available so that people can go on that journey from a less well paid job to a better-paid job.

Above all, we need more measures—tax and otherwise —to help people expand their own small businesses or to see that self-employment is a good option that might give them a better life and a higher income. We do that by lower taxes, by smarter regulations and by a Government who spend their money on buying great UK products and services and allow some of that spending to filter into small companies, as well as into the usual large companies that provide so much of the public procurement that is domestically provided.

I welcome the Queen’s Speech. I want to see a rapid and strong recovery. I want a recovery that is all about many more better-paid jobs, harnessing a lot more private investment, expanding our industrial and service provision capacity and widening people’s boundaries and opportunities.

I trust that our freeports, when they come, will have wide boundaries and a very generous offer, because they could be some of the pioneers of the enterprise spirit we will need in the places that we wish to level up. I wish to see the right repairs and improvements to the public estate, so that it is something of which we are proud. That goes alongside the levelling up, which will entail a lot of private investment and private job creation.

That surely is the future. By all means level up; let us do it by promoting great investment and by having excellence in the public sector, where only the public sector can operate.

The first quarter trade figures for the UK show a sharp decline in the trade deficit, Much of this relates to higher stock levels last year which needed using up. The figures also show, however, some shift in our pattern of imports, bringing in less from the EU and more from the rest of the world. This probably reflects the aggressive and unhelpful stance of the EU over trade matters.

If we compare the month of March 2021 with March 2019 before the pandemic disrupted economies and trade we see a £1.3bn fall in imports of EU miscellaneous manufactures, a £2.8bn fall in imports of EU machinery and transport items, a £0.4bn fall in EU food and a £2bn fall in EU chemicals. In contrast the same period sees a rise of £0.2bn in rest of the world imported miscellaneous manufactures, a much smaller £0.5bn fall in rest of the world machinery and transport, a £0.1bn increase in rest of the world food and a £0.6bn increase in rest of the world chemical imports. It is always a better idea to be helpful to customers, as the rest of the world is demonstrating.

The left-right analysis stemmed from the division of the French National Assembly in to supporters of the King and supporters of the Revolution, with the King’s people sitting to the right and the revolutionaries to the left. As some have mentioned here it  no longer represents a great way of explaining the complex positions and views of  modern political parties.

Today in the UK as we can see from recent election results there is still a divide between Remain and Leave. Maybe a quarter of the country still regrets the decision to leave the EU and actively encourages the Lib Dems, SNP and Labour to adopt negative tactics against all things related to Brexit instead of accepting the democratic verdict. Labour’s decision to send a Remain former MP who had done his bit to derail and delay Brexit into Hartlepool where most people want Brexit was a needless added difficulty for the  party in that important by election. All the time these Opposition parties fight the will of the people and the reality that we are now out they will find it very difficult to build more support and creep towards a majority.

The SNP are trying to divide the country over whether the Union of the UK should remain or whether it is time to split up the UK. The EU from outside is also seeking to split the UK with its one sided, heavy handed and legalistic approach to Northern Ireland relations with the Republic. None of these identity issues, Brexit/Union/EU relations is a right/left matter, with people from all parts of the so called right-left spectrum holding differing views on identity. We now know people have been  willing to move their vote from Labour and Lib Dems to Brexit parties and then to Conservatives owing to the refusal of Labour and the Lib Dems to back and help Brexit. In Scotland Some Conservative and Labour voters were voting tactically for each other  to support the Union.

A third important division in  our country is between lovers of liberty and supporters of more government control. There are some lovers of liberty on the left, as well as many on the right. There is an authoritarian left and a civil libertarian left, just as there is a law and order right and a freedom loving right. CV 19 has brought this out , with some supporting prolonged lockdown and precise instructions over how we should lead our lives whilst others support people making more of  their own judgements. Again traditional party lines do not reflect this division.

 

Meanwhile the main parties agree on a lot. They agree about climate change and the need to pursue net zero. They agree about membership of NATO, the desirability of the so called international rules based order, and the need to encourage tolerance and understanding for all people whatever their background. They agree about the importance of the NHS and free schooling.  Challenger parties to these views have attracted very little support.

There needs to be a clear division on economic policy, with Conservatives backing growth through setting competitive  tax rates, encouraging free enterprise, backing self employment and going for growth.The next few months are best spent securing a strong recovery, helping create many  more well paid jobs and bringing home Brexit wins.

 

The Queen’s speech debate gives the government a great opportunity to set out a vision of a better future for the UK, and to specify those actions government needs to take to bring it about.

Let us assume that the overarching vision is one of recovery from the ravages of the anti pandemic policies. We will doubtless hear plenty about levelling up, and about building back better. It is important the message of Hartlepool and the other places where Conservatives polled well is understood by the government. Voters in these places aspire for a better future for themselves, their families and their towns. They are  not asking for more government. They are asking for more personal and family success. They are  not expecting the state to do everything for them. They want the opportunities to build their own futures. Of course they would like the state to do what only the state can do. It does  need to improve the public transport and roads systems, and improve the look and use of public sector land and buildings, In some cases it needs to sell clapped out and run down public sector estate to someone who can use it better.

Much of it requires the state to do less and to let people keep more of their own money. Many want to own a home of their own. They are not looking for more social housing where they are told where to live and how the property will look and be maintained. More people want to get to retirement with a home they own and no rent bills to pay as pensioners.

Many people recognise they cannot work in a council office or a government administrative job. They want more chance to become self employed and build a decent business, or more better paid jobs in the private sector where they might get a   bonus or even a share participation. They see others elsewhere make capital out of their business ventures as well as enjoying a decent income. Aspiration includes working for yourself, building some capital, getting some savings so you have more options and more freedoms.

So what policies and laws does this need? It does mean lower tax rates so people can keep more of what they earn and save. It does mean government helping business to provide more affordable homes for sale. It does mean an exercise to remove barriers and costs to setting up and running your own business. It means government using its massive buying power to source more at home and less from abroad, to encourage local business successes. It means Councils who provide good public services, keep the public realm tidy,  but let the private sector get on with providing a wide array of goods and services to enrich lives and create more well paid livelihoods.