Check Against Delivery

I’d like to thank Compass, and Gavin Hayes and Neal Lawson, for all the work they do.

Let me start by saying some people will have come to the Compass conference this morning not feeling that confident. The last few months have not been a few months to make people feel confident or optimistic – and that reflects difficult economic and political times

Our first duty is to steer the economy through these difficulties, but I want to talk today about the wider political task we face.

I want to reflect at the beginning that there are a couple of reasons the Left should be feeling optimistic at the moment.

One of them is that the challenges of the time demand progressive solutions – whether it’s globalisation or climate change, they make the case for government more not less strong. This is not the 1970s, when the tide was going out on collectivism. And it’s not the early 1990s, when the tide was going out on Tory individualism: I don’t detect a big change in the ideological mood against progressive politics.

And you can see that from what the Tories want to say, which is that somehow the choice at the next election will be between progressive goals and Labour people or progressive goals and Tory people.

These are reasons to be optimistic, reasons to think that the longest-running dilemma in politics, that between idealism and electoralism, is one that in the next election will see idealism and electoralism not as enemies but as allies. The pursuit of principle and the things we believe in, and the need to remain in power, come together.

And so how do we take advantage – and this is what I want to talk about today – of the fact that idealism and electoralism come together and are allies?

And I see three things.

First, we need to show why the record that we have had over the last 11 years is a reflection on the success of progressive values. It’s not “my government right or wrong”, but a sense that this is the foundation of the next stage of the mission.

Second, we need to show that we have a big mission for the country that speaks to people’s lives. I want to say a little bit about what that is, and it’s the subject of our debates and discussions today and in the coming months.

And thirdly, we have to show why the Tories can’t achieve the ends and the ideals that I’ve set out.

Why is it important to talk about the record?

Because there are people out there who are desperate to say that the last eleven years have been a failed experiment in social democracy. That the spending, the government action – that all of it hasn’t worked and it’s been no good. That’s not true.

And it is absolutely incumbent on us, whatever our individual differences over things that have happened, to present an honest, balanced assessment of the record which shows what progressive values can achieve.

So yes, we are disappointed that inequality has stayed the same or risen. But we are proud of the fact that child poverty has been cut by 500,000, even after figures this week, and pensioner poverty has been cut by nearly a million.

Yes, we are disappointed that we haven’t yet managed to show an increase in social mobility, though we have halted its decline. But we are proud of the fact that we are making the right long-term investments in nursery education, in schools, in university and apprenticeships which in the long term will make a big difference to social mobility.

Yes, it has taken longer than we would have expected to turn round the NHS, but we are incredibly proud that 60 years after Aneurin Bevan founded it, we are about to have the shortest waiting times in the whole history of the National Health Service.

And what’s more important than the list of achievements that we all know and can read out? What’s more important than that? It’s the change in the ideological battleground.

Because why are the Tories talking about the minimum wage, public services and poverty? Why are they saying it? They’re saying it because they know the mood of the times has changed.

We have changed the mood of the times – and we should realise it and be proud of it.

So we have to say that progressive values have worked in the last decade, and we have to be balanced in the assessment that we present.

But that’s not enough. We need to also show that we have a big mission for the future which speaks to people’s lives.

And I said earlier we should have more idealism. It should be an idealism based on our values of equality and social justice, but speaking directly to people’s lives.

So what kind of society do I believe in?

I want a society that is fairer than our society is today, and one where the next generation can do better than the last.

I want a society that nurtures life outside the market, with families, friends, and community, and creates more of a sense of belonging.

I want a society where there is intergenerational equity, and where we tackle the biggest threat that humankind has faced: climate change.

And I want a society where people have more control over their own lives.

And how do we show this idealism of the mainstream? How do we show this idealism that speaks to people’s lives?

I’m not going to go through all the detail of the areas that I’ve mentioned. But I want to talk about each of them briefly, and say one thing about our approach in the future – and in a way today, and in the coming months, the subject of our debate must be what the policy agenda is in each of these areas.

Take building a fairer society. It’s harder to do it amidst globalisation, because globalisation creates bigger winners and bigger losers as well. That has always been the hallmark of capitalism: its dynamism and its inequalities, and the progressive task is to shape those forces for the benefit of people.

So to speak to people’s lives, when someone comes up to me in my constituency, and says “I’m worried because Polish workers are driving down my wages”, we can’t simply say “globalisation is good for you” or, “have you heard about our life-long learning strategy”.

We have to show what progressive politics can do for them and we have to say we understand the need to protect your rights at work. We understand the need to enforce the minimum wage. We understand the need to take action so your wages are not undercut by agency workers.

And then having shown what progressive government can do, having told the story about how progressive politics can help, we can show how with second chances for skills and education we can do more for them in the manifesto and beyond.

Take the issue of building a sense of belonging. People face massive pressures that they didn’t face even ten years ago, with two people working, with having to look after their elderly relatives, with communities under more pressure as a result of inequality and mobility.

We have to show in the manifesto that we can meet the challenges people face in their own lives and build new frontiers of the welfare state – whether it’s more progress on work/life balance and parental leave; whether it’s answering the challenge of social care and elderly care that is such a big issue in so many people’s lives; or whether it’s building new community institutions – as we’ve done in Sure Start, and extending it to youth services, to libraries, to play parks, to a whole range of other things that can bring people together in their own community.

