Iain Mansfield is Director of Research at Policy Exchange.
Rishi Sunak’s first hundred days have stabilised both the economy and the polls. Unfortunately for Conservatives, stability in the latter appears to mean a consistent 20-25 points behind Labour.
His own personal ratings are declining to match the Conservatives’ and on almost all issues, polling shows that Labour are more trusted to deliver.
Some of this can be argued to be the natural consequences of economic headwinds: inflation, a global energy crisis, and a winter of strikes do not make a promising backdrop for political recovery.
An underlying problem, however, is the legacy of ‘cakeism’. The Tories consistently over-promised and under-delivered, and now there is increasing scepticism that the Government has either the intention or the ability to deliver.
Over the last two years Government has increasingly appeared to prioritise doing what will achieve positive headlines in the short term, or manage stakeholders, rather than asking what must be done to genuinely achieve results and deliver change.
The problem is that, sooner or later, the public catch on. This is demonstrated by the four areas considered here – small boats, childcare, culture and growth – where the Government has consistently prioritised rhetoric over results.
Small Boats
The number of people illegally crossing the Channel has increased year on year, and in 2022 stood at over 45,000. It has become abundantly clear that the UK cannot, or will not, control its borders.
The Rwanda plan, launched with great fanfare almost a year ago, has not deported a single individual. Despite passing a new Nationality and Borders Act last year, the Government failed to use its majority to secure the policies it wished to enact from legal challenge.
Such is the extent of the Government’s failure that more people trust Labour than the Conservatives to control immigration.
Sunak’s suggestion that the Government would be willing to leave the ECHR does not address the heart of the issue: that it must first be willing to bring forward a Bill that will actually be effective.
The components of such a law are straight-forward, and were set out in a Policy Exchange paper last year:
- Place an explicit duty upon the Home Secretary, and officials, to rapidly deport those illegally crossing the channel, whether to a safe third country such as Rwanda or to a British Overseas Territory.
- Set out that any such person who enters illegally shall never be eligible to legally become resident in the UK.
- Explicitly set out that nothing in other legislation, such as the Human Rights Act or the Modern Slavery Act, may be used to frustrate the operation of this Bill.
If the Government genuinely wishes to end the Channel crossings, it knows what to do.
Childcare
The increasing cost of childcare is placing a growing toll on strained household budgets and damaging the economy by making it uneconomic for parents – usually women – to return to work.
The issue is not the level of Government support: the UK has a larger subsidy as a share of net household. Rather it is a strangled and overregulated market: regulation has driven almost half of childminders out of the industry over the last decade, increasing costs for individuals and the taxpayer.
As in housing, another over-regulated sector, the Government over recent years has chosen solely to subsidise demand, rather than expand supply; this has had the expected consequences. On the supply-side, we have now been waiting almost nine months for a response to a set of modest and unambitious proposals from the Department for Education.
To genuinely move the dial, Government must go much further, in particular – as set out in Policy Exchange’s report, Better Childcare – by dramatically de-regulating childminders and removing the state-imposed barriers that prevent parents from finding the childcare they need.
Culture
Almost every week, a minister will be in the news railing against so-called woke issues.
Yet this cuts little ice with a public that can see an NHS and education system captured by gender ideology, a police-force that the public believes “is more interested in being woke than in solving crimes”, and a Civil Service in which Home Office anti-terrorism officials being given lessons on pronouns.
Repeated polling by Policy Exchange has found the UK on the brink of a watershed change in societal values and attitudes to British history.
The Civil Service and wider public sector increasingly appear to believe equality and diversity policies sit outside the normal principles of impartiality and ministerial responsibility, forming instead a corpus separatum in which the normal rules do not apply.
When Sajid Javid, as Health Secretary, orders the NHS to stop dropping the word women, officials nod, perhaps change the particular example he is pointing at, but then continue as they were before.
In schools, the (non-binding) political impartiality guidance published last year, and the underlying Act, are largely ignored. In prisons and the court system, self-ID has become the norm, despite the Government explicitly rejecting it.
