Frank Field's speech to The University of Hertfordshire, 3rd June 2008
The
Strange Death of Labour England?: Revisiting Bagehot’s English
Constitution
The Chancellor’s Lecture
given
at
The University of Hertfordshire
on the
3rd June
2008
by
The Rt. Hon. Frank Field MP
Summary
English voters
are awakening from the great slumber into which they fell when
Parliament passed its first devolution measure establishing a
Scottish Parliament.
The Act of Devolution cannot be a final
settlement. Indeed the Scottish Labour leader, Wendy Alexander,
registered as much when she recently called for an early referendum
on independence. Yet her plea was couched as though it was an
exclusively Scottish matter. For reasons I am about to detail any
referendum needs to be UK wide. The English, Welsh and citizens of
Northern Ireland have as much interest and as much a right to be
consulted over the break up of the Kingdom, and on what terms, as do
the Scots themselves.
Pressures have been building up to
revisit the devolution settlement. The English feel that the
settlement is unfair both constitutionally and financially. Scottish
Members vote on legislation that does not affect their constituents
but it does mine. Likewise, the fiscal disadvantages devolution
places on my constituents compared with Scottish and Welsh voters,
will also ensure that there is inevitably a second great Devolution
Act. The fiscal discriminations cover, for example:
frail citizens in Scotland not facing residential care home fees as they do in England;
Scottish citizens being treated with the Lucentis drug for macular degeneration of the eye while English citizens simply lose their sight awaiting action from NICE;
Scottish students going to University not paying top-up fees of £3,000.00 per year as do English students going to University; and,
most English citizens paying prescription charges while none face such charges in Wales.
These advantages would be entirely
acceptable if they were funded by Scottish and Welsh taxpayers. Yet
the Scottish Parliament has resolutely refused to use any of its
fundraising powers and, of course, the Welsh Assembly has no such
powers to employ.
The choice is not whether there will be a
second devolution measure. That will occur. The choice is now about
who will lead the change – whether it will be Gordon Brown or David
Cameron. No one is better placed than the Prime Minister,
representing a Scottish constituency, to deliver justice to English
voters. The political rewards of doing so could be considerable.
The dangers for Labour of failing to lead the debate are
perhaps even greater. That conclusion may come about not simply by
the Tories being generally accepted by voters as the English Party.
An even worse outcome would be for Labour to concede to the BNP yet
another issue – along with immigration – with which to appeal to
Labour’s core voters. If this was allowed to happen we would then
begin to witness what a future historian might call The
Unnecessary Death of Labour England?
Thanks
I
begin by thanking Lord Salisbury for a further act of friendship by
inviting me to give the Chancellor’s Lecture. I remain grateful to
him and Lady Salisbury for the many acts of kindness they have
extended to me over three decades of much valued friendship.
Walter
Bagehot may not be as well known to many of you as he is to your
Chancellor. But if I had been standing here a hundred and forty years
ago this would not have been so. Bagehot was one of a small group of
Victorians who had what is called today ‘name recognition’. Not a
recognition, to be sure, like that of Mr Gladstone who was Prime
Minister and superstar rolled into one. Bagehot was not quite in that
league. But among a significant proportion of the population his was
a name with which to conjure.
Bagehot was a journalist of
great distinction. He edited The Economist, the weekly
magazine that now sells a record 1.2 million copies worldwide each
week. But it is not for his editorial skills that Bagehot is now best
remembered. His fame primarily comes from his study which he
entitled: The English Constitution.
Political power
on the move
This volume is a monument to Bagehot at his
best. It reveals him to be one of the most original political
observers of his day. Bagehot was less interested in the persons who
strut and fret their hour upon the stage and, as Shakespeare tells
us, are then heard no more – although it is doubtful whether he
could have written his great book without this day to day contact
with political action.
When Bagehot came to write his Magnum
Opus he wasn’t much interested in the doings of those who exercised
political power. Much more important, Bagehot thought, was the
recording of those institutions through which power was exercised,
how the hierarchy of institutional importance had changed, was
changing, and would continue to change. If politicians as a class
want to exercise power they have to be ready over time to indulge in
a never ending game of musical chairs, moving as power moves from one
political institution to another.
So why is Bagehot important
to us today? Bagehot has an obvious attraction for the historian of
ideas. He was the first writer with wide appeal to focus exclusively
on how power within the British constitution had moved from the
monarchy, to the great landed interests represented in the Lords,
only for the Lords to see power shift to the Commons as the country
moved to a universal franchise. Other writers had, of course,
described this turn of events, but only as part of a much larger
scene. Bagehot made the transference of power between institutions
the canvas on which he painted his whole study.
