Manifesto reflections

I have worked on a fair few manifestos in my time. For Labour, UNISON and a range of campaigns. I can honestly say that the Scottish Labour manifesto for this General Election is, without doubt, the best. 

Manifestos are almost always a team effort and have some form of lay democratic governance to approve them – unless you are the Brexit company of Nigel Farage! The value of this approach is that a range of people, with different knowledge and lived experiences bring more to the table. Yes, it takes longer and is a challenge to bring together, but the final result is always better. Even for political manifestos, which often have to be pulled together in just a few days.

Most manifestos will be high-level documents, and it can be a challenge not to get bogged down in detail, blunting the key messages. This is easier for short campaign manifestos focused on a particular issue. Political parties (unless you are Farage and Co) have to cover the full range of topics and that inevitably involve some compromises on detail.

Sadly, few voters actually read all or even large sections of an election manifesto. Although I am always pleasantly surprised by the number of questions we are asked and the download numbers. Even in the electronic age, significant numbers of people still come to campaign offices and ask for one.

Of course, many more will see the highlights in the media and through membership organisations they belong to.  Sadly, this doesn't mean even basic facts are understood. For example, the guy on Question Time who vehemently asserted that as someone who earned over £80,000 he wasn't only not in the top 5%, but he was actually in the bottom 50%. Shockingly, Fiona Bruce didn't immediately realise this was nonsense, or that no one whispered into her earpiece.

Like many on social media, my immediate reaction was to wonder what employer paid such an idiot those wages. However, on reflection, it brings home how much work we still need to do to explain the facts about our economy and make a case for progressive taxation. And, as in other European countries, the benefits of a more equal society and the social wage. We should make The Spirit Level compulsory reading! 

So, why is the Scottish Labour manifesto the best I have worked on? Primarily because it not only recognises the key challenges facing Scotland and the UK – it provides the investment to act. 

It starts with the biggest global challenge, the climate emergency. The manifesto doesn’t just give us another round of targets and ambition, it invests in the solutions. From building and retrofitting warm homes, to jobs and a Just Transition to new industries, a new energy system and public transport including 4,200 new green buses. From the environment to our food production this a comprehensive response to the crisis.

The second and linked challenge is inequality. Here the manifesto sets out a range of actions that will go a long way towards eliminating poverty. Building 120,000 council and social houses, regulating private landlords, scrapping Universal Credit, free broadband, free school meals, social care reform, a £10 minimum wage and the biggest expansion of employment rights in history. These and many more are the measures we need to move from good intentions to practical action. 

For those who have said to me, ‘it’s pie in the sky’, it can’t be afforded. I say you haven’t met the Shadow Treasury Team! The Grey Book sets out the costings in more detail than any opposition party has ever done, and in my view, they have taken a pretty conservative approach to many key assumptions. I have worked on government projects that have been less well costed. 

I could go on, and probably will before this election is over, but I would urge everyone to read this manifesto. I have been around long enough to remember the hype, compromises and timidity we have seen in the past from all political parties. This manifesto really is transformative – it is real change!

  

Transforming social care in Scotland

If there is one issue that ought to be at the top of any policy agenda in Scotland, it is social care. One in 24 people in Scotland receive funded care support, and they deserve better.

Over half a million hospital bed days are lost every year because of delayed discharges. That is nearly 1500, mostly older adults, staying in hospital when they should be cared for in a community setting or their own home. And it costs NHS Scotland around £130m a year, resources that should be used to treat people who need hospital care.

Why? Because we have an underfunded, fragmented service delivered by an overworked, underpaid and undervalued workforce. Care workers are voting with their feet - leaving for employment that pays them a decent wage. Without stressing about inadequate time to look after those in their care.  

After serving on task groups, commissions and given evidence to many parliamentary committees, I know there is a fair degree of consensus about how to tackle it. While there may be some differences over how to reform the system, there is a clear consensus that the biggest issue is funding.

On December 12, we have an opportunity to make a huge difference. UK Labour is committed to introducing free personal care to England. That alone will bring around £600m of extra funding to Scotland. That is a staggering 25% increase if allocated to adult social care. The word 'transformational' can be overused, but that is precisely what this is. 

With that level of additional resource, we could invest in the extra capacity, radically improve the training, pay and conditions of the workforce, end charges and invest in preventative measures to support care in the community. 

 We should also use this investment to reform the system. 

