IPPR Progressive Review最新文献

Labour came to power in the 2024 general election promising constitutional reform in various arenas. Its manifesto laid out ambitions to restore trust in politics, improve behaviour and decision-making and “deepen our democracy by reforming Parliament”. In pursuit of these goals, it pledged numerous reforms to UK-level institutions.1

Labour's manifesto proposals included ambitious changes to UK-level institutions, including reform of the House of Lords and ‘modernisation’ in the House of Commons. The party also pledged changes to the standards system and more powers for the Office for Budget Responsibility.

There were also proposals to reform devolution and elections – both topics in their own right, which will not be covered in detail here. In brief, the manifesto pledged a reset in the relationship between the UK and devolved governments, and an extension of devolution in England, broadly following the existing model but with the devolution of additional powers.2 On elections, the key pledge was to extend the franchise to 16- and 17-year-olds. Since Labour took office, ministers have also pledged a review of voter ID rules and hinted that the controversial strategy and policy statement for the Electoral Commission introduced in 2022 – which allows the government to set high-level priorities for the regulator – could be scrapped.3 Reforms to devolution are planned for this parliamentary session; electoral policy is likely to follow in later sessions, allowing time for consultation.

These proposals for structural change were complemented, before and after the general election, by promises to abide by constitutional norms. Now leader of the House of Commons Lucy Powell pledged from opposition to facilitate better parliamentary scrutiny of legislation and deliver higher legislative standards. In his speech upon becoming attorney general, Lord (Richard) Hermer pledged to end the abuse of delegated legislation and to respect the rule of law. An early statement by Keir Starmer as prime minister to the civil service was designed to reassure Whitehall that recent tensions between ministers and civil servants are a thing of the past.4

Progressive constitutional reform often entails the dispersal of power, and acceptance of greater checks and balances in the system. Thus, the New Labour government introduced a number of constitutional reforms with the effect of distributing power more widely – including, for example, through the creation of the devolved institutions and the passage of the Human Rights Act 1998. These reforms sought to combine the greater sharing of power with the retention of parliamentary sovereignty (meaning that Westminster retained the power to overrule the devolved legislatures, and judges were given the power to rule primary legislation as incompatible with the Human Rights Act, but not strike it down). For this reason, some argued at the time that these reforms fell short of fundamental constitutional cha

At the time of writing, the Labour government led by Keir Starmer has been in power for less than a month. Already the relief of leaving behind 14 years of austerity and increasingly shambolic Conservative rule has given way to sombre assessments of the gap between the last government's spending promises and the reality of public finances. Labour should not underestimate the test that adverse economic circumstances are likely to pose. The Blair government's three terms in office were in no small part a reflection of the fact that it came to power amid manageable inflation, low interest rates and falling unemployment. Meanwhile, the MacDonald, Attlee, Wilson and Callaghan, and Brown governments all faced rough economic headwinds, and none held office for more than six consecutive years.

As has been widely noted, Labour has held power for only 33 of its 124 years of existence. The different economic, social and geopolitical contexts in which Labour has governed frustrate attempts to draw neat lessons for the Starmer administration—we cannot pluck Labour's past political strategies out of history and hope that what worked in 1947, 1966 or 2001 will work in 2025. But Labour's record in government may offer guidance about what decisions and strategies will allow it to enact lasting positive change, operate with integrity and maintain party unity in international affairs, and renew rather than squander its recent mandate.

While the Attlee government undertook widespread nationalisation, its most lasting legislative reforms included the National Health Service (NHS), National Insurance and the New Towns Act. And while many of the Wilson government's benefit and social policy reforms were undone in subsequent decades, institutional achievements like the Open University and the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) for industrial relations disputes remain important today.2 The Blair government is remembered for its record on reducing child and pensioner poverty via the tax and benefits system. But while many of New Labour's achievements in poverty reduction, as well as healthcare and education, were undone after the Conservative-led coalition returned to power, its legislative changes, such as the minimum wage and devolution, have endured.