Real change does not come from Cabinet ministers playing whack-a-mole, but rather from legislative and systemic reform. At a minimum, the Public Sector Equality Duty – a permissive charter for radicals – must be scrapped. This could be done with a simple one-clause Bill, abolishing Sections 149–157 of the Equality Act 2010. Ideally sections 158-159, the loopholes permitting so-called positive action, would be abolished simultaneously.
This should be followed by an explicit, fully-enforced, ban on the promotion of critical race theory or gender ideology within the public sector; an abolition of equality, diversity and inclusion roles; a sharp curbing of identity-based ‘staff networks’, which openly and internally lobby against official Government policy; and an end to the recording of ‘non-crime hate incidents’ by the police.
Reform in this area is possible, but occurs by changing the law, not through speeches and bluster.
Growth
The Prime Minister has made growing the economy one of his five pledges – but has yet to put into place the serious reforms necessary to do so.
In an economy with high inflation and high levels of job vacancies this does not come from unfunded tax cuts, but rather through systematic supply-side reform aimed at reducing regulatory burden and unleashing financial and human capital.
We have already discussed childcare. Planning reform has been stymied in the Commons; it takes up to 13 years to build a windfarm.
More broadly, bar some good work on releasing capital through reforms to Solvency 2, the Government has little appetite for genuine regulatory reform of the sort set out in our report last summer, Re-engineering Regulation. It appears more eager to impose new burdens on business, such as the new requirement for every venue with over 100 people to have an antiterror plan.
It is early days for Sunak. There is still time for the Government to make serious inroads into these problems – particularly as none of them require new money, only political will.
Ultimately, the choice for the Government is simple.
Does it wish to actually stop the small boats, or just to set up a narrative of being frustrated by the courts?
Does it wish to genuinely make childcare more affordable for parents, or is it more interested in appeasing the vested interests which are driving up prices?
Does it wish to stamp out the spread of divisive, far-left ideologies in the public sector, or does it just want good headlines in the Daily Telegraph?
Does it want to kick-start our economy out of bottom gear and deliver growth, or are all the necessary decisions too difficult?
The public has lost faith in jam tomorrow; it is no longer willing to give ministers the benefit of the doubt.
Rhetoric has run its course. At the next election, if it hopes to be re-elected, the Government will need to have delivered visible results.
Iain Mansfield is Director of Research at Policy Exchange.
Rishi Sunak’s first hundred days have stabilised both the economy and the polls. Unfortunately for Conservatives, stability in the latter appears to mean a consistent 20-25 points behind Labour.
His own personal ratings are declining to match the Conservatives’ and on almost all issues, polling shows that Labour are more trusted to deliver.
Some of this can be argued to be the natural consequences of economic headwinds: inflation, a global energy crisis, and a winter of strikes do not make a promising backdrop for political recovery.
An underlying problem, however, is the legacy of ‘cakeism’. The Tories consistently over-promised and under-delivered, and now there is increasing scepticism that the Government has either the intention or the ability to deliver.
Over the last two years Government has increasingly appeared to prioritise doing what will achieve positive headlines in the short term, or manage stakeholders, rather than asking what must be done to genuinely achieve results and deliver change.
The problem is that, sooner or later, the public catch on. This is demonstrated by the four areas considered here – small boats, childcare, culture and growth – where the Government has consistently prioritised rhetoric over results.
Small Boats
The number of people illegally crossing the Channel has increased year on year, and in 2022 stood at over 45,000. It has become abundantly clear that the UK cannot, or will not, control its borders.
The Rwanda plan, launched with great fanfare almost a year ago, has not deported a single individual. Despite passing a new Nationality and Borders Act last year, the Government failed to use its majority to secure the policies it wished to enact from legal challenge.
Such is the extent of the Government’s failure that more people trust Labour than the Conservatives to control immigration.
Sunak’s suggestion that the Government would be willing to leave the ECHR does not address the heart of the issue: that it must first be willing to bring forward a Bill that will actually be effective.
The components of such a law are straight-forward, and were set out in a Policy Exchange paper last year:
If the Government genuinely wishes to end the Channel crossings, it knows what to do.
