David Cameron put climate change at the heart of his campaign to transform and modernise the Conservative Party. I don’t doubt his personal commitment or that of many other Ministers and MPs. However the same cannot be said for the entire Conservative Parliamentary Party, with a significant number of climate change sceptics on both front and backbenches.
 
Not long before the General Election, TimMontgomerie, a former CCHQ staffer and editor of the influential website Conservative Home, suggested that “80-90 per cent” of my party are “just not signed up” to the climate change agenda. His comments were backed up by a poll of Conservative candidates in the 250 most winnable seats conducted through his website before the election. Candidates were asked to rank 19 different policy priorities in order of importance. Britain’s carbon footprint came bottom.
 
It may sometimes be effective to shift the focus of the argument. Those who are sceptical about climate change and the need to cut GHG emissions may still accept theoverriding need for more investment in energy efficiency, thedesirability of new nuclear power stations and even of some forms of renewable energy because both help to cut our dependence on imported oil and gas. The dangers of being vulnerable to the whims of volatile foreign regimes that may not always be friendly unites climate change sceptics and enthusiastic greens alike.
 
We must persuade the public that it is in Britain’s economic interests to move to a low carbon economy faster than other countries, not least to give us a competitive edge. This will not be easy, but if the carbon price rises substantially as the world economy recovers and other nations get tougher with emitters, then we will have a very significant advantage if we have already invested in low carbon electricity generating capacity, low emission transport infrastructure and environmentally-friendly buildings.
Low carbon products and services will be a growth market in the medium to long term, as trends in the car industry already show.
 
Now is the time to invest in research and development of the products and services that will be in demand as the low carbon revolution takes place. Clean coal in particular offers immense international potential, and the Government should continue to prioritise the demonstration of carbon capture and storage.
 
The EU has a role to play in the big picture. If aligned with either China or India, it would easily outweigh America on the global stage. Imagine a common EU/China or EU/India standard for electricity generation or for buildings. The rest of the world would have to pay attention. Of course the EU’s approach to these issues may at present be poles apart from both China and India, but it must be worth at least exploring the possible benefits of bilateral agreements with those countries even if initially such agreements were only voluntary.
 
David Cameron is inheriting a far more difficult and complex situation than anyone foresaw. When that iconic photograph was taken of him dog sledding in Norway, en route to view the retreating icebergs, nobody had any idea of the looming global financial meltdown. His green enthusiasm in the early days of his leadership proved how the Conservatives had changed but those were very different times.
 
Nonetheless there is no going back now. One measure by which his Government will be judged is whether it accelerates the transformation of Britain to a low carbon economy.

Posted by Administrator on behalf of Tim Yeo MP. Tim is MP for South Suffolk, and chairman of the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee.

The full pamphlet, Green Gold, can be downloaded from the Tory Reform Group

Last Thursday the Institute for Government hosted a discussion entitled “The Future of Conservative Thinking”. The heavyweight panel consisted of Nick Boles MP (a member of Cameron’s inner circle), Phillip Blond (Director of Respublica), James Forsyth (Deputy Editor of the Spectator), and Jonty Olliff-Cooper (part of Demos’ Progressive Conservatism Project). 

Big Society Is My Society 

Jonty Olliff-Cooper kicked off the evening by saying Cameron’s goal should be to become the weakest Prime Minister we have ever had. By this he meant the Conservatives enacting the spirit of one of their campaign chants: “Power to the People”. Citizens must become authors of the services they use and reconnect with the processes that impact on their surroundings. Labour’s addiction to legislation created a mood in society where people no longer believed they could be a part of government-run initiatives. If something was the responsibility of the state it was no longer the responsibility of any individual. Why should I pick-up litter in the street? It’s too much hassle to report that bit of graffiti at the end of my road. And so on. 

All those in positions of authority, whether they are ministers of state or local council executives, need to change the prism through which the policy formation process takes place. Those who have the resources need to consider how their decisions will enable people rather than how they exclusively can deliver a solution. The role of government is to make engagement easier.  The environment in which intellectual officials come up with abstract solutions for problems of which they have no practical experience must change. The workings of Whitehall, and city halls, must evolve into a culture where decisions are made based on getting users to solve the problems they face. Successfully reducing the size of the state apparatus in the long-term is all about reducing the demand for government intervention.  

For Jonty, if in five years time the word ‘government’ has been separated from the word ‘bureaucracy’ then Cameron can rightly claim he has presided over a truly transformative regime.  