But it is not
as an historian of political ideas that Bagehot is relevant today.
One of Bagehot’s other books was on the relationship between
physics and politics. Here lies the key. Physics, as you know, is a
term for those sciences which deal with natural phenomena such as
motion, force, light and sound. Bagehot rightly saw political power
as a force which was similarly almost impossible to contain in one
place, let alone in one institution, on a permanent basis. Politics
are never static. That is why the picture Bagehot painted, of
political power on the move between the great institutions of state,
was an accurate one. The institutions through which power was
exercised had changed, was changing and would continue to change.
When I was an undergraduate a gifted labour politician, R H
Crossman, wrote a new introduction to The English Constitution
and this is the edition I read. Here Crossman brought up to date
Bagehot’s story of power on the move. The Commons had lost out to
the Executive. Later, Crossman as a reforming leader of the House of
Commons during Harold Wilson’s Governments, tried to introduce a
new range of Committees through which, he hoped, MPs would claw back
some of the power they had lost to the Executive.
This story,
it is true, was also told by other politicians who had the gift of
observation. Quentin Hogg, who later became Lord Hailsham, only to
revert back to his Quentin Hogg status, and then yet again to become
Lord Hailsham, in a futile attempt to gain the power of the
premiership, is a story in itself of a person moving between Lords
and Commons twice over. Yet there is so much more to Lord Hailsham
than his vain attempt to gain the keys to Number 10. Lord Hailsham
was also a great craftsman of the English language, erudite, and an
astute political observer. Even if he did not coin the phrase of an
‘elected dictatorship’, he certainly popularised it. Power had
moved from the Commons to the Executive and Parliament had failed to
develop counter balancing forces.
Power moves from
London
If Bagehot were standing here before you today I
believe he would radically change the framework within which he would
now audit power. In Bagehot’s day much economic and most political
power was exercised in London. As this is no longer so I believe his
eye would have led him to open new chapters of his book. Since
Bagehot wrote, political power has moved from London. That shift has
primarily been to Brussels. More relevant for this address, it has
also moved from London into the newly established Parliaments and
Assemblies of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. I am also
confident that Bagehot would stress the adjective in his title
The English Constitution.
The German Parliament has
recently issued a report detailing how the vast majority of
legislation going through the Bundestag is not now initiated directly
by the German Government, or by German members of Parliament, but on
the direction of Brussels. If that is a correct figure for Germany
then similar figures must relate to all other member countries of the
European Union.
I do not now want to use Bagehot’s eyes to
develop this geographical movement of political power from London to
Brussels. It was quite clear when we had the debate over the new
European Constitution, which the Government prefers to call a Treaty,
that voters rightly wished to have a say on whether that constitution
should be adopted. Yet, while British voters are by a large margin
against any further loss of political power to Brussels, they are far
from clear, if the polls are to be believed, on how they might regain
some of their lost sovereignty.
Rather, I wish to turn
Bagehot’s eyes to the second and less remarked upon geographical
movement of power within the United Kingdom: the establishment of a
Parliament in Scotland and Assemblies in Wales and Northern Ireland
and what will inevitably flow from these initial changes.
The
Government seeks to present devolution as a process that is now
complete. They could not be more mistaken. Devolution currently is a
process, not a destination. That destination will inevitably be the
establishment of Parliaments or Assemblies which treat the four
constituent parts of the United Kingdom. A UK Parliament will then
deal only with those matters that have not been delegated to each of
the four country-based Parliaments.
The West Lothian
Question
Sometimes political change is brought about by
the sheer force of argument. More often, the political landscape
begins to shift as a result of those people with enough power to
bring about change beginning to flex their muscles. In the early days
of devolution the then Member for West Lothian, Tam Dalyell, posed
what has since become known as the West Lothian Question. Once some
power has been conceded to a Scottish Parliament how could Scottish
Members of Parliament continue to vote on issues from which their
constituents were exempt? That was the question Tam posed and for
which he, and now a growing body of us amongst the English
electorate, are waiting for an answer.
The question initially
carried little weight because, prior to establishing a Scottish
Parliament, devolution could only be discussed at a purely
theoretical level, and the English in particular have never been much
interested in theory. In stark contrast, today, the debate is about
the practical results of the first stage of devolution and those
practical consequences are seen, in part, in the inequitable
treatment between my constituents and the constituents of Scottish
MPs.