We can start by scrapping the marketisation of social care. Too many providers, with the expensive management and back-office structures required to administer a fake market that delivers only for the few. A Scottish Care Service (SCS) could set national standards, with local delivery through a properly integrated service. That still leaves room for innovative voluntary sector providers who are prepared to meet those national standards.   

The SCS would work with a statutory workforce forum to deliver effective workforce planning, raise employment standards and training - making social care an attractive career for a growing workforce.  

This transformational investment will enable a new start for social care in Scotland. It's a one-off opportunity that we can grasp to invest and reform a vital service. We just have to vote for it. 

Tackling climate change with warm homes for all

If we don’t take action now, a zero-carbon energy system will remain a pipe dream for decades to come.

I was listening in on a focus group discussion the other day, run by a friend in the industry. When they got around to climate change the young people in the group gave this as their primary concern and were very clear that as a country, we were not doing enough.

This response didn't surprise me, but what did make me sit up was the response of the older people in the group. They said we had a duty to bequeath a clean planet to the next generation. My friend noticed this trend across several sessions and showed me data that older people had significantly changed their position on climate change action. 

While concern about climate change had risen across all age ranges, the increase was lower amongst middle-aged men. They cited concerns about the impact on jobs and some of the other lifestyle changes they would need to make.

That is why today's policy announcement on Labour's 'Warm Homes for All' is so important. It takes practical action on climate change, cutting carbon emissions by 10% by the year 2030. It also reduces energy bills, particularly for low-income households, by an average of £417 a year. In Scotland, it will create at least 18,500 direct and 16,600 indirect jobs – directly addressing the concerns of the focus group.

The buildings sector makes up nearly a quarter of Scotland’s emissions, and residential buildings made up the bulk of this at 73%. Fuel Poverty affects 613,000 homes in Scotland, and thousands die every winter due to the effects of living in a cold, damp home.

The Scottish Government has switched resources for fuel poverty off and then on again with a range of programmes. They will no doubt say that this is due to Tory austerity. What is now clear is that the election of a UK Labour Government will create the opportunity to put a transformative scale of investment into seriously tackling this issue.

I have campaigned on fuel poverty for many years, sat on working parties, written reports, and supported many worthwhile initiatives. I have heard UNISON members in social work, and health care describe their frustration at helping people, only to send them home to buildings that exacerbate their conditions. This new plan is on a scale that could eradicate fuel poverty in Scotland.

It is also only one part of a broader plan that Labour calls a 'Green Industrial Revolution'. I am not a great fan of political soundbites, but I have been impressed by the detailed work being put in by the Labour team working on this issue. The recently published 'Thirty by 2030' report shows how we can put the UK onto the path of zero-carbon energy and boost the economy at the same time. They describe a plan that could boost the UK economy by £800bn, creating 850,000 new jobs, increasing household incomes and avoiding 6,000 deaths per year through improved air quality. Not to mention the wider health benefits.

Tackling climate change isn’t easy, but all too often, the opportunities are ignored. The UK could be the world's climate leader while improving the lives of the many. What’s been missing is the political will. Today’s announcements show that the political will is now there – we just have to vote for it!   

Keir Hardie and the 21st Century Socialist Revival

The life, politics and ideas of James Keir Hardie, the Labour Party’s founder and first leader can be a tool for socialist political education and a spur to action in the current political era.

I paraphrase Richard Burgon MP’s words in the foreword to a new book, 'Keir Hardie and the 21^st Socialist Revival’ (Luath Press), to make the point that we look back because there is so much we can learn today. The ten chapters in this book explore many aspects of Hardie’s life and ideas. From the local to the international, from children to gender inequality, not forgetting the workplace in which his ideas were forged.  In doing so, the book touches on aspects of Keir Hardie that are not widely known and show how far his ideas were ahead of his time. 

Caroline Sumpter writes about Hardie’s stories aimed at children. It may well have been his own missed childhood, as he said, “I am one of the unfortunate class who have never known what it was to be a child.”, which gave him a particular affinity for children in a time when the voice of the child was rarely heard. They responded to his call with many letters to the Labour Leader, and Hardie took up their causes in parliament. He would have been very proud of the young people taking part in the Youth Strike 4 Climate campaign this year - a new generation of his 'Labour Crusaders'.

Another unusual cause for his time was women’s suffrage. Ann Henderson’s chapter highlights that for Hardie women’s suffrage was a means to an end ", and that end is freedom, and freedom means the right to live and the means to life in exchange for the performance of some duty to the community".