Childcare
The increasing cost of childcare is placing a growing toll on strained household budgets and damaging the economy by making it uneconomic for parents – usually women – to return to work.
The issue is not the level of Government support: the UK has a larger subsidy as a share of net household. Rather it is a strangled and overregulated market: regulation has driven almost half of childminders out of the industry over the last decade, increasing costs for individuals and the taxpayer.
As in housing, another over-regulated sector, the Government over recent years has chosen solely to subsidise demand, rather than expand supply; this has had the expected consequences. On the supply-side, we have now been waiting almost nine months for a response to a set of modest and unambitious proposals from the Department for Education.
To genuinely move the dial, Government must go much further, in particular – as set out in Policy Exchange’s report, Better Childcare – by dramatically de-regulating childminders and removing the state-imposed barriers that prevent parents from finding the childcare they need.
Culture
Almost every week, a minister will be in the news railing against so-called woke issues.
Yet this cuts little ice with a public that can see an NHS and education system captured by gender ideology, a police-force that the public believes “is more interested in being woke than in solving crimes”, and a Civil Service in which Home Office anti-terrorism officials being given lessons on pronouns.
Repeated polling by Policy Exchange has found the UK on the brink of a watershed change in societal values and attitudes to British history.
The Civil Service and wider public sector increasingly appear to believe equality and diversity policies sit outside the normal principles of impartiality and ministerial responsibility, forming instead a corpus separatum in which the normal rules do not apply.
When Sajid Javid, as Health Secretary, orders the NHS to stop dropping the word women, officials nod, perhaps change the particular example he is pointing at, but then continue as they were before.
In schools, the (non-binding) political impartiality guidance published last year, and the underlying Act, are largely ignored. In prisons and the court system, self-ID has become the norm, despite the Government explicitly rejecting it.
Real change does not come from Cabinet ministers playing whack-a-mole, but rather from legislative and systemic reform. At a minimum, the Public Sector Equality Duty – a permissive charter for radicals – must be scrapped. This could be done with a simple one-clause Bill, abolishing Sections 149–157 of the Equality Act 2010. Ideally sections 158-159, the loopholes permitting so-called positive action, would be abolished simultaneously.
This should be followed by an explicit, fully-enforced, ban on the promotion of critical race theory or gender ideology within the public sector; an abolition of equality, diversity and inclusion roles; a sharp curbing of identity-based ‘staff networks’, which openly and internally lobby against official Government policy; and an end to the recording of ‘non-crime hate incidents’ by the police.
Reform in this area is possible, but occurs by changing the law, not through speeches and bluster.
Growth
The Prime Minister has made growing the economy one of his five pledges – but has yet to put into place the serious reforms necessary to do so.
In an economy with high inflation and high levels of job vacancies this does not come from unfunded tax cuts, but rather through systematic supply-side reform aimed at reducing regulatory burden and unleashing financial and human capital.
We have already discussed childcare. Planning reform has been stymied in the Commons; it takes up to 13 years to build a windfarm.
More broadly, bar some good work on releasing capital through reforms to Solvency 2, the Government has little appetite for genuine regulatory reform of the sort set out in our report last summer, Re-engineering Regulation. It appears more eager to impose new burdens on business, such as the new requirement for every venue with over 100 people to have an antiterror plan.
It is early days for Sunak. There is still time for the Government to make serious inroads into these problems – particularly as none of them require new money, only political will.
Ultimately, the choice for the Government is simple.
Does it wish to actually stop the small boats, or just to set up a narrative of being frustrated by the courts?
Does it wish to genuinely make childcare more affordable for parents, or is it more interested in appeasing the vested interests which are driving up prices?
Does it wish to stamp out the spread of divisive, far-left ideologies in the public sector, or does it just want good headlines in the Daily Telegraph?
Does it want to kick-start our economy out of bottom gear and deliver growth, or are all the necessary decisions too difficult?
The public has lost faith in jam tomorrow; it is no longer willing to give ministers the benefit of the doubt.
Rhetoric has run its course. At the next election, if it hopes to be re-elected, the Government will need to have delivered visible results.