I have constituents going blind through the macular
degeneration of their eyes. The policy in England is that the
Lucentis drug has yet to be formally licensed by NICE. Of those of my
constituents in this position, one has a relative in Scotland
suffering the same degeneration of his eyes as himself. His
relative’s sight is being saved. For in Scotland, unlike in
England, there are no restrictions on the use of this drug. My
constituent, however, continues his downward path into blindness
already so developed that, when I met him recently in Liverpool, he
did not recognise me until I spoke.
The cost of personalised
care in a person’s home or in residential accommodation is another
growing bone of contention. Constituents of Scottish MPs do not face
these charges although some of my correspondents from north of the
border tell me the policy is not applied as universally as the
English media reports. What is certain is that my constituents gain
help on a means tested basis. They see their home for which they
saved all their lives, and capital which they hoped to pass onto
their children, being eaten away by the payment of fees their
Scottish counterparts do not face. The Government has just published
a consultation paper on how the English and Welsh should pay for the
long term care. In stark contrast and without any consultation
papers, the Scots receive free care.
There is a discussion to
be had on whether housing capital is a form of savings which should
be drawn down in weekly income to supplement a pension, or to meet
nursing home bills. But that is a debate for another day. What is
becoming centre stage is the birth of what can simply be called the
politics or the question of England. That debate is beginning to
focus around the objection English voters have to Scottish MPs voting
on matters that do not apply to Scotland. The debate is also
beginning to centre on the fiscal discrimination currently being
experienced by the English, Northern Irish and Welsh people. My
constituents do not believe it is fair that they should face a
constitutional discrimination as well as meeting additional costs
which identical people in Scotland, and to a lesser extent in Wales,
do not face. This, in a sentence, is the English Question.
My
third example is one which will probably strike a more immediate note
with many younger people. Students attending University in this
country will have to pay top-up fees of £3000 per year to the
University towards the cost of their degree, to say nothing of the
additional living costs while you study. In Scotland, higher
education is provided completely free of charge and consequently
Scottish students do not leave college with a huge debt as they do in
England. Instead once Scottish students graduate they pay an
endowment equivalent to less than one years worth of fees in
England.
It is not, however, solely Scottish citizens that are
enjoying such financial advantages. My last example concerns a
decision that was made by the Welsh Assembly earlier this year. As of
the 1st April all Welsh citizens ceased paying prescription charges
for their medication.
English taxpayers stump up
There
might be a case for allowing different levels of provision within the
different constituent parts of the United Kingdom if those areas
claiming favourable treatment paid themselves for those additional
services. However, that is not what is happening. With respect to
prescriptions, residential care, and student fees, Scottish and Welsh
citizens are treated more favourably than English constituents and,
furthermore, these differences are not financed by any additional
revenue from Scottish or Welsh voters.
Wendy Alexander, the
leader of the Labour opposition in the Scottish Parliament, has gone
on record to advise the English to stop whingeing about Scottish
cash. Figures from the Scottish executive show that, on average, the
UK Government spends £1,236 more on every person in Scotland than it
does in England. The Scottish Labour leader went on to say that “it
does not come down to numbers. Every part of the UK outside London is
a net beneficiary from the Exchequer, and Scotland does not get a
uniquely good deal”.
But that is what it does come down to.
Numbers are, after all, the only means we have of measurement, and
indeed the Labour leader in Scotland is wrong to assert that every
region bar London is a net beneficiary from the Exchequer. Three
regions are net contributors and they are all in England.
It
is true that regions like Merseyside, part of which I represent in
the Commons, are net beneficiaries of funds over the South East, but
I come back to the examples I have already given. The different
levels of funding do not result in different levels of services
between the different regions of England. Yet my constituents
suffering from degeneration of the eye are treated differently and
less favourably from Ms Alexander’s. Similarly students going to
University from my constituency are treated differently and more
unfavourably than students going to University from her constituency.
Likewise frail elderly constituents going into residential care in my
constituency, or having personal care delivered to them in their own
homes, are treated differently and more unfavourably than
constituents in her constituency. Moreover, it is noticeable that
there has never been a hint that Scotland should pay for its
advantages by asking Scottish voters to pay directly for them.
A
sign that the present settlement cannot continue came quite recently.
As a prelude to her becoming the leader of the Labour Party in
Scotland, Wendy Alexander conceded that the Barnett Formula – the
fiscal settlement that entrenches the monetary advantage given to
Scotland – should at least be up for debate. The new Labour leader
is to be congratulated on acknowledging that the first Devolution Act
has not delivered a final settlement in stone.
