A Bold And Radical Agenda Means Devolving Choice And Control To The People
Speaking to the annual conference of the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives in Brighton on Wednesday 13th October, former Cabinet Minister Stephen Byers said:
“the Labour Party is at its most successful when it has a reforming agenda, with the commitment to enact the bold reforms necessary to meet the new challenges that come from the raised expectations of the public.
“We must recognise that in order to deliver opportunity and security in the modern world there is a necessity to look again at the whole relationship between the state, its citizens and the way in which public services are provided.
“We can be proud of the achievements of the 1945 Labour government. However, we have now come to the stage when we need to recognise that the welfare state it created and the model of public services it provided were a product of its time. It is vital that this Labour government does not become a prisoner of it.
“What was the right course of action at the time of austerity and rationing no longer meets the needs and aspirations of people in the modern world. They are ambitious for themselves, their children and the communities in which they live – government needs to share these ambitions.
“After the Second World War control and direction from the centre was understandably the order of the day. As a result the liberal socialist tradition of localism, devolution and mutualism as promoted by Robert Owen, the Webbs and Tawney was rejected. Today, we need to revisit and endorse their approach.
“That is why we need a new settlement. One which ensures that public services are universal and thus an engine of equality, and yet personalised so that they can reflect the priorities of local people and respond to the needs of the individual.
“This will mean that the role of the government is not to dictate and assume the responsibility for everything but neither is it to stand back and leave families and the communities in which they live to fight the full effects of market forces as the neo-cons in the Tory Party would do.
“We must have an approach which finds a way of bringing communities together by strengthening responsibility and supporting ambition.
“If trust is to be re-established in politics then we, the politicians, have to be prepared to give up power we presently hold and pass it on.
“If Labour is serious about enacting a bold and radical agenda then it must devolve choice and control to the people. This will be uncomfortable to many but it is the only way forward.
“Power should be transferred from the state to the individual. There has recently been much debate about individual choice. Not enough attention has been paid to the importance of collective choice.
“In areas like policing and health provision power needs to lie in the hands of local communities. This would be done through direct elections to police boards or Primary Care Trusts.
“But we could also go much further:
- Why not give a local community the power to change a poorly performing local service? After all it is their money that is being used to pay for it.
- Why not support local communities who choose, on a voluntary basis, to raise money to fund what they regard as a priority service like additional policing or community safety provision?
- Why not create directly elected community councils with the power to tackle local crime and quality of life issues?
“The lesson for government is that we must have confidence in the British people. They know their priorities. We shall fail them if we falter in the mission of reform.”
