Lord Willetts is President of the Resolution Foundation. He is a former Minister for Universities and Science,
One of the reasons for the extraordinary longevity and success of British conservatism is that it displays an exceptional capacity to adjust as circumstances change. There is no canonical text. Instead, the practice came first and the theory is an attempt to distil what can be learnt from it.
So there is a rich and diverse repertoire of Tory arguments deployed by Tory leaders and thinkers over centuries. In the nineteenth century the Party opposed the Liberal obsession with free markets, and even contemplated an alliance with the early Labour Party against the Liberals. It embraced Keynesianism, and then monetarism. It took Britain into the EU and then took Britain out.
With a history like that, it is surprising how often we hear disputes today in which Conservatives argue with each other about whether something is “unconservative” because it is contrary to some Tory principle or other. The willingness to argue something is “unconservative” is itself, paradoxically, rather unconservative. It is better to follow the wise words of Edmund Burke: “circumstances give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing colour and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind.”
The current debate on taxes having to go up to plug the budget deficit is a vivid example of how circumstances have changed. Conservatives don’t like raising taxes and do so more in sorrow than in anger.
But it is necessary now: it is just a pity that we have not been able to devote more time and effort to thinking very carefully about what is the best way to do this. With a big increase in the number of old people and a Conservative programme of redesigning the state so that it spends money on them, we should not be surprised that at some point taxes have to go up to pay for it. We could have been debating and considering how best to do this for years, but it is all coming in a rush now.
There is a respectable argument that the preoccupation with taking people out of income tax was misconceived. Public services as extensive as the ones we vote for here in Britain need a broad tax base: there is no group of rich “others” – plutocrats or multinationals – who can pay for all of it.
David Gauke put it very well in his column on this site yesterday: “the truth is that if you want to raise a lot of money, you have to raise it from a lot of people.” Indeed it is healthy in a democracy for most adults to be aware of taxes they are paying and caring about how the money is spent.
A rethink of tax policy is now underway. But there is another area where we desperately need a rethink. How do we best control immigration? If minsters as tough-minded as Priti Patel and Suella Braverman are finding it difficult, this suggests that there needs to be a change of approach. Here are three suggestions.
My first proposal is a feasible priority now. The Home Office already provides a list of shortage occupations for which migration may be justified. But links between that list and vocational training policy are far too weak. That list should be a guide for the Education Department to the training courses which should be priorities for public funding. There could be direct funding of them at FE Colleges and perhaps higher maintenance loans for students studying them at university.
That is the least difficult option. The second one is much harder. One reason that migrants and refugees are so keen to get to the UK is that is easier then to get a job and housing because we do not require identity cards. I do not like the idea of ID cards any more than I like higher taxes, but they are a very effective way of policing access to jobs and public services. A Britain with ID cards would be much less attractive to migrants.
There is a third option too. We could move to a contributory principle for working age benefits. That would significantly reduce the appeal of coming here as more financial help would be dependent on prior residence in the country. There would have to be credits for British citizens who were not able to pay. We could even extend that contributory principle and expect pensioners to pay in as well if they could afford it.
All these measures – bringing more people into income tax, ID cards, the contributory principle – would signal that we are a national community, membership of which brings particular rights and also obligations. We pay in when we can afford to and are entitled to the benefits as well. It is part of being a British citizen. It sounds pretty Conservative to me.