There are
other pressures for change in addition to these inequalities. Four
other events will bring the English question centre stage. The first
came from the first speech from the throne which Gordon Brown wrote
for the monarch. The content of the home affairs section of this
Queen’s Speech applied in its entirety to my constituents. The same
was not true for the constituents of the Rt. Hon. Member for
Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath. I concede that that need not be of
immediate concern to the life of the Government. Its majority is
assured in the Commons. But we need to think beyond the life of this
parliament. How will these issues play in a General Election? I would
hazard a guess that the debate in the country is likely to begin a
new turn and will become less friendly to Labour in England.
The
second event which will itself begin to engender change will be the
Budget. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, himself sitting for a
Scottish constituency, published the pre-budget statement along with
the much delayed deliberations on public expenditure levels for
2008-09 to 2010-11. These publications offer an opportunity to begin
discussing in earnest the Barnett Formula. I am anxious to seek ways
in which all public expenditure announced by the Chancellor of the
Exchequer can be defended on need, and not simply by historic
accident. People on lower income levels in Scotland and Wales should
continue to be supported but not to a greater extent than people
living on the same level of income in my constituency.
The
inequities in the present system are not defensible and should be
addressed. But there is for Labour a real threat which could all too
easily have a catastrophic impact on the party’s ability to
challenge for power in England.
The Blair Governments
stubbornly refused to face the English Question somehow believing
that, if it recited enough times the word ‘British’, the English
would become confused enough to let current matters rest. But polls
suggest otherwise. During the last Scottish Parliamentary elections,
for example, those polls that addressed the devolution question to
the English found that there was a higher proportion of voters in
England in favour of greater independence for England than there were
Scottish voters wanting that independence for their country.
The
English Question, that slumbering giant in British politics, is
beginning to stir. Either Labour can complete that process of
awakening by seeking a radically new settlement. Or that debate will
inevitably be initiated by those who will be less friendly to
Labour’s interest. Failure to act may not simply benefit the
Conservative Party. Further inaction could provide the BNP with
another political bridgehead into the core Labour vote.
Gordon
Brown is ideally placed to lead this initiative. Just as it was
conventional wisdom that the Tories were best placed to enact
decolonisation so, similarly, will a Scottish Prime Minister be best
placed to resolve the English question.
By initiating a
debate, and admitting that at this stage no one quite knows where the
process will lead, Gordon Brown would both set some of the parameters
as well as the speed of the debate. More importantly, the new
devolution settlement would be one upon which Labour can put its
imprint. And most of us know how first impressions are often
decisive.
The Prime Minister does not have much time if he is
to be seen to be the instigator, rather than simply reacting to the
next wave of devolution. Since drafting this lecture Wendy Alexander
is showing a strong political will where Scottish Labour interests
are put before the equivalent UK interests. It shows how strong the
myths of political parties are that David Cameron is so blinded by
the Unionist part of the Conservative Party’s logo that he doesn’t
see that he leads in all but name an exclusively English Party. The
Tories are hard-pressed to win a single seat north of the border or
across the Irish Sea. All their seats bar four come from English
constituencies.
England is in resentful mood. It believes
that the settlement made during the first round of devolution was
unfair and remains so unfair that it is becoming one of the festering
sores in English politics.
A further advantage of Gordon
Brown beginning a debate on an English Parliament would be that he
would hopefully extend the agenda to cover the voting system as well
as the powers of an English Parliament, although it was noticeable
that the biggest constitutional question facing the country was
omitted from the terms of reference for the Speaker’s Conference
the Prime Minister intends calling.
It should also set new
parameters to the debate on House of Lords reform. The second chamber
should become a vocal point where UK interests are debated and
settled. A regional elected Lords would have the authority to do
this, although such a turn of events, with the second chamber gaining
new key powers, would excite Bagehot, amongst others.
Anyone
who has heard the Prime Minister in private realises that his views
on devolution are set by the need to protect minorities in an island
dominated by the English. This may be an argument that wins through
in the end, but it won’t if Britain slides resentfully into a new
political arrangement after little meaningful debate.
But
that is an issue to be fully debated in the round. The question is
not whether there is going to be a new debate leading inevitably to a
new devolution settlement, but who will lead that debate. Will it be
Brown or Cameron?
Pressure for change may come from a third
force. Alex Salmond has played a pretty faultless hand since becoming
First Minister in Scotland. In his White Paper on Scottish
Independence he has made it plain that he sees the monarch as
continuing to be the head of an independent Scotland. That statement
alone neutralises one of the political cards which Alex Salmond might
have found being played against him. But it does so in a way that
begins to lay down how the four independent countries of the UK would
continue to work together on those political issues which cannot be
settled by each country’s constituent Parliament.
