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IPPR SPEECH. THE OPPORTUNITY SOCIETY

FINAL DRAFT

Introduction

I am very aware that a few eyebrows will be raised by a Conservative speaking to the IPPR about the way we organise our country. Surely it must be a very big tent indeed that can encompass the aims of a centre-left think tank and a centre-right politician. But we must not confuse means and ends. The aim of the IPPR is to use its research to produce a “fairer, more inclusive and more environmentally sustainable world.” I can sign up to that. Indeed I hope we can continue to work together. I have admired the way some of our leading think tanks moved seamlessly from providing policy ideas for the Conservative Government of the 1990s to offering help to New Labour after 1997, without deviating at all from their central purpose. I look forward to the day when the IPPR, still regarding itself as progressive, still promoting fairness, inclusion and sustainability, produces research which can be taken up and turned into policy by a modern Conservative Government.

I can look forward to that day because, under the noise and battle of day-to-day politics, the aims of any British Government will overlap. We all want to fight poverty and deprivation. We all want opportunity to be extended throughout our country. We all want to be proud of our public services and those who work in them. We all want social justice. Where we differ, genuinely and profoundly, is how to achieve this.

The just society, for Conservatives, is one in which no one is deprived of opportunity, and no one is excluded. It is, indeed, the fulfilment of Churchill’s dream of a Britain, in which “there is a limit beneath which no man may fall, but no limit to which any man might rise”. Let me start by addressing how current policy has failed to spread opportunity throughout our society, and why it has failed.

The Failings of New Labour

New Labour’s approach, which has its roots in John Smith’s Social Justice Commission, rests on two propositions; that Britain is an unequal society and that the solution lies in large scale increases in public spending. These increases are rhetorically linked to reform in the public services, but the forces of conservatism, in this case the trade unions and the traditional wing of the Labour Party, has meant that reform is at best half-hearted.

The result of this increased spending in a largely unreformed public sector is one that should make every left of centre politician blush and every right of centre politician think there has to be a better way. Consider these facts about Britain after eight years of New Labour government;

·  A man born in East Dorset expects to live for 80 years; a man born in Manchester for only 71.

·  The proportion of children eligible for free school meals and achieving five good GCSEs is only half those who are not eligible for free school meals.

·  In 38 of 43 types of cancer analysed, it’s been shown that the survival rates of the affluent are greater than those of the least well off.

·  Even though more children from poorer backgrounds are staying on in education post 16, there is greater inequality of access to higher education

·  Since the mid 1990s the difference in disposable income between the richest and poorest 10 per cent in Britain has widened.

Wherever you look, the aims of the Social Justice Commission have not been achieved by the policies derived from its recommendations. There are too many victims of state failure in Britain today. I want to be their champion, giving them genuine opportunity to live a fulfilled life. We will only achieve this by a radically different approach.

The typical reaction to today’s lack of social mobility is to do what Gordon Brown does – demand more state intervention. But the immobile society is, in large part, the result of too much government intervention, and of the wrong sort. It is a myth that such heavy-handed intrusions help the poor. They don’t.

For example, today’s rigid structures in health and education work not in favour of the less well off but, if anything, in favour of the affluent. A moment’s reflection will show just why. In trying to get into a good hospital, the middle classes are generally more adept at finding the requisite information and making the necessary contacts. Moreover, as Professor Julian Le Grand, the Prime Minister’s Policy Strategy Adviser, observed last November, it’s the richer and better educated people who actually make most use of the health system. Not surprisingly, then, poor people have worse health outcomes.

In education, the divide is probably even greater. OFSTED consistently reports that the lowest school standards are concentrated in the most deprived areas. This isn’t because children from poorer families are more stupid, or their parents less committed. It’s because in today’s rigged market of state education only the rich can exercise choice. Wealthier people can buy a house in a good school’s catchment area; poorer people can’t afford to move. One recent study suggested that the premium on a house in the best possible secondary school area, compared with the worst, stands at £23,700. In these circumstances, to describe state education as truly free is hypocrisy of the highest order. And this also helps explain why teenagers in deprived areas are six times less likely to go to university than their peers in the leafy suburbs.[1]

British society today is also afflicted with specific ills. They don’t all stem from the actions of government. But all have been worsened by its failures.

First, our society is disorderly, and severely affected by violent crime and the fear it engenders. Violent crime is up by 90 per cent, and robberies by 50 per cent, since Labour took office. Persistent youth offending has risen. Cocaine use has trebled. Meanwhile, detection rates have fallen. There are 900,000 more unsolved crimes each year than there were in 1998. The signals from the government about use of drink and drugs, which both fuel crime, have been disastrous. ASBOs are failing. Their implementation record is risible.

The better off have a reasonable chance of escaping the consequences of this breakdown of law and order. Their houses are barred and alarmed. They travel everywhere by car. Their neighbourhoods are safer. It is the less well off who suffer most.

·  Unemployed people are almost three times as likely to be the victims of violent crime

·  People living in a council estate are 54 per cent more likely to be burgled

·  Unemployed people are nearly twice as likely to have had a vehicle stolen.

