Labour in government has a chance to put the needs of people and planet front and centre. In the legislative programme for its first year in office, announced in the King’s Speech, it promises greater public control over services and infrastructure in several key sectors.
Renationalising the rail operating companies, increasing local authority bus franchising powers, and lifting the ban on new municipally owned bus services are important first steps towards a reliable public transport system.
Great British Energy will be a “new, publicly-owned energy production company which will own, manage and operate clean power projects up and down the country”, as well as coordinate investment in partnership with the private sector. While this is an important step in the right direction, Common Wealth call for more investment than the £8.3bn pledged and a retail arm to bring more coherence to the UK’s fragmented energy system by selling energy directly to consumers.
It is promising to see the environment feature prominently in nine of the 40 bills revealed last week, including for transport and energy policy. Importantly, green measures are being proposed as part of the approach to tackle the cost-of-living. A truly just transition depends on linking the economic, social and environmental spheres so that they support and reinforce each other.
The Renters’ Rights Bill deserves recognition too, with the long overdue abolition of Section 21 no fault evictions. This legislation is an important first step in empowering private renters, whose housing needs are routinely neglected by a legal and economic system that favours landlords and the financialisation of property.
Workers’ needs have also moved higher up the agenda. Within the Employment Rights Bill, the New Deal for Workers brings forward key reforms, including the ban on zero hours contracts, an end to fire-and-rehire and extended trade union rights. Unions have voiced their approval of these measures.
Enhancing devolved powers has the capacity to reinvigorate and strengthen local economies, as detailed in the English Devolution Bill. Labour recognises that the UK’s political system is highly centralised compared with other developed nations, and that it makes sense to make more decisions locally to cater for local needs.
Some aspects of Labour’s programme are less promising. Housebuilding, via private developers, is the new government’s answer to the housing crisis. Yet evidence shows that housing supply alone does not explain and cannot solve this problem. And even if it could, construction at the scale anticipated will consume our entire carbon budget. Instead, eco-social policies should be employed to make better use of existing building stock across the UK and increase social renting. Homes have been treated as financial assets over decades, contributing to the UK experiencing the highest rate of homelessness in the OECD today. To overcome this, Labour must reform our monetary, financial and tax systems too.
Economic stability and growth, before anything else, form the backbone of Labour’s programme. Consequently, the Budget Responsibility Bill heads their legislative agenda. It locks in stringent spending rules, stifling urgently required public investment in many areas. Reluctance to spend enough underpins the entire project and will undermine the efficacy of otherwise promising initiatives. Public services are crying out for investment – the Centre for Progressive Policy estimates that £142bn is needed annually just to maintain public services at their current (dysfunctional) level. Fiscal rules are used to justify refusal (so far) to overturn the two-child benefit cap, unnecessarily subjecting hundreds of thousands of families to poverty. Labour insists that investment in public services will not happen until the economy ‘grows’.
A serious flaw in the government’s argument is assuming that economic growth will happen swiftly (or at all) without investing in more and better public services. But the economy depends on people and people will not flourish if their basic needs remain unmet. If people don’t flourish, the economy will not prosper. The government could change its fiscal rules and borrow to invest in our social infrastructure. This would pay for itself through economic gains resulting from more and better healthcare, education and jobs.
New forms of taxation could also help to deliver a transformative programme. The government has already introduced three new redistributive forms of tax, including ending tax breaks for private schools, closing non-dom loopholes and windfall taxes on energy corporations. Going further, the billions of pounds required to fix our public services, implement a just transition and revitalise the economy could be harnessed through capital gains, corporation and other wealth taxes.
Overall, there’s reason to be optimistic but policymakers, campaigners and local communities must keep up the pressure on government to deliver groundbreaking policy and practice. Greater ambition is required to tackle the cost-of-living and climate crises.
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