Hardie's politics were rooted in that sense of community. In my chapter on municipal socialism, I highlight the 19th-century roots and Hardie's advocacy for a broader role for councils in his draft 1910 'The Local Authorities (Enabling) Act'. He would have welcomed the expansion of local government before the Second World War when municipal ownership provided 30% of council income. His ideas have found a new resonance more than a hundred years after his death in the radical political decentralisation of the current Labour Party leadership. The concept of Community Wealth Building, championed in his adopted Ayrshire, is a modern adaptation of his ideas.

Before researching my chapter, I hadn’t appreciated how far the USA in the early years of the twentieth century had adopted municipal socialism, through the sewer socialists and others. Peter Cole, in his chapter on the transatlantic connection, documents Hardie's visits to the USA and his discussions with the trade union leader Eugene Debs and his role in converting Debs to socialism. The current socialist revival in the USA, with ideas like the Green New Deal, reflect the concerns that Hardie and Debs championed in his speaking tours across that continent.

The international theme continues in Jonathan Hyslop’s chapter on Hardie as a critic of the empire. He describes Hardie's tours of India and South Africa in which he championed the causes of self-government and equal pay for black workers. Causes that were not popular in his time, but subsequently progressed. Vince Mills picks up some similar themes in his chapter on Ireland, and how Hardie viewed the importance of working-class unity across the sectarian divide.

As Hardie was above all a trade unionist, it is unsurprising that industrial issues feature strongly in the book. Sharon Graham looks at the role of precarious employment and mechanisation, issues that would be very familiar to Keir Hardie. Gordon Munro looks at similar aspects of economic justice, matching Hardie's campaigns with the commitments of the current Labour Party to radically transform the economy.

Joe Cullinane describes how Hardie came to understand that trade unions without political power were not enough. How the Liberal Party always supported the mine owners over the miners, mainly when it came to the 1887 Coal Mines Bill. He famously coined the phrase 'dumb dogs who dare not bark' to describe Lib-Lab MPs. This led to his conversion to the cause of independent Labour MPs and the founding of the Labour Party.

Richard Leonard charts the early stages of this conversion through Hardie’s columns in the Ardrossan and Saltcoats Herald. Temperance was a regular theme, and while the level of alcohol-related illness today proves Hardie right, it is perhaps a cause that has not transferred to the modern movement. In 1886 he said "If you would be successful in your struggle, shun the public house as you would the mouth of hell. It is your greatest enemy.”

In his afterword, Jeremy Corbyn reflects on the modern-day relevance of Hardie’s ideas and the causes he championed. From international relations and economic justice to political organisation and education. When the gap between the richest and poorest has never been greater he concludes; “Never has socialism been more relevant; only by providing for need not greed can we eliminate poverty and ensure sustainability of our precious planet”.

James Keir Hardie taught us much, and this book helps us understand why he is as relevant today as he was over a hundred years ago. 

(you can learn more about Keir Hardie by joining the Keir Hardie Society here)   

Housing Commission shows how to tackle the housing emergency

There is a real housing emergency in many parts of Scotland, and we need the Government to recognise the scale of the problem and take radical action.

I was in the Scottish Parliament today at the launch of Scottish Labour’s Housing Commission report.  Chaired by Professor Stuart Gulliver it brought together a range of experts to agree realistic and practical proposals.

The report sets out a detailed ten-part plan based on the underlying principles of tackling inequality in housing and rebalancing the relationship between the private and public sector. 

The report starts with the need to increase the supply of housing. 60,000 social homes over 5 years from 2021 would mean a 70% increase in the supply of affordable homes compared to the Government’s current commitment. Social housing will once again be seen as a national asset like any other form of infrastructure.

I particularly liked the recognition that empty homes are a wasted resource when Scotland needs more homes. There are an estimated 40,000 Long Term Empty Properties in Scotland (empty for more than 6 months). The Commission proposes using the law to force sales in certain circumstances or a low-cost loan scheme to incentivise re-occupation, especially in rural areas.

The term' affordable housing’ is utterly misused by governments. Genuine affordability requires establishing the crucial links between rents and the ability of people to afford them. This means adjusting the capital subsidy to ensure rents are genuinely affordable, although as SFHA pointed out this morning, this might also require other types of grant funding.

On homelessness, there was a clear view that legislation is not enough. We have strong legislation, it is simply not being enforced. The Commission said the Labour Party should continue its cross-party support on homelessness and, in its own right, emphasise the need for sufficient, sustained long term funding and support to eradicate homelessness across the whole system.

