Brown backs off from October election

Published on Monday 29 June 2009 22:03

GORDON Brown yesterday signalled the general election was unlikely to be held until next year, as he unveiled a series of slow-burn policies lacking in eye-catching or vote-winning initiatives.

The Prime Minister published what was in effect a mini manifesto, focused squarely on jobs, the NHS, house-building and constitutional reform.

But the document, Building Britain's Future, was roundly condemned by opposition parties for lacking vision. They said it provided concrete proof the government had run out of energy and cash – on a day when a think tank delivered a new warning on the UK economy.

Tory leader David Cameron said it was "a relaunch without a price tag" after Business Secretary Lord Mandelson indicated that Chancellor Alistair Darling had abandoned plans for a spending review ahead of the next general election.

There was also cross-party agreement that the absence of a "rabbit-in-the-hat" announcement, aimed at winning back public support, meant the idea of a snap election in the autumn had all but been ruled out.

Instead, the document, which sets out 11 new parliamentary bills likely to be included in the Queen's Speech in the autumn, was taken as evidence that Mr Brown was preparing for the long haul and hoping the economy would come good in time for a spring poll next year.

One government source said Cabinet ministers were content to play for time to allow the effect of policies, such as the VAT reduction and recapitalisation of the banks, to take effect. He said: "My view has always been that the general election would be held in May next year. Nothing about this has changed my mind on that. Everything takes time. Time is a great currency for politicians."

The Edinburgh South Labour MP Nigel Griffiths, a close ally of Mr Brown, agreed an early election was unlikely and said yesterday's proposals showed "we are now back to no Flash Gordon".

He said: "While I don't rule out a snap election, I think the longer we go, the more the gloss will come off (David] Cameron and the more empty his programme will seem."

Mr Brown's opponents agreed there was no sign of preparations for a snap poll.

Danny Alexander MP, chief of staff to Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, said the subdued nature of Labour back-benchers during Mr Brown's statement in the Commons yesterday spoke volumes about the mood of resignation in the party.

He said: "I genuinely think Brown's main thought is how he can preserve his position. I think he is not thinking about a general election. He is thinking about what will happen within his own party in the next few months.

"I don't see any sign of the start of a general election campaign. 'Prime Minister 2007-2010' looks better on Gordon Brown's CV than does 'Prime Minister from 2007-2009'."

David Mundell, the shadow Scottish secretary, said: "I think the Prime Minister is going to go to the wire – unless his own party stop him.

"It was a statement full of padding. There isn't anything in it that couldn't have been done over the past 12 years.

"People are now asking: if he has such great ideas, why weren't they implemented? I just think it's a damp squib. They have got nothing new to offer, but Gordon Brown is determined to soldier on to the bitter end."

Unveiling his plans to MPs, Mr Brown promised to create 150,000 jobs or training places across the UK for under-25s who have been out of work for a year – and withdraw their benefits if they refuse to attend. About 15,000 of these places will be in Scotland, where investment will total 100 million.

New rights will be introduced for NHS patients to opt for private care if they are not treated within time limits.

All "failing" secondary schools in England will be "eradicated" by 2010, and parents will be given the right to hire a private tutor for their children. Public funds will be reallocated from underspends in Whitehall as an incentive for the building of 20,000 more local authority houses in England and Wales.

Education, health and housing are all devolved to the Scottish Parliament and therefore are not affected by these parts of yesterday's announcement.

Attempts will again be made to reform the House of Lords by legislating for a directly-elected second chamber; as a first step, the 92 remaining hereditary peers will no longer be replaced when they die.

There was a commitment to invest in public transport – said by insiders to offer hope of a high-speed rail link between London and Scotland – and an energy bill that should boost Scotland's "green" economy in renewable energy.

But there was no mention of legislation to enact the proposals to strengthen the powers of the Scottish Parliament, proposed earlier this month by the Calman Commission.

This omission was criticised by the SNP but was said to be merely due to the timescale involved – the report from Calman had come too close to the publication of the policy document to be included – and the fact that a steering party has already been established to take forward Calman's ideas.

Attempting to draw a clear distinction between Labour and the Tories, Mr Brown said: "There is a real choice for our country – creating jobs or doing nothing, driving growth forward or letting the recession take its course. We will not walk away from the British people in difficult times."

But Mr Cameron accused the Prime Minister of "living in a dream world", while failing to recognise that he had "run out of money". Earlier in the day, he said Mr Brown's constant denial of the state of the UK's finances could provoke riots in the streets if this was denied at a general election. He claimed a "thread of dishonesty" ran through Mr Brown's premiership because of his failure to admit the dire state of the economy.

Mr Clegg was scathing about the Building Britain's Future document, dismissing it as a "ministerial cut-and-paste job, scraped together by a government without a vision by a Prime Minister running out of steam".

Speaking ahead of the unveiling of the policy document, Lord Mandelson indicated that the government would not set out a fresh set of public spending plans before the next general election.

"The spending period currently operating in government stretches beyond the next election and therefore it is reasonable to review public spending at that time," he said.

The Business Secretary said future spending would depend on economic recovery, but there would be a "reprioritising of expenditure both within and between departments".

He added it was impossible to predict how the UK economy would perform over the next two years.

"We are not in a position, in June 2009, to be able to forecast what growth will be and what the performance of the economy will be in 2011. That is why we have to wait," he said.

Meanwhile, a leading economic think tank said the government should be more ambitious over tackling the UK's soaring deficit.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's report on the UK called for "more explicit" spending cuts and tax rises to address a deficit expected to hit 14 per cent of GDP by 2010.

