The House of Commons takes a mid-term break this week. David Cameron and some of his Cabinet ministers must be quite glad of it.
If last month’s assault on Alex Salmond and his independence referendum plans was meant to signal a year of bold and decisive moves to deal with some of the intractable issues facing the Westminster government, that strategy hasn’t lasted very long. Just six weeks into the new year two of its flagship reforms – to health and welfare – are once again tying the coalition in knots.
With any such public-service reform, often the stiffest resistance a government faces is not to the nature of the change it proposes, but to the idea of change itself – just ask Tony Blair. And if New Labour-style reform wasn’t ambitious enough, the current administration is attempting to implement it whilst squeezing budgets and tackling stubbornly high unemployment.
Hence Andy Burnham’s TV interview this morning about the Health and Social Care Bill. The Shadow Health Secretary shrewdly uttered a few headline-grabbing phrases about the Prime Minister like ‘facing the fight of his life’ and ‘putting political pride ahead of others’ best interests’, as well as the usual sentimentality about the traditions of the NHS.
However, the substance of Burnham’s position is that he supports doctor-led commissioning – one of the primary features of the Bill (and one that is already being rolled out anyway – the legislation is merely catching up with reality). What he really opposes, besides the supposed introduction of a market in the NHS – tabloid rhetoric for giving patients more choice (another principle that is already in practice across the country) – is the timing of the reform.
He calls it a “catastrophic mistake” to combine the financial pressures being placed on the NHS, not only by deficit reduction but also by demographic change, with fundamental restructuring. But when the government’s response is to claim that the reform would itself save money, the debate becomes a stalemate.
The same is true of changes to the welfare system. In one corner is a government aiming to cut costs, incentivise employment and stimulate economic growth by making life on benefits much less rewarding, pitted against an opposition claiming to be on the side of those hit hard by the downturn, for whom government support is a vital safety net – for which they have paid.
This sense of society’s entitlement to everything that governments have previously offered is what makes change – no matter how rational – so politically difficult. No one who works for what they earn would argue that those who don’t are entitled to an equivalent standard of living… until that job disappears and suddenly one’s self-interest changes; that is human nature.
Sadly, the likely result is the one that satisfies nobody; the one from which nobody gains – half-hearted or watered-down reforms that waste time and money, sap political support and merely paper over the cracks that were intended to be filled, shifting the problem into the future and the burden of solving it onto future generations.
And so it will be this coming week, when the Lords – whose half-term is, bizarrely, delayed by a week – debate healthcare and welfare reforms and vote on a number of amendments the like of which have already been rejected by the Commons.
The legislative ping-pong is worryingly reminiscent of that which has hobbled President Obama’s first term in the White House. David Cameron will be aware of the same risks facing his own authority, and the possible impact on his place in history. Just ask Tony Blair.
No comments:
Post a Comment