A Pragmatic Politician Reacting to Radical Times  

James Forsyth made the point that Cameron himself is not a particularly ideological thinker. He is a traditional organic Conservative. The combination of the electorate’s distaste for politicians and the financial swamp which emerged after the credit-crunch, means that his government must be a truly reformist administration. Modern Conservatives’ big and radical ideas are driven by the huge and deep-rooted problems that were left on Cameron’s desk when he arrived at No10. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when Britain’s senior mandarin first briefed Cameron on the true state of Britain and then asked “What now, Prime Minister?” The Big Society concept is a practical solution for the actual problems we face (i.e. over centralised control, unaffordable processes, disconnected solutions) and for dealing with the deep-rooted symptoms of alienation, disempowerment and apathy. 

The two most interesting areas to observe if you are a watcher of ‘modern conservative thinking’ will be welfare reform and how different sections of the party react to the Alternative Vote (AV) referendum. On the latter point, James is convinced that at least one Tory cabinet member will campaign for AV, though he did not speculate as to whom this might be. The great unknown is whether this coalition will be an aberration in UK political history and if, in five years time, we will all return to standard first-past-the-post politics, or whether coalitions will become more common. The answer to this question will shape the future of our politics.  

Can you transplant a think-tank into a ministry? Iain Duncan Smith, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, has been working on welfare reform for over six years at his think-tank, the Centre for Social Justice. Most governments say they want to reform the welfare system only to back out when hard decisions have to be taken. The economic situation means that delay in reforming welfare is not an option if we want to live in a solvent country. Like AV, welfare has the potential to really test the foundations of the Coalition, as Conservatives and Lib Dems tend to have competing philosophies around what is important in this area. 

21^st Century Social Conservatism 

Nick Boles MP has always been interested in how Conservatives reconcile their socially conservative instincts with a world where social liberalism has become engrained in our culture. One of the most radical advancements ‘Team Cameron’ has made is to fundamentally modernise social conservatism by making it relevant to our times. For me this shift in mindset can be best described as Conservatives focusing on promoting values to all rather than making moral judgements about some. The institution of marriage has many benefits for the individuals involved and society as a whole. These benefits should be accessible to anyone who wants to make the necessary commitment, thus it’s natural for Conservatives to be strong supporters of civil partnerships.  

Nick confirmed that current Conservative thinking is a reflection of the culture of this country. Despite its wealth, Britain is not often at ease with itself. People need to be encouraged to gain understanding of their environment through talking to one another. Side-ways communication is the glue that can hold our country together and government should concentrate on making these side-ways chats happen. Some might say it is a paradox that you need the state to foster the ‘Big Society’ idea but this is only a paradox if you believe the state in all its forms is bad. The state is not bad; it was just deployed badly under New Labour. Unfortunately, certain areas of the state will be resistant to a change in mindset but like any careful gardener the government should prune obstructive branches in order to let the good parts blossom. 

Tapping Into The Power of Trust 

The big unknown in Conservativism is discovering the next economic model. The Cameron agenda was created in a different economic framework when everyone thought the argument over which economic system should be adopted had been won by free-marketeers. ‘Sharing the proceeds of growth’ was transformed by the financial collapse of 2008 into ‘we are all in this together’. A new sustainable economic system needs to be developed, one which allows everyone to take part in society. George Osborne has adapted his economic beliefs since the credit crunch. His team are now exploring the idea that there should be a prominent role for Government in supporting particular growth industries. Rather than subsidising individual companies, Conservatives may offer resources towards promoting specific industries. Depending on how this is done the Tories could mend the relationship that Thatcher obliterated with the mechanical North and Scotland. 

Phillip Blond is adamant that free association, through non-state civic groups, can offer the UK a new economic model that has the potential to include everyone. The current systems are corrupted so any political movement that wants to be relevant must ask itself what went wrong and why the West is no longer developing. New politics and new economics will have the greatest chance of success if they are born in relationships that are based on trust. One of the roles of Government needs to be in creating open trust networks where people do not need bureaucracy because there exists ethos and intimacy. Those who cynically dismiss the possibilities of this happening should look at Zopa, the person-to-person lending service, or E-bay, the on-line auction house. In a system such as E-bay a person’s trust rating is often worth more than a single financial transaction. This fact and the innate human desire to live in a fair and orderly society means that 135 million people each year give money to complete strangers for products they mostly have never seen. By tapping into the nature of trust it should be possible to significantly reduce transaction costs. 

Phillip predicts that the Coalition will deliver mass mutualism because our future relies heavily on the success of relationships in economic environments. 