The current government's manifesto promises show potential for a programme of institution building, for example in headline initiatives such as Great British Energy and a new National Wealth Fund. In implementing these initiatives, the government would be wise to note that support for new institutions may not be immediate, and that their case may have to be made and remade. The NHS did not enjoy universal support during the Attlee government – instead, as the historian Andrew Seaton shows, “large sections of the public greeted [reformers’] proposals with ambivalence, trepidation, or even hostility”. Indeed, Seaton argues, the NHS was only cemented as the British cultural icon it is t

Following a landslide victory in the general election, the Labour party has launched an ambitious agenda to transform the regulation of work and employment. With commitments to enhance worker rights and legislative reform, Labour's relationship with trade unions presents both opportunities and challenges. While improved dialogue between unions and government is already evident, the success of these initiatives hinges on fostering robust structures for collective bargaining and addressing enforcement weaknesses. This long-term endeavour seeks to achieve a fairer distribution of economic growth and requires sustained collaboration beyond the current parliamentary term.

Any sensible answer to that question needs to differentiate between unions that are affiliated to the Labour party and those that are not. The era when unions and the Labour party could be considered as ‘two wings’ of the labour movement are long gone. That said, some of the UK's largest unions are affiliated – Unison, Unite and the GMB being the three largest unions by far. They have routes to liaise with the party and we can expect those unions to continue to try to shape policy over the coming years.

But by far the majority of unions, including most of the unions representing professional public sector workers, are not affiliated to the party. The Trades Union Congress (TUC), as the umbrella representative body of many – but not all – unions, also has no formal affiliation to the party. Nonetheless, these unions are leading some of the longest-running disputes in sectors such as the NHS and higher education and will expect to find it easier to campaign, shape and lobby as policies develop to the point of delivery.

However, some of the wider agenda laid out in policy documents will be more challenging and will face more structural hurdles to delivery. For example, there are significant decisions to be made about how to establish a single status as ‘worker’ (rather than differentiating between employees and self-employed workers) as this navigates a complex legal terrain where tax law and labour rights may conflict. With commitments to end the use of ‘fire and rehire’ tactics by employers and reduce the use of zero-hours flexible contracts, much of the devil will be in the detail and it is possible that some may be unhappy with how these are implemented.

But this opens a potentially longer-term vision for the collective regulation of work and employment. A key concern from the legacy of the governments from 1997 to 2010 was how easily some labour market regulation reforms were undone. This will always be a weakness of a system that relies on government to lead. A far more effective, and likely efficient, approach is for the state to actively support structures that facilitate negotiation between employers and unions, looking only to the state where there are issues of direct relevance, such as legal changes or the funding for state services.

Cruciall

Readers of Progressive Review, and particularly those drawn to an issue that sets out the scale of the challenges that face the new Labour government, will be very familiar with the impact that austerity has had on the public realm since 2010. These impacts have been particularly acute at the local level in England, and especially in deprived communities.1 A spate of local authority ‘bankruptcies’ in major cities such as Birmingham and Nottingham, which involve chief financial officers issuing ‘section 114 notices’ to inform ministers that their expenditure will exceed their revenue over the course of a financial year (something that is illegal under the Local Government Finance Act 1988), have only served to illustrate how widespread the problem has become.2

Ultimately, questions about local government finance touch on the issue of local government itself: what it is – or should be – for, and how it should relate to the centre of government. To what extent should councils be free to levy taxes, spend money and shape places as they wish? Should they exist primarily as delivery arms for central policies, or do they also have a key role to play in shaping local communities? Ultimately, whom do they exist to represent?

Local authorities in the UK are very unlike their counterparts elsewhere, in that they tend to cover large geographical areas and very large populations that do not always correspond to local identities. This is the result of a longstanding belief in the administrative superiority of larger governmental units, rather than any wish to ensure that local government represents identifiable local places.17

Indeed, the previous government's direction of travel continued in this direction, by emphasising the role of large, subregional metro mayors and combined authorities. Starmer and his team appear to have bought into this idea, and have been less forthcoming in setting out their vision for what we might call ‘traditional’ local government. Nonetheless, working on the basis that Starmer's team recognise the key role that councils need to play in addressing challenges such as lacklustre economic growth, climate change and endemic poverty, we could see a revitalisation of subnational government in England in the coming years. The challenge of rebuilding capacity within local authorities – as well as in other public bodies – will be difficult, but is necessary to ensure that the state can deliver on all parts of the government's agenda.