If past
form is anything to go by, Alex Salmond will be a very proactive
player in this debate which is another reason why I would plead with
the Prime Minister to act quickly. One move I would expect the Leader
of the Scottish Parliament to make shortly would be to agree with the
nationalist parties in Wales, and Northern Ireland that no
nationalist Members who normally attend Westminster will in the
future vote in the UK Parliament on those issues which have been
devolved to each country’s constituent Parliament or Assembly.
There is no single move which would highlight more clearly the role
Scottish Labour Members of Parliament play in voting through laws
which only apply to England. Gordon Brown needs to act to prevent the
English question erupting in the run up to a general election. At
that stage it will be too late for the Government to save its face in
many of its English seats.
Power moving between political
parties
There is also a fourth and final force at work
making for a new Devolution Bill and this relates also to Bagehot’s
analysis pinpointing the mobility of political power. Bagehot lived
during the establishment of two recognisable political parties that
began competing for power from a growing electorate. Part of his
brilliance was to notice that, as these parties were establishing
themselves to act as the agents through which our ideas of
representative and responsible government would operate, political
power was also on the move between the institutions through which
these political parties would exercise power.
Great as
Bagehot’s powers were they did not extend to futurology. It was
decades after his death political power moved again, but this time
not just between the great institutions of state, but by the
replacement of Liberal Party by the Labour Party.
That fate
was determined by the failure of the Liberal Party to come to terms
fully with a growing enfranchisement to the working class.
Reluctantly Labour leaders responded to this failure by the Liberal
Party to represent more fully the Labour interest by forming their
own political party that significantly went under the banner of the
Labour Representation Committee.
Parties that consistently
fail to represent their core vote are liable to die. The fate of the
Liberal Party was summed up in George Dangerfield’s book The
Strange Death of Liberal England.
Labour stands poised at
a similar juncture to that occupied by the Liberals prior to 1918.
Labour has failed to represent its core vote on two issues which
these voters put towards the top of their agenda. It has allowed
uncontrolled immigration with its impact not just on earnings but
more generally on housing, schools and other public services, to the
disadvantage of working class English voters, both white and
black.
Here is another opening for the BNP. Just as Labour
voters have been prepared to support the BNP as a means of
registering their wish to see the number of new arrivals to this
country controlled, even more maybe prepared to look around to find a
party that will assert their English identity.
I hope I have
succeeded in demonstrating that Bagehot’s approach to studying
English politics is as relevant today as ever. While spin may settle
the daily political account it ignores those long term changes which
prove fundamental to the kind of nation we are. I believe Bagehot
would today suggest that we need to understand how power has moved
from the UK Parliament in a way that damages English voters. It is an
issue which, I believe, will come to dominate politics. I hope this
might lead some of the students here to borrow a copy of Bagehot’s
The English Constitution from the library. Perhaps others of
you might buy a paperback edition which is still in print - a sure
indication that publishers, if not all politicians, believe that
Bagehot’s ideas are once again likely to become highly relevant. I
hope above all that I have persuaded at least some of you to read
this great classic as I did when I went up to University.
Conclusion
Let me in this conclusion move the
debate further into today’s politics as I am sure Bagehot would
have done. The two issues of immigration and Englishness have been
denied a legitimate role in our parliamentary representative system.
Speaker Weatherill was fond of asserting that, if parliament refused
to discuss issues of great importance to voters, voters might try and
settle these issues on the streets.
Speaker Weatherill did not
see the role the BNP might play in keeping these issues largely off
the streets by taking them back into the council chamber and then, if
we fail to act, into parliament itself. Bagehot would have
appreciated how new forms of representation might come about, and
that a new political party would work through, instead of outside our
political institutions.
The failure to act decisively to
protect our borders accounts in part for the widespread
disillusionment with Labour and, in particular by our core working
class supporters. Failure to embrace the English Question will
account for more than a political double whammy. It may act as the
final straw for many families who have been Labour ever since we
became a political force. To allow another party to embrace and steer
the debate on the English Question harbours a danger that could
threaten our existence as a major political force.
Too many
voters have already thought the unthinkable on immigration and then
acted by voting BNP. Labour voters are increasingly footloose and
will vote against us at the General Election if they believe we have
sold them short on both immigration and the English Question.
70
years ago what became a best selling book was written by George
Dangerfield and published under the title The Strange Death of
Liberal England. To concede the English Question to others
because, in the short-term, that is the easiest course of action,
could lead a future historian to write The Unnecessary Death of
Labour England. We must act to keep such a book firmly in the
realms of fantasy.