The second great social ill also directly affects the least well off, though it weakens society as a whole – I mean the growth of welfare dependency. Three statistics tell most of the worrying truth:

·  30 per cent of households in Britain depend on the state for more than 50 per cent of their income;

·  more than half the population receive some kind of benefits[2];

·  and for families on means-tested benefits getting tax credits, of each extra £100 they earn, more than £70 goes in tax and cuts in benefit - that’s a 70 per cent marginal tax rate.

The third pervasive social problem that Britain faces comes from state dependency of a different sort – that resulting from a near-state monopoly in health and education and excessive centralisation of power in the hands of politicians and bureaucrats. Britain has a second rate health service and under-achieving schools because government, not patients and parents, makes the key decisions. If you look at the focus groups and the opinion research - and I sometimes wonder whether the Tory Party has looked at them a little too much - you will find that most people are more interested in standards than in choice. That’s hardly a surprise. We’d all rather be cured in a state-run local hospital than have the luxury of agony in a variety of distant private ones. But it’s also not the point, and Conservatives have a responsibility to say so.

The reason why standards are low, and value for money so poor, is because the present structures ensure precisely that. You have to focus on satisfying individual requirements not go in for mass production. You have to change the structures and substitute choice and competition for monopoly and central diktat, if you want a different and a better outcome—especially for the poor.

We must point to what’s happened to the money that’s been spent. The more that’s gone in, the less the extra benefit has been – as you’d expect from a state monopoly. In October last year, the Office of National Statistics showed that NHS productivity had fallen each year since 1997. In December, Professor Nick Bosanquet of Imperial College estimated that NHS inflation is absorbing 70 per cent of annual spending increases. And after we’ve pointed out those facts, we can start to show how empowering individuals through choice will lead to real improvements.

A Conservative approach

However admirable the aims of New Labour, we can see that eight years into the project it is simply not working for far too many people. One key purpose for the next Conservative Government will be to allow individuals to climb as high as they dare, wherever they start from. We will do this not by tweaking the current system, but by changing the whole approach to the support systems that allow individuals and communities to make progress.

Conservatives often find it difficult to speak persuasively about social policy. One reason is that almost anything a Tory says on the subject is considered ripe for distortion. For example, if a Conservative politician observes that children have a better chance of living fulfilled and gainful lives when brought up by two happily married parents, he is likely to be pilloried as narrow-minded. Perhaps it is easier for me, from my background, to express this truth. And I do so without hesitation, knowing that there’s a wealth of evidence to support what common sense suggests.

The family is the building block of society. It is in the interests of all – single, married, black, white, young, old, gay or straight – to keep the family strong. It’s necessary for our economic success and for our stability as a nation. If the family fails, society fails. Modern families take a number of different forms, and as a class, politicians are the last people to preach about how others should live their private lives.

Like many people today, but far fewer then, I was brought up by a single mother. But, unlike my equivalents now, I had the benefits of a strong community on which to rely. The old working class ethic of self-help and mutual support still held sway. And the welfare state actually worked. I still remember how delighted we were when we were given a council house. I benefited, too, from going to a good grammar school. I’ve known difficulties in life – who hasn’t? – but never real hardship. And I owe that fact to the values that prevailed and the support I received. Mine, I can see, was a privileged working class generation. Strong social networks and the welfare state still complemented one another. It was as if two trains were, at that particular moment, lined up along side. We had easy access to both. What we didn’t see then, but we can all admit now, is that those two trains were heading in opposite directions. Social stability was receding. The intrusive state was advancing. And, as a result, it has become central to any mission of social reform to reduce the role of government in people’s lives, rather than extend it.

Again, let me tell you of a more recent experience. During the last Parliament, when we were launching our policy to give Housing Association tenants the right to buy their homes, I went back to the council estate on which I used to live. Being filmed with either children or animals is known as a risky tactic for politicians in search of a photo-opportunity. But returning to your roots is another. I didn’t know how the estate would look. But, as it turned out, I needn’t have worried. There was no rubbish and no graffiti. It felt safe, and there was an indefinable sense of pride about the place. The reason was clear. 71 per cent of it was now owner occupied[3] - because of the policies we introduced in the ‘eighties. And please note: it wasn’t 71 per cent clean, 71 per cent crime free, or 71 per cent orderly. The estate as a whole had benefited - because individuals had exercised choice, accepted responsibility, and gained a stake in improvement of the community. If you ever want evidence that the drive to widen ownership is central to conservative social reform, go to that estate. The White House recognises the rightness of the approach of empowerment through ownership: it’s become crucial to the compassionate conservative agenda. We Conservatives in Britain should never be ashamed of it either.

It is with the background of a strong community that you are most likely to become a successful individual. A collection of strong communities is needed for a successful society. David Willetts was right to identify that a strong society is as important to Conservatives as a strong economy. One task for modern Conservatives is to show how state activity can diminish communities and weaken society, making worse the problems it is trying to solve. The most likely victims of this failure are the poor and the weak. The other half of this task is to show how a lower tax, decentralising Government can provide better services and more opportunity, particularly for those who start out with few advantages in life.

Tories in recent years have become too timid about saying how we want to improve society. We sometimes behave as if the Left, with their vocabulary and their policies, had acquired a freehold on social policy.