The Future Of Conservatism Is Now 

I left the event with many thoughts buzzing round my head, and two overriding conclusions:

• Conservative thinking is very much of importance now. The Tory leadership does not have much time to reflect as the responsibility of power demands that Cameron puts in place a strategy to deal with the issues this country faces. Conservative thinking in the future will be a reaction to the success and failures of what is done today.
• Progressive Conservative ‘think-tanks’ need to become ‘do-tanks’ if they are to keep their relevance. Organisations that believe in the Big Society and Post-bureaucratic age agendas should now be able to put their thinking into action as the Government is keen to devolve responsibility to outside Government organisations. It’s now time for those who talk the talk to walk the walk.

In a year’s time, the Institute for Government should reconvene this discussion under the updated title: “The Future of Conservative Doing”.

I recently wrote about the possibility that having a Coalition government could in fact undermine the ultimate proof that the Conservative party has changed – in other words, that people would think that the Lib Dems were the ones doing all the good things, and the Tories all the bad things.

Of course, it’s generally assumed (though not always true) that the larger party in a coalition takes the credit for the good things, and the smaller party takes the blame. I think that in the UK, we could in fact be the opposite – the Lib Dems did pretty well taking the credit in the Scottish Parliament, for example.

Maybe it’s just a Lib Dem thing? Anyway, I’ve been thinking further about this one.

This week, the Budget has been the big story. It has been stoutly defended by Shirley Williams (on Newsnight and on the Week in Westminster), Vince Cable (great job on Question Time) and Nick Clegg (slightly shellshocked interview on Today).  But there have also been a number of Lib Dems who, in carefully worded arguments, have tried to firstly say that they will amend the Budget to make it more progressive and secondly that they knew for a fact that the ideologically driven Tories were held back in their slashing and burning by Lib Dems.

It is unlikely that any serious amendments will be made to the Budget, not least because while individual sections seem to be unfair, the package as a whole is designed to be as fair as it’s possible to be while still succeeding in sorting out the financial mess. There will be further measures, as for example Iain Duncan Smith outlined, which will go further in making work rather than benefit claiming pay – but that is a separate point, and will work in a different way.

It is also very unseemly for individual MPs to be trying to claim that it was only Lib Dems that saved us all from the baby-eating Tories. Much of the strength of the Coalition rests on the fact that it has entwined the two parties so comprehensively, and that every single announcement and spokesman underlines that it is agreed Coalition policy.

I wonder if there needs to be a reminder to both parties, perhaps from the’ Whips offices, about the nature and necessity of the Coalition, combined with a warning that this is exactly why Labour are so keen to attack the Lib Dems rather than the Conservatives. Because if the Coalition is to last, and be able to take the necessary decisions for the country, they cannot fracture under pressure. They took this historic step for a variety of reasons, and they must all be prepared to see it through.

I am a huge supporter of the Coalition. I think it has enormous potential to achieve great things. I think it should last the full five years, and I think it will radically change our society for the better.

So far, so good.

But in purely party political terms, could it actually be bad for the Tories? I wrote, before it was first agreed, about the benefits and risks to both parties. One (background) part of my assessment was that it provided useful cover to both parties to ditch commitments that were slightly batty, unaffordable and out of tune either with these austere times or with the generally liberal, decentralising attitude that the Coalition holds. And yet…

That useful cover may in fact be a hidden danger. I was talking to someone over the weekend who on paper is a true swing voter but who is absolutely DEAD against voting Conservative “because they’re Tories and I remember what they were like in the 80s”. That attitude is really hard to counter (reading today’s Guardian’s CiF comments is just a flavour of the scale of it).

Of course, actually being in government and proving those doubters wrong about Conservatives’ motives and actions is the ultimate ‘decontamination’. What I’m beginning to wonder is whether the way that this government is formed may in fact be counter-productive in achieving that.

When it comes to the next election, we’ve got two sets of candidates, governing together, but each trying to paint the other side’s more ideological wings as the enemy. We’ve then got two political parties – which, by definition, are made up of the more activist, more convinced, more ideological parts of society – and which are both coming to terms with working with each other nationally, and the compromises and difficulties that inevitably come from that.

It seems that the Lib Dems’ work to take their party with the negotiators went a long way to assuaging many activists’ fears – or at least allowing them to be aired. I wonder whether the Tories shouldn’t have done something similar? Because there is no real outlet or forum for discussion privately within the party, it often seems as if only the extremes have a voice – and therefore only those who are discontent are heard. We hear a lot about the Tory right and about rebel backbenchers and so one – but what isn’t mentioned is that the great majority of MPs, members, and voters are supportive of what David Cameron is doing with and has done for the party.

Yet isn’t the danger – particularly for the Tories – that the ultimate decontamination of actually showing what they can do for the good in government could be undermined by the perception that it was force of circumstance rather than a desire to actually be a good, fair and trustworthy government that meant they were a good government?

