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Manufacturing and industrial policy The Labour government has been able to claim an impressive economic record since 1997. But a significant and growing concern has been the continuing erosion of the UK’s manufacturing sector. This second edition of Catalyst’s Talking Points series gives an overview of the importance of manufacturing in the UK economy and reviews the debate about what, if anything, should be done to reverse its decline.
The aim of "Talking Points" is to inform and stimulate discussion on the important policy and political issues of the day. "The first of a regular series of Talking Points, 'Academy schools' sets out what we know so far about the academy initiative, and some criteria against which to judge its future success.
The performance of the privatised train operators When the railways were privatised it was claimed that subsidies to the private train operating companies taking over passenger franchises were transitional only and would be phased out as the railway improved. This specially commissioned report shows that these companies remain wholly reliant upon government pay-outs which are expected to increase in the years ahead.
In its third term the Labour government is determined to move more people off incapacity benefits and into work. But Steve Fothergill and John Grieve Smith argue that a reliance on labour “supply side” measures such as benefit reforms will not solve the problem by itself. This will also require strong regional policies to deliver more jobs in the areas where incapacity claimants are concentrated.
The Pension Commission has argued that, on present trends, there will be a shortfall in pension provision equivalent to 4 per cent of GDP by 2050. This paper outlines a radical proposal for restoring the employers’ contribution – a special asset levy under which new shares, calculated at 10 per cent of profits annually, would be issued to Pension Reserve Funds to set up a claim on future dividends.
This discussion document, jointly prepared by Catalyst and the Centre for European Reform for UNISON and Ver.di, sets out ways in which the European debate over public services might evolve over the coming years, with a particular view to stimulating productive thought about how public service trade unions can best respond to these challenges.
Delegates at the Labour Party's 2004 annual conference voted to adopt a policy of "introducing an integrated, accountable and publicly owned railway”. This briefing shows how this policy could be carried out in a third Labour term without breaching the government's fiscal rules, and could produce immediate cash savings for the taxpayer as well as delivering a better railway.
The pensions challenge for Labour is to build a new consensus around a radical and durable settlement that protects the poorest and achieves fairness for ordinary working people. As a contribution to the debate among voluntary organisations, trade unions, and Labour Party members, Neil Churchill and Michelle Mitchell offer their own proposals for change, based upon an extension of state provision as the most inclusive and redistributive form of “compulsion” available.
Sam Pizzigati, US labour movement journalist and editor of Too Much, the online weekly devoted to capping excessive income and wealth, gives a perspective from across the Atlantic on the debates around inequality covered in Ben Jackson and Paul Segal’s Catalyst pamphlet Why Inequality Matters.
Gordon Brown has acknowledged that the government had to do more to go out and “win the argument” for the eradication on child and pensioner poverty. It is clear is that “doing good by stealth” needs to give way to a higher profile, unequivocal, anti-poverty commitment across government and in the run-up to the next general election.
It is now well known that the UK has seen a dramatic rise in economic inequality in recent years. Ben Jackson and Paul Segal draw together the lessons of history, economics and political philosophy to show that unless this is reversed little headway can be made towards the government’s other goals of alleviating poverty, widening opportunities and overcoming social exclusion.
Under its Ten Year Transport Plan the government has thrown money at an inefficient and ineffective railway system bequeathed by the Conservatives’ disastrous privatisation policy. New Labour has yet to rise to the challenge of extending real public ownership and accountability to ensure that this public investment generates a social, economic and environmental return.
The government claims that savings achieved by PFI and PPP schemes result from the private sector’s innovative management practices, and are not at the expense of employee terms and conditions. Sanjiv Sachdev argues that where data on employee terms and conditions is available a clear picture emerges of private contractors cutting labour costs by cutting pay, extending hours, reducing holidays and downgrading pension provision.