The body's criticism comes just days after Bank of England Governor Mervyn King also demanded tougher goals from the Chancellor to reduce an "extraordinary" public deficit.

The main points

SCHOOLS

PUPILS in England will be promised one on one tuition if they fall behind in their studies and parents are to be given a greater say over the range of schools in their area. All secondary school pupils will also be given access to tutoring.

The changes are enshrined in the Improving Schools and Safeguarding Children Bill. All failing schools will also be sorted out in 18 months.

By 2011, no child will attend a school where fewer than 30 per cent of students achieve five good GCSEs or where a plan to meet those targets is not in place.

The bill will not apply to Scotland where education is a devolved matter.

POLICING

POLICE in England will be held more to account by the people they are protecting in a string of populist reforms announced.

Monthly beat meetings are to be held in neighbourhoods, allowing residents to vent their gripes and share intelligence with officers.

Residents will also have more of a say on prevention measures and a vote on how offenders "pay back" the community.

The changes will be in the Policing, Crime and Private Security Bill, which will not apply to Scotland, where policing is devolved.

The law will give police more time on the beat by reducing form-filling.

HOUSE OF LORDS

THE LONG-AWAITED pledge to reform the House of Lords was given fresh impetus, with the Prime Minister's pledge to remove hereditary peers from the Upper Chamber. A draft bill for a "smaller and democratically constituted" second chamber was also promised.

The legislation is expected before the next session of Parliament. It will include a clause to disqualify peers who are deemed to have been guilty of misconduct.

It is believed the remaining 92 hereditary peers will be removed through natural attrition, keeping their positions until they die. Their positions will not revert to their next of kin.

HOUSING

A total of 1.5 billion will be spent on housing. This will create 20,000 new affordable and energy-efficient homes over the next two years. A further 10,000 homes will be delivered through the private sector. There will also be reforms of social housing.

Local authorities in England will be able to give housing to "local people", ahead of new migrants.

The plan is being seen as a reaction to the British National Party's ability to tap into the latent anger over the recession.

The reforms are devolved, so there will be no consequences for Scotland.

NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE

PATIENTS will be given the "enforceable right" to certain standards from the NHS.

All patients south of the Border will be given access to hospital treatment within 18 weeks of GP referral, access to a cancer specialist within two weeks for patients suspected of having the disease, and free health checks on the NHS for those aged 40 to 74. The 18-week target and free health checks are already part of current NHS policy, but will now shift to being "enforceable rights".

Health is a devolved matter, so this will have no practical impact on Scotland. The policy is an attempt to make public services more consumer-focused.

JOB CREATION

ABOUT 150,000 new job opportunities are to be created for young people across the UK.

The government will spend 1.5 billion to create 100,000 jobs for young people and another 50,000 in areas of high unemployment.

The plans are controversial as they come with sanctions.

Anyone under the age of 25 who has been out of work for more than a year and refuses to take up an offer could lose their right to a benefit.

Unions have called for urgent talks with the Prime Minister on the matter. Young people in Scotland's unemployment hot spots will be affected by the change.

ANALYSIS

Steam train delivery fails to hide the lack of substance

IT RAN to 127 glossy pages, and came with much pre-announcement excitement. But what does Building Britain's Future mean for Scotland – and Prime Minister Gordon Brown's hopes north of the Border?

One thing is clear: the bulk of yesterday's announcements are targeted at the English (and Welsh) heartlands. Money is being spent on housing – 110,000 new local authority homes for rent or sale will now be built over the next two years, up 20,000 on the number announced in April's Budget – while 150,000 jobs, training courses or work experience placements will be found for under-25s who have been out of work for a year, 15,000 of those in Scotland.

There will also be moves towards greater choice in the NHS and in schools, a very Blairite concept – but, as a consequence of devolution, little of this will filter through to Scotland.

For that reality, Mr Brown cannot be blamed. Health, housing and education are matters that the Labour government gave responsibility for to the Scottish people a decade ago. Yet it creates the difficulty that Mr Brown has little "new" to sell to Scots.

This is shown by the fact that the Prime Minister will spend the rest of the week on a tour of the English regions, selling the proposals within Building Britain's Future – but he won't be coming to Scotland.

A couple of years ago, this would have mattered little, such was the enduring nature of Labour support in Scotland. But now, as the European election results showed recently, this has ebbed away and previously safe Labour seats are now under threat from the SNP and even the Conservatives.

What was notable from the way Mr Brown delivered his proposals was not only the speed of his delivery, but the body language – and that of the unimpressed Labour backbenchers behind him.

He charged like a steam train through the announcement, attempting to score brazenly political points along the way about public spending.

His theme as ever was that public spending was safe in Labour's hands and endangered under the Tories. Again he misused the "10 per cent" admission from Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary, to suggest that life would be nothing but severe cuts under a David Cameron-led Tory government.

But long before Mr Brown concluded his break-neck speed address, virtually all observers had realised the weakness of what he was announcing.

He had no new money to spend – the 1.5 billion or so of "new" spending had actually been cobbled together from savings made as a result of over-provision within Whitehall for PFI projects to go bad during the recession, and as a result of the "reallocation" of other spending proposals – ie, scrapping them.

It was another big Labour initiative that failed to pack a punch. Mr Cameron knew it – and dissected the speech mercilessly, noting that some ideas were four years old.

Added to the collapse of plans to part-privatise the Royal Mail, and the admission there would be no comprehensive spending review , this was a bleak day for Mr Brown.