The Private Rented Sector (PRS) is playing a much larger role in housing supply, although there are substantial regional variations. The Labour Party’s concern with PRS relates fundamentally to the need for the sector to treat its tenants fairly, honestly and with respect.  That means PRS should be subject to substantial regulation and control to protect tenants' rights, particularly those concerning security of tenure, the fairness of rent levels and their increases and the quality of accommodation being offered. 

Addressing the price of land is probably the single most crucial thing that the Government could do to improve the housing situation in Scotland. A key proposal is to allow public authorities to acquire land at, or very close to, existing use value. Part of the solution is to reform planning gain. For example, in a 2017 study, it was calculated that the 'planning gain' contributions received by Edinburgh City Region had a value of £32mn in 2015-16 while the actual land value uplift amounted to £350m. The Commission also recommends that land transferred between public bodies should be done at a nominal cost. This includes removing the duty on public bodies to maximise the receipts from land sales.

Finally, the Commission recommends strengthening the institutional framework with a new Land and Communities Development Agency in Scotland. It will sit between local and national Government, acting as a 'prime mover' to generate new mixed tenure housing communities and acquire derelict land.

The Commission rightly emphasised the importance of developing a cross-party consensus on housing. The solutions require long-term action over several parliaments. This report is a perfect place to start that work.

Plunder of the Commons

Public wealth takes precedence over private riches. This is a policy prescription from what became known as the Lauderdale paradox. The Earl of Lauderdale in 1804 argued that there was an inverse correlation between public wealth and private riches such that an increase in the latter often served to diminish the former.

This is one of many classical ideas that underpin a new book by Guy Standing, 'Plunder of the Commons: A Manifesto for Sharing Public Wealth'. While most people are familiar with Magna Carta, there was a second document, scarcely known today, but at the time of its sealing was regarded as equally fundamental. This was the Charter of the Forest, which was about the rights of commoners to use and manage common resources. The Charter was also among the first environmental law statues as it placed implicit limits on the exploitation of natural resources.

Standing takes the principles of this Charter and looks at how they have been abused over the years, and then applies them in a modern context. He starts with how common land has been captured by private interests from the enclosures to the Highland clearances and modern-day encroachments - leaving most land in the hands of the very few, not the many. Common land today makes up only 7% of Scotland and 5% of the UK as a whole. The tenth Duke of Buccleuch is Britain's largest private landowner. As the descendant of an illegitimate son of Charles II, he inherited 277,000 acres, for which he did not do a day's work.

Land ownership continues to be concentrated in a few hands. For example, over 33,000 small-to-medium-sized farms have closed down since the mid-2000s. Forests, public parks, National Parks and even village greens have been whittled away into private ownership. This has a wider impact. For example, parks save the NHS £113 million a year as a result of fewer visits to the doctor. They also reduce heat in built-up areas and help manage run-off from heavy storms.

The book gives many other examples of how 'The Natural Commons' have been destroyed or privatised. Urban trees, water, seashores, air, sky, wind, and the minerals beneath our feet. Fracking without the landowner's permission is a recent example. Put simply; privatisation has paved the way for a pervasive colonisation of what had been commons.

Standing takes a similar approach to other, less obvious 'commons'. These include the 'social commons', public services that are provided outwith the private market and have been built up over generations. The 'civil commons' shows how access to justice (charges, legal aid, etc.) has been whittled away, and even criminal justice has been privatised. 

The arts, sport, the mass media, public libraries, art galleries, museums, concert halls and public places for performances are all part of our 'cultural commons'. He shows how the depletion of the cultural commons in the twenty-first century has been extensive and devastating, accelerated by the prolonged period of austerity. Concerns over the use of big data are covered in his' knowledge commons'. He argues that everyone should have access to adequate information and shows how corporate interests have captured information through enclosure, commodification, privatisation and ideological capture.

What I like about this book is that while providing excellent analysis, it also provides solutions - 44 of them. The final chapters offer a modern Charter of the Commons, to promote an ecologically sustainable society in which security, freedom and equality can flourish. There are too many to list in a blog post. However, a key recommendation is the establishment of a Commons Fund, sourced by levies on the commercial use or exploitation of the commons. These levies would also give all citizens a sense of collective ownership, even if some cost them personally.

Private wealth should be the starting point for the fund as it has increased at the expense of public wealth. Only 4% of tax revenues in the UK come from wealth. Standing proposes a progressive tax on inherited wealth or a general wealth tax, which already exists in a number of countries. Other sources of income include a Land Value Tax, Carbon Levy, Frequent Flyer Levy, Cruise Liner Levy, water use and others. These all have the advantage of encouraging less environmentally damaging activity. 