Personally I – it goes without saying – think that a majority Conservative government would also have been a good one. I do think that the optimism and consensus building that the Coalition has produced are beneficial. I also think we can admit that the two leaders – Nick Clegg and David Cameron – probably have more in common with each other than that do with the outer wings of their parties; and I do think that Betapolitics’ post yesterday may well have something in it. But in achieving this historic and potentially revolutionary coalition government, have we set back the modernising cause?

“We are all in this together” George Osborne told us in 2009.

We now know that ‘this’ is a £156billion black hole. It’s the equivalent of more than £31,000 for every person in employment. Every household will pay £1,896 this year, just to cover the interest. Let’s just stop and think about what that actually means. People have a tendency to worry about relatively small problems, while conveniently ignoring the nasty bigger picture. As Joseph Stalin pointed out: “One death is a tragedy, one million is a statistic”. 

David Cameron today delivered a speech on “transforming the British economy”. But he did not mention the finance sector.  He said that there are problems, such as the fact that we borrow one pound for every four that we spend. But there was no talk about how the government could stop a future financial collapse. Ideas were floated, including cutting red tape and rebalancing the economy. But there was no vision as to how to reform the British economy as a whole. While, earlier in the week, Osborne had discussed the necessary cuts, I was hoping that Cameron would deal with the necessary reforms. 

Superhumans don’t exist 

Those with responsibility should always be publicly aware of the weaknesses in a system and their associated risks. All institutions, whether they are banks, ministries or churches, are run by humans. All sectors, whether finance, groceries or government, are made up of people making decisions for the benefit of a certain group of people.

If an institution or sector forgets that they are human, thus fallible, they start to believe that the rules and constraints which govern our society are not applicable to them. When this superiority takes hold it’s cetain that a big fall will happen.

When Gordon Brown claimed the current financial system had achieved the end of boom and bust, he laid mental foundations that inevitably led to the biggest financial crisis for generations. Why bother fixing the roof if it’s never going to rain? Why should we limit speculators as their actions always lead to prosperity? Why shouldn’t we have an over-reliance on one sector, at the expense of others, as that sector will always provide sunshine?  

No sector should be too big to fail us 

Labour, continuing the trend started by Thatcher, put all of our eggs into one basket, and that basket was the Square Mile in London. Tony Blair was so starry-eyed towards those who he considered to be the masters of the universe that I suspect he always considered being PM a stepping stone towards becoming today’s international business gigolo. I am encouraged that Cameron said: “Our economy has become more and more unbalanced, with our fortunes hitched to a few industries in one corner of the country, while we let other sectors like manufacturing slide”. 

Reorganising our economy will hurt those who are used to being worshipped but it is worth putting up with their howls of protests in order to improve our country, as a whole. 

A year ago Simon Johnson analysed the US in the same way that the IMF would look at a failed banana republic. He found that US finance industry leaders had become oligarchic, and had captured the government and its regulatory functions. This supremacy was based on the premise that the interests of the finical sector were the same as the interests of the country, hence if you did anything to restrict or harm the financial sector you were automatically harming everyone. The coalition government has to loudly consign this mindset to the dustbin – otherwise meaningful reform is impossible.  

Apply moral standards to finance 

Reform of the financial services sector should inject moral obligations and public service principles into the greed-infested veins of the banking system. The banking system is a part of our society. A government’s duty is to defend and promote us, not to prop up the finance system. Finance should be considered in the same way as one looks at a regulated utility. Our society depends on the flow of money as much as we depend on water and heat. Rather than using this as a reason why governments should not say boo to those who operate in this area I believe that this necessity means that the financial sector should be watched over carefully. Banks should have to prove how their actions are compliant with public obligations. These obligations, which must be clear, transparent and achievable, need to be defined through a consultation process. My starter for ten is:

• Banks must prove that they can cover the risks they take.
• Banks’ liabilities should be made public so that consumers can compare the risks each institution has taken on before choosing a product.
• Bonuses should be calculated and paid five years after they are earned.
• If the mechanics of a financial product cannot be understood by the regulator then it cannot be sold.

 Strength of vision 

Just before the election campaign Cameron talked about how he would challenge vested interests. This is important because you cannot change a system unless you make life uncomfortable for some of the current beneficiaries. To do this you must be a strong leader. 

Today’s speech did not contain the necessary vision, strength and leadership which are needed for the predicament we are in. The public know that mending our economy will be painful in parts. But they won’t accept the hurt unless those responsible feel their fair share of discomfort and people believe that the government has a strong vision about how to create a better future. Today’s speech didn’t come close to suggesting that either of these goals will happen.