We are coming to the end of a parliament where levelling up has been an ongoing theme, so it is a good time to begin to consider what levelling up is (or was), how it emerged, what if anything it has achieved and what lessons the past few years might offer a new, potentially progressive, government. In this article we argue that government has begun to deliver on some eye-catching initiatives, but their impact on economic levelling up is unlikely to be significant. More positively, we argue that levelling up – including a broadening and deepening of devolved economic governance – has moved regional inequality up the political agenda and into the public consciousness. This represents an opportunity for a progressive government if it first resolves some of the political tensions and contradictions around levelling up. These include a conflation and confusion over whether interventions are designed to drive economic growth and productivity or build social infrastructure and pride in place.

Progressive Review readers are likely familiar with at least the headline evidence on UK regional economic inequality, which remains exceptionally high for an advanced economy.1 Pointedly, for an article such as this one examining the impact of recent policy, regional disparities have worsened over the past five years.2 Recent years saw populist politicians, thinktanks and commentators claim the cause of tackling regional economic inequality as theirs; with particular emphasis in Conservative politics on a ‘Brexit dividend’. Advocates of progressive politics were left on the defensive as ‘out of touch’ and representative of an often vaguely defined ‘metropolitan elite’. The government elected in 2019 presented itself as best able to help people in places that had been ‘left behind’ in a globalised economy – the places that “don't matter”.3

Levelling up builds on the Cities and Local Growth agenda (CLoG; incorporating the northern powerhouse) that gave us the current patchwork of regional development governance, including combined authorities, ‘metro-mayors’ and local enterprise partnerships (the last of which are being wound down this year). Genuine revolutions in regional policy have been comparatively rare, but the 2010 Coalition government's scrapping of much of the regional tier of governance – particularly the regional development agencies and regional government offices – was a relatively radical juncture. (The-then business secretary, Vince Cable, described the sweeping away of the regional structures as “a bit Maoist”. Is it possible to be a bit Maoist?)4

Analyses of levelling up often takes the 2022 levelling-up white paper5 as a point of departure. However, levelling up in practice is sometimes only loosely related to the themes in the white paper, which is broad in its analysis and aspirational in its goals. Much of the document discusses academic analysis of economic geography with an implicit nod to the agglomeration

In May, the North East Mayoral Combined Authority will elect its first metro mayor, creating one of the largest, and potentially most important, devolved authorities in England. This is taking place 20 years on from the failure of the last Labour government to get local people in the North East to agree to its plans for a new model of regional government. This time around, a modest system of devolved administration – in the North East and some other parts of England – will be in place should Labour win the upcoming general election (as current polling suggests it will). How the party understands and responds to the challenges that its predecessors failed to surmount will say much about its competence and strategic priorities in relation to the grand challenge of English devolution.

Reflecting on the long history of regional policymaking in relation to the North East, helps us to understand the factors that have made the establishment of an effective and legitimate model of government in this area so difficult. A sense of this history also alerts us to the challenges associated with extending devolution across England more generally.

Three key factors have long shaped the North East's distinctive political culture: an entrenched pattern of economic underperformance relative to England's more affluent South East; a widely felt sense of disillusionment with the prevailing model and outcomes of the UK's parliamentary government; and a historically ingrained sense of pan-regional identity, which has long sat in tension with strong local attachments to the key cities within its jurisdiction, and rivalries between them.

The rooted and distinctive sense of identity can ultimately be traced back to the medieval Kingdom of Northumbria – itself an unusually semi-autonomous entity within a relatively centralised English polity.1 A strong sense of affiliation to this geographical area was passed into the industrial era and maintained too by a distinctive local dialect and the relative geographical isolation of the area.2

However, over the past century, the North East's economic prospects have steadily deteriorated, so that the region is now, on many different metrics, rated as one of the poorest parts of the UK. These failings are rooted in the notable underperformance of its main cities, Newcastle and Sunderland, on metrics such as productivity, businesses per capita and wages, all of which are below the national average.3 Economic geographers often refer to the damaging impact of the poor economic performance of the UK's ‘second tier’ cities, and those in the North East sit at the bottom end of that category – generating remarkably few spillover benefits for those towns that sit on their edges.4 This economic divergence between the North East and wealthier parts of the UK has become a live political issue in recent years. Support for Brexit was marked, as 58% of the population, the third highest regional total, voted to leave the