I have been hugely supportive of the ideas behind the Conservatives’ plans for decentralisation, transparency and accountability. While, in some cases, I think they could go further, they are a coherent, sensible and absolutely thought-through response to the problems facing society.
But I have generally been a bit concerned about two things: one, that there won’t be sufficient numbers of people to carry them through; and two, that decisions made locally will inevitably result in accusations of postcode lotteries. For me, that is the whole point of localism – that local communities decide what they want, and attract (or not) businesses, families and activities to their area. But for politicians, postcode lotteries are seen as deadly.
So well done George and Francis for fronting up to this argument now. Yes, there will be differences in provision – that is the precisely the aim of localism: local decisions will mean local priorities and actions. And no, a potential Conservative government will not (well – will try to resist the temptation to do so, at least) step in and order local institutions to do things differently.
Someone I discussed this with last night said, “That’s exactly the point, people will have to move house” – actually, no. The point is that because people will be able to choose where to go for health services, schooling and so on, they will be able to weigh up their options and decide what is best for them. And if enough people don’t like what’s going on in their area, local deliverers of services will – crucially – be sufficiently accountable that people can make them change.
On a related note, as I said, I’ve always been a touch gloomy about the capacity and the desire and the quality of those who take up the localist challenge to generate sufficient weight and long-term commitment to their local activities. I have come to the conclusion that working for a political party for so long meant that I was being too pessimistic about human nature.
Because I spent so long nitpicking over individuals’ votes, over any deviation from a party line, examining scandals that no-one outside Westminster actually cares about, I became entirely focused on the bad. But in fact, the way that localism should work is that, in time, and probably relatively quickly, people who gain freedom will push that freedom further. You could compare it to the way that the nationalised industries were freed up in the 1980s – rather than always asking the relevant minister if they could do something, the managers did it if it was right for them and their business. Clearly, they made some decisions that were right, and some that were wrong; but in the end taking their own decisions meant that they succeeded or failed on their own account.
So for example, as Oliver outlined at yesterday’s Tory Reform Group meeting, councils will, like the rest of us, be given a universal power of competence and thereby be allowed to do whatever they want as long as they are not specifically prohibited from doing it. That is a huge, seismic change in culture, and experience shows that once a body is allowed freedom, it takes it up with a vengeance.
This is what the Conservatives’ policy platform is all about: people taking their lives back into their own hands. The man in Whitehall demonstrably does not know best; it’s time to let the man on the street decide.
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