Cicero Policy Briefer

Issue 8, January 2007

The future of “New” Labour under Gordon Brown

By James Allen

As Parliament returns from the Christmas break, Gordon Brown has signaled his intentions for his likely premiership in a well publicised TV interview. Just last week, John Reid had further fuelled speculation about his own Prime Ministerial ambitions in his statement that the New Labour project must continue beyond Tony Blair’s time in office. Now, Brown has outlined a series of proposed departures from Blair’s time in government as he looks to update Labour’s 1997 pledges for the challenges of 2007.

Broadly speaking, likely changes under Brown can be broken down into those in the policy sphere, and those related to government and politics more generally. In changes to government, it is likely that Brown will want to keep a close eye on his current power base at the Treasury, and rumours abound that the Treasury may be split into a Finance Ministry and an Economics Ministry. The idea of a written constitution for Britain has once again been raised and Brown has called for greater power for Parliament, vowing that in all but the most extreme circumstances, Parliament would have a role in making decisions on going to war.

The Chancellor may be seeking to outflank the rejuvenated Tories (in his rhetoric at least) in calling for more power for citizens rather than the State. He has called for more people to be involved in politics at a local level. Falling voter turnout and the decline in civic participation are both symptoms of a population increasingly disconnected with politics, though Prescott’s disastrous attempts to bring in an era of regional government may show that creating new local political interest may not be so easy. More specifically, Brown is proposing a radical overhaul of the workings of 10 Downing Street, with politically appointed special advisers to be replaced by mainstream civil servants. This move, which would end the controversial practice of partisan advisers being in a position to order civil servants to take action, will seem like a good idea to most people, though not perhaps the Special Advisers themselves.

In policy, Brown has had such a large hand in domestic affairs, for example in public services reform, pensions and in tackling poverty, that it is hard to envisage a big departure from the status quo. In international affairs, Brown has indicated that he will take a strong line in future relations with the US government, particularly in the war on terror and that his dialogue with Bush will be “frank”, protecting British interests first. The Security Services are to be accountable to a Select Committee selected by Parliament, not the Prime Minister, with the police and the Security Services to report to a Select Committee on the detention of terror suspects. These moves would be likely to go some way at least toward reassuring a Labour Party that continues to be concerned about many of the moves taken by the Government in the name of protecting security and tackling terrorism.

The focus of a Brown government is likely to be in further improvements to health and education, and in promoting Brown’s deeply held commitment to social justice. There has been some success in Labour’s ambitious public services reform agenda. Standards in education and healthcare have undoubtedly improved, although perhaps not as much as could be hoped given the level of extra investment. The key difficulty has been in ensuring that the poorest and most socially excluded people are in a position to benefit from these improvements, and in this respect the Government has not been entirely successful. Brown has indicated that he sees the new mantra in education as “excellence, excellence, excellence” and has ambitions to increase the level of investment on state school pupils to match those in the private sector. In the midst of further controversy as another Cabinet Minister sends their child to a private school, renewed commitment to increased investment in state education will be vital if Brown is to win the heart of the Labour Party.

For the financial services industry, major changes are unlikely in the near future. Brown will be anxious to maintain the competitiveness of the City of London, but may find himself under great political pressure to impose fast and lasting changes to the industry on consumer issues such as investment, debt and personal finance, pensions and regulation. The industry needs to be ready to adapt to potential changes under a new administration.

As speculation continues on what the Government will look like under Brown, one thing is certain: that Brown will want to leave his own mark on the country and on the Labour Party, and will not simply want to go down in history as having championed Blair’s New Labour project.

James Allen can be contacted on +44 (0)20 7665 9530 or click here to email.

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