The Labour Party of the future must be a broad-based party, with an active and engaged membership, looking outwards to the communities it works for, argues Peter Hain. To this end he proposes a series of reforms designed to revive grassroots activism, to give members a more meaningful opportunity to develop policy, to address the disengagement of younger people, and to reconnect the party with the trade unions.
Drawing on her experiences as a minister in the first two Labour governments, Angela Eagle argues that a permanent social democratic transformation of society will be achieved only through a radical deepening of democracy that engages with the complex and dispersed nature of social power today.
This briefing is intended to help inform the debate over the government’s proposed reforms of Higher Education funding. It concentrates on the question of their possible impact on equality of access and the position of students from poorer backgrounds.
Breaking New Labour's silence on the role of trade unionism in the modernisation of the country, Robert Taylor proposes a bold new agenda for the labour movement and the Labour government - a "social democratic trade unionism" that can integrate the cause of justice in the workplace with the development of a dynamic and successful economy.
In this highly original piece o f work, three of the country's leading geographers present an novel account of the production and reproduction of the "North-South divide", a constructive a ssessment of the government's current regional devolution and development agenda , and a set of fresh proposals for rebalancing the economy and "dispersing" the polity.
Under the leadership of Rhodri Morgan, the policies and language of Welsh Labour reveal interesting divergences from Downing Street's agenda for pubic sector reform. In this lively and informative analysis Steve Davies asks if devolution has created a "laboratory of opposition" to the market orthodoxies of New Labour.
In this timely and authoritative paper the “Better Pensions” group of experts originally convened by the late Barbara Castle argue that we can afford decent retirement incomes for all, but that to secure this the state must take a leading role and reverse the current policy of substituting privately funded arrangements for public provision. This incisive analysis of the legislation to establish NHS Foundation Trusts, published by Catalyst in association with the Public Health Policy Unit at UCL, the Society for Social Medicine, and the NHS Consultants’ Association, argues that it will turn hospitals into businesses without providing adequate safeguards for equity and the public interest.
The government-citizen relationship is increasingly being reforged
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Provisions for the creation of "NHS Foundation Trusts" in the Health and Social Care Bill 2003 have polarised the Parliamentary Labour Party. This paper, by a leading expert on the history and geography of health care restructuring in the UK argues that the reforms will undermine an efficient, integrated and equitable NHS, free at the point of use and planned according to social need.
A hand-up or a hand-out? Welfare or work? Cash, vouchers, or services in kind? Society's chosen means of redistribution can send a powerful message to its recipients - of appreciation or pity, condescension or respect. Jonathan Wolff suggests that such dilemmas are rooted in fundamental intuitions about "the nature of the human good", and sets out a lucid and original philosophical framework for thinking these connections through. NEW! "Perfectionism or fairness?" A response from Stuart White
Is greater longevity creating a "demographic timebomb" that threatens our collective futures? This authoritative report brings together a unique range of perspectives and expertise to assess the real consequences of population ageing for health care, pension provision, and the structure of the economy.
In this refreshing, provocative and elegantly written polemic, David Walker takes issue with received ideas about decentralisation that ignore the inevitable trade-off between differentiation and equity. There are times when redistributive goals can only be achieved by a strong, self-confident centre.
The funding of political parties is again the subject of anxious inquiry. This report, by an internationally recognised authority on the issue, carefully examines the case for further regulation of party funding and makes a number of groundbreaking recommendations. It is certain to become a definitive contribution to a debate that will be pivotal in shaping the future of British politics.
This pamphlet takes issue with current political pressures to increase selection in secondary education - overtly, covertly, or through appeals to a modernising diversity. The evidence it presents indicates this will do nothing to raise standards and will worsen already existing inequalities of educational opportunity.
The creation of Foundation Hospitals is the government's flagship policy for reforming the NHS. But this briefing, researched by Catalyst for the TGWU, argues that it poses a serious threat to a unified, integrated health service that is free at the point of use.
