There is an air of panic about how to fix Britain. We need to move quickly, shift the dial and jump up the rankings of rich countries. Investment is needed in new stuff to make the UK modern and its services delivered on time.
It’s a political imperative that galvanised Boris Johnson and then propelled Liz Truss from obscurity to becoming an almost revolutionary prime minister.
Today, the same pressure is on Rachel Reeves. It won’t be enough for the new chancellor just to say, when she stands up to deliver her budget statement on 30 October, that there is not £10bn extra or £20bn more than previously planned to spend, but £50bn – which is the widely touted sum that will be available after a rewriting of the fiscal rulebook. This money will all be dedicated to new stuff, to show how 21st-century the UK is going to be under Labour.
A focus on freshly crafted infrastructure projects is natural for any politician who feels the need to cut ribbons and set aside time for a photo opportunity. Politicians of all stripes have found themselves ready to ignore dilapidated corners of their towns and cities to focus on brighter prospects elsewhere.
In London, that meant building the Elizabeth line while the Bakerloo continued to fall apart. North of the capital, it meant building a high-speed line – HS2 – when an ordinarily fast line would do and leaving little spare cash for an upgrade of existing track on the much-neglected northern section of the rail network.
Plans for new roads ignore how the tarmac is wearing thin and potholes are emerging almost everywhere else across the country.
This is an argument for making what the UK has already constructed – whether that be a software network, a bridge or the provision of a school – fit for the 21st century before we start thinking about building new infrastructure.
Software networks are slowing because the backbone of the UK’s broadband network is weak and needs beefing up. State-run software systems need extra cybersecurity protection, as recent attacks on the British Library and Transport for London illustrated. And they also need integration, which is a point that every health minister knows and up to now has chosen to ignore.
In the health service, a programme to integrate disparate computer systems is probably the most desperately needed job of all. That’s not to say plans for new UK hospitals are irrelevant to its success, but the sclerotic nature of NHS IT robs the existing 930 of the ability to provide a decent service across all departments.
The danger is always that ministers find upgrading and maintaining the existing stock of infrastructure an unrewarding task.
So far, the noises from the new government are encouraging. It looks as if Labour will attempt to connect the stranded HS2 line at both ends, digging the tunnels in London that will bring the tracks into Euston while also opening the way for a better line north of Birmingham to Manchester and beyond (something the Tories abandoned).
There is hope that many of the most extravagant road schemes will get the boot in favour of improved maintenance. Money may also head north to revitalise northern rail. And the NHS is going to get an overhaul that will include a review of its IT infrastructure. That’s the prospect for hope that lies ahead.
The twin dangers are that Labour presses ahead too quickly now it has the levers of power in both hands, and does it without examining how the process of policymaking has become fractured inside Whitehall, with little debate or accountability, leaving projects permanently adrift.
At Bristol’s Festival of Economics gathering last week, Gavin Kelly said one of his biggest fears was that after a hiatus since the election, Labour would feel the need to grab at solutions to longstanding problems, leading to hastily constructed policies that would, after a short time, be found wanting.
Kelly is a former No 10 policy adviser and chair of the Resolution Foundation thinktank, who from next year will head the Nuffield Foundation, one of the biggest funders of research in the UK.
His concern is echoed in a paper for the UK in a Changing Europe thinktank that argues for more involvement from the public and a greater reliance on evidence – the kind produced by Nuffield.
The academics who wrote the paper say the “early signs from Labour point to a commitment to ideas such as ‘radical pragmatism’ and a push towards stability before more ambitious change”. In other words, there is a recognition that rushed policy is doomed to be undone by poor planning and a lack of public support.
Much better to approach life at a measured pace. Let’s hope the Labour leadership agrees.