A Digital Data Levy addresses the use of our personal data by companies that are adept at tax avoidance, putting little back into our economy and public services. A similar approach is suggested to intellectual property rights, including an end to subsidies for Patents.

A number of us are sceptical that Basic Income will work without it being funded at a meaningful level. Standing argues that the Commons Fund could be one route to such a Basic Income. He also argues that a Basic Income also comes with an obligation to be an active citizen.

Overall, this is a very welcome, and concise, contribution to the debate about ownership, public services and inequality. I'll finish with this paragraph from the concluding chapter:

"The commons are our collective heritage. They cannot be alienated legitimately unless we, as citizens, decide that is what we wish, recognising that we are custodians for future generations as well as ours. Privatising and commercialising the commons, and most particularly colonising them, amounts to theft. It is a form of corruption intended to generate rental income for a few, from newly created 'property rights'. And it is regressive. The loss of the commons most affects those who rely on it the most."

How we can finance the future

I am in Cape Town, South Africa, this week speaking at the global summit, 'Financing the Future'.

This is a gathering of the global divest/invest movement. The aim is to shift finance flows away from fossil fuels and into climate solutions as the right way to 'finance the future’. The conference is hearing from experts and campaigners who describe why these approaches are indispensable to solving the climate crisis and ensuring universal access to clean, reliable, affordable sources of energy.

There have been some inspirational contributions, including the deCOALonize campaign in Kenya who took on huge corporations, Chinese investors and the government to stop the development of a coal industry in Kenya. Or the Dakota Sioux who opposed the oil pipeline that threatens their environment. 

There was also inspiration and support for what young people have achieved with their campaigns, including the 20 September climate strike. Back home, today’s Scottish Household Survey highlights almost two-thirds of adults viewed climate change as an immediate and urgent problem. The greatest increase in concern is among adults aged 16-24, rising from 38% in 2013 to 67% in 2018.

However, there is plenty of hard-headed analysis as well. The movement has just passed $11 trillion of managed investment funds committed to divestment from fossil fuels. I was impressed by the understanding that this not only an environmental issue. It is just as much about economic and human rights, about global justice.

Exxon Mobil is dying

I talked about Scotland's cross-party political commitment to tackle climate action. That ambition has resulted in good progress in decarbonising our electricity generation, although we remain in the middle of the emissions league table because of limited work on transport and heat.

I also referenced the importance of Just Transition. Sadly, having to point out that as you travel across Scotland, you pass thousands of wind turbines, precious few of which were manufactured in Scotland. We have plenty of experience in our coal and steel communities of bad transitions – the consequences of which remain with us today. Scotland’s Just Transition Commission is very welcome, but it must be more than a 'good intentions' commission. There has to be a real route map, with a jobs guarantee and a commitment to solutions that eliminate poverty and inequality. As Sam Smith from the ITUC put it: “a world where emissions are down, but actually people have decent and better lives.”.

My contribution also covered the practical issues associated with pension divestment and investment. Shifting our pensions funds into a long-term horizon - to recognise that fiduciary duty is no longer an excuse for inaction when the evidence is clear that fossil fuels are not a viable investment. I highlighted the practical measures in the UNISON guide as a template for pension trustees to not only divest but also invest in a different future. 

Being in Africa gives you a different perspective on these issues. Two-thirds of Africa doesn’t have grid access to electricity and little prospect of the marketised electricity system delivering much improvement. However, there are innovative schemes using solar and mini-grids in countries like Zambia and Nigeria.

It was also interesting to talk to South African unions and environmental groups about coal mining in that country, where Just Transition hasn't got much beyond the aspiration stage. A story involving Malawi illustrates other practical challenges. The energy minister told one delegate that he would love to build renewable electricity generation, but the only financing offer he had was from the Chinese to build a coal plant!

There was a lot of discussion about alternative investment. For example, mini-grids in Nigeria face 35% interest rates, staggering for someone coming from Scotland. There are probably not enough investment opportunities in renewables for constrained investors like pension funds, who need scale, low risk and have limited expertise. That’s why other socially useful investment is equally important like housing and other forms of infrastructure. 

Overall, there is plenty of inspiration for change here, and some fantastic projects and campaigns are going on worldwide. It seems appropriate being in South Africa to end with a Nelson Mandela quote: "It always seems impossible until it's done.”