From Them That Hath: New Labour and the question of redistribution The Prime Minister surprised and encouraged many with his affirmation that the goal of his government is "a Britain in which we continue to redistribute power, wealth and opportunity". But after years in which the word has barely passed any senior Labour politician's lips, much work now needs to be done in arguing publicly for a principle that must be the foundation of any progressive government's reforming agenda. In this valuable and timely article Kevin Hickson sets out in clear terms the compelling moral, economic and political case for proactive policies to create a more equal society.
Seldom can there have been so dramatic an acknowledgement that some public services require regulation through direct government ownership and management - and that "flexible" labour markets can undermine service efficiency and quality - as that demonstrated by President Bush on 19 November last year. In a bill signing ceremony at Reagan National Airport, Bush established a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to bring under federal control, and into public employment, the privatised passenger and baggage screening operations found so tragically wanting two months earlier. Did September 11 mark the beginning of the end of an era of public service reform ushered in by airline deregulation nearly a quarter of a century ago? Brendan Martin gives a progress report and finds some lessons have yet to be learned.
The Prime Minister says that the welfare state has become "associated with fraud, abuse, laziness, a dependency culture, social irresponsibility encouraged by welfare dependency." This pamphlet tackles these misconceptions head on. Full of provocative arguments and a mine of information, it provides an invaluable resource for getting the debate over welfare reform back onto a proper footing - fully informed and focused not on policing a dysfunctional "underclass" but providing the basic economic security that all of us need.
The UK government has committed massive extra funds to expand public services, and promised to make every penny count in terms of improved delivery. It's a challenge that can't be met without mobilising not only the commitment, but also the knowledge, of the people who must deliver the services. That means developing a common approach to reform with those workers' increasingly confident unions, says Brendan Martin. Here he tells the surprising story of how America's 12th largest city achieved massive efficiency gains in its public services not through privatisation or competition, but co-operation founded on employment security.
The Labour government has turned a corner in affirming the case for redistributive taxation to fund public service expansion and an ambitious anti-poverty strategy. For this exciting new political venture to succeed it is crucial that the money is spent in the most effective way possible. Here some of the country's leading academic experts in the fields of economics, social policy and public service delivery make an initial assessment. Free download available
Are we at the beginning of a new sea-change in popular attitudes and policy orientations away from free-market individualism and towards a renewed confidence in public values and collective endeavour? Economist John Mills and Labour MP Austin Mitchell assess the prospects for getting "back on track" with social and economic progress after the failed neo-liberal detour of the past three decades.
Responses to the threat of world recession have led some to suggest that the pendulum might be ready to swing back from the monetarist and neoliberal consensus of the late twentieth century to a modernised and internationalist Keynesianism for the twenty-first. John Grieve Smith takes stock of these shifts, arguing that while the US has shown encouraging signs, EU and UK policymakers are still too wedded to the deflationary bias of the past.
Today older women have a median personal income which is only 56 per cent of older mens', due mainly to the impact of private pensions. Gender inequality in private pension coverage is equally wide among those of working age. The Labour government is continuing a policy of running down public provision for old age and encouraging its displacement by private sector schemes. Ginn argues that alternatives exist which are fairer to women, simpler to administer, and affordable.
The final report of the IPPR's Commission on Public Private Partnerships is expected to be a major influence on the government's approach to public service reform over the coming years. Though critical of the way certain projects had operated in the past, it endorsed an extension of these new forms of public procurement into core public services. Here some of the country's leading academic experts in the field argue that this is likely to result in greater cost to the taxpayer, reductions in service quality and scope, and threatens to undermine the very principle of universal public services free at the point of use. NEW! Revised edition with a new foreword by David Hinchliffe MP
Evidence from the US suggests that the government's failure to institute an adequate uprating mechansm for the minimum wage will result in avoidable political lobbying, instability and uncertainty for employers and worsening income inequality. Sanjiv Sachdev warns that one of the government's greatest achievements may "wither on the vine" like the state pension unless it can resist the temptation to play politics with the incomes of the low paid.
Equity and the Environment: Guidelines for Green and Socially Just
Government
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