Take the issue of climate change, the biggest threat to humankind that we face. How can progressive politics address the issue? Fundamentally, it is about government shaping markets. It is about government’s role in ensuring that we control the big forces that exist in our society, like climate change, and the protection  of the next generation.

And the new carbon budgets that we are planning will have profound effects on government. That’s why we need to have a manifesto that thinks radically about our energy policy, our transport policy, our urban policy – and also about our economic policy. Because we see in economics today, with the oil price as it is, economics and environmentalism coming together. That means thinking very hard and very seriously about the alternatives to oil, but it also means thinking very seriously about how we can be ahead with the green economy of the future.

So we have to answer the challenges of fairness amidst globalisation.

We have to answer the challenge of people wanting a life outside the market and a sense of belonging.

We have to answer the challenge of climate change.

But we also have to answer the challenge of people having more control over their own lives. This dates back to the demands the New Left in the 1960s: that we have a different kind of state.

What does “a different kind of state” mean to people? It comes home to me when I think about my own constituency. And a particular story comes to mind of someone who came to see me recently who had been waiting for months for his disabled wife to get a stair lift in his house. And he came to see me to say his wife had died the previous Sunday, still waiting for the stair lift, but he came in to tell me about it so it wouldn’t happen to others.

And that says something fundamental to me about the relationship of the state to my constituent. And it was a relationship based on disrespect not respect.

And so fundamentally, what our manifesto has to be about is doing all we can to change that relationship –and I’ll tell you honestly, that does mean continuing to change the way our public services work. 

It does mean putting the individual further in control, both through choice and also through voice, as Neal has recently written in a very good pamphlet about coproduction and how that can make a difference in public services.

It means we should be open to new sources of expertise including those of the voluntary sector. It means we should let the individual control their own care budget. It means we should let young people control the youth services budget. It means we should give local people more of a say over local police accountability.

Because the old ways won’t work anymore – whether it’s in public services, or whether it’s in our democracy, the once-every-four-years vote for a Member of Parliament, the once-every-year vote for local councils, won’t work any more.

People need more direct control over their own lives and things that matter to their own lives both collectively and individually.

So in the manifesto and in the time between now and the manifesto, we need to answer the big challenges we face of fairness amidst globalisation, the sense of belonging amidst inequality and greater mobility, and modernity. We need to answer the challenge of climate change, and we need to answer the challenge of showing people we can give them more control over their own lives.

And let there be a great debate in the Labour Party about these issues. And let’s open up the process- and that’s what we intend to do, to encompass people outside the party so that they too can have a say in how they think we should be responding to the new challenges we face.

That is the second part of what we need to do: we need to show we have a big mission: an idealism of the mainstream, that speaks to people’s lives.

And why can we meet these challenges, and this is the third part of my remarks, more than our opponents?

Because fundamentally – and we should be proud of this and not embarrassed – we understand the role of government: to ally the power of the individual and the power of civil society with the power of government, to give individuals themselves more power over their own lives.

And don’t believe the Tory argument, which is that this could all be done by the voluntary sector on its own. I’m the Minister for the voluntary sector. Talk to anyone, as I do, who’s in the voluntary sector and they tell you that of course you need to use the voluntary sector to reach out to people in ways the state often cannot. But it absolutely needs the partnership of government – of the funding and accountability that government brings.

And so I have to say to you: when the Tories talk about poverty, social justice and equality, we shouldn’t let them get away with it.

When their social exclusion spokesman, Greg Clark, says that tax credits are like one of the industrial subsidies of the 1970s, we shouldn’t let them get away with it.

When Oliver Letwin says that the thing about the voluntary sector is that it can deliver public services “more cheaply”, we shouldn’t let them get away with it.

When Michael Gove, their education spokesman, who claims to believe in social justice – when he says that we should cut Sure Start and cut Building Schools for the Future, we shouldn’t let them get away with it.

It’s time for us to say that if they don’t will the means they can’t will the ends.

It’s time for us to say it’s a con to talk about poverty, equality and social justice with no solutions to achieve them.

It’s time for us to debunk the biggest myth of all, which is that somehow David Cameron can claim to be the heir to these ideals.

It’s time for us to take back our language.

And this is the contrast: when Gordon Brown talks about social justice, poverty and equality, it’s not calculation or positioning, it’s conviction.

This is the man who spent ten years in the Treasury, fighting to make our country fairer. He’s the same man now as he was then.

And at the next election, the manifesto of the party he leads will show that fairness is our mission.

And let me end on this thought.

When it comes to the next election, let’s be clear, now is not the time to play it safe. It is the time for an idealism of the mainstream.

Not an idealism of the wilderness, but an idealism that brings together the needs of heartland Britain and middle Britain.

An idealism that doesn’t build castles in the air, but speaks to people’s lives.

An idealism that doesn’t say the progressive moment has ended, but says that we can do more to build a progressive country in the years ahead.

So let’s debate together. Let’s argue together. But let’s join together, to create the kind of manifesto that we can believe in, and build a Britain true to our ideals.

Ends