Labour’s alternative Queen’s speech should show that when spending is tight for government and families we are prepared to use the power of the state to give people who want a better standard of life a break.
1. Labour should insist that the government stop spending billions on handouts and instead creates a job programme to get young people back into work
There’s nothing leftwing about paying people to do nothing. Research from the University of Bristol shows that youth unemployment has a scarring effect on young people’s future earning potential. Those who are left out of work in their late teens and early twenties lose the ability to build valuable skills and experience and suffer at least an eight per cent wage penalty throughout their lives, with resultant implications for tax receipts. The costs to social services and the police of a generation young people out of work are huge.
A compulsory, paid work programme that teaches young people skills could save the Treasury money and rescue the one million young people who are unemployed. It’s a no brainer and the logical conclusion of the Future Jobs Fund, cruelly scrapped by the coalition government.
2. Labour should propose regional transport authorities, based on the TfL model
Deregulation of transport hasn’t worked. People outside London are stuck between competing bus companies which don’t coordinate routes, and train companies whose complicated fares increase year on year, above inflation. Even under Boris, bus fares in London are simpler and lower than in much of the rest of the UK. Nationalisation isn’t necessary, but re-regulation is. In 2010 Labour lost almost all of its commuter suburbs. Our failure to transform regional transport hasn’t helped. In Britain people spend more time travelling to work in Britain than anywhere else in Europe, with an average journey of 45 minutes. In 2015 we need to win back places like Crawley, Dudley South, Elmet and Rothwell, Kingswood, Dewsbury and more places with high numbers of commuters. Showing we’re serious about transport is one way we can.
3. Labour should ask for an independent review of the UK’s tax system
Taxes in the UK are a mess. They penalise aspiration and reward inheritance and people with clever accountants. We are left arguing over peanuts. The 50p tax rate is a giant red herring. Families need to earn at least £52,000 a year to afford to rent a two-bed home in London according to housing charity Shelter. We need a total rethink. In government Labour’s death-throe suggestion of an national insurance contribution increase – a clear tax on jobs – led to the disaster of dozens of business leaders attacking our party in the media weeks before a general election. Instead of arguing over tiny percentages and taxing productive assets like employment, Tim Montgomerie and his allies on the Tory right are correct that we should be looking at wealth taxes.
Exploring this on our own won’t work, but there is cross-party support for looking at fundamental changes in the way the government raises revenue. Worcester Woman and Mondeo Man have nothing to fear from this, but the millionaire cabinet member does. By suggesting an independent review of the UK’s tax system Labour could unite with Cameron’s critics and stand up for struggling middle Britain.
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Alternative Queen’s Speeches on Progress
We asked Labour people to devise what would be in Labour’s Alternative Queen’s Speech to show how Britain would be better under Labour
It should be fiscal responsibility first in Labour’s Alternative Queen’s Speech argues Jacqui Smith
The UK needs a radical tax overhaul. Fabian general secretary Andrew Harrop sets out what this would involve
Strengthening sure start comes first writes David Talbot
Richard Darlington, Tony Dolphin and Graeme Cooke from IPPR present their Alternative Queen’s Speech for jobs and growth
We need an Alternative Queen’s Speech for community empowerment argues Florence Nosegbe
Patrick Diamond wants Labour to create an efficient, muscular state through a ‘too big to fail’ bill and a ‘mutual home-ownership bill’
Jeremy Miles would introduce a ‘transparency in equal pay bill’ and introduce compulsory so that all politicians have to listen to all sections of society
In Steve Van Riel‘s Alternative Queen’s Speech business should be required to publish the salary of its lowest-paid worker, and the OBR should be mandated to work with the opposition on costings
LabourList editor Mark Ferguson would put an end to Crown dependency tax havens, and finally introduce a National Care Service
Former Labour party general secretary Peter Watt would introduce a safety in care bill for all adults in care, and a rule to remove a set number of pieces of legislation from the statute book every year
We must overhaul our taxation system and introduce regional transport authorities argues Gus Baker
Anthony Parker presents his poetic contribution to the series
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Gus Baker is president of the University of Bristol Students’ Union and a member of Labour’s National Policy Forum for the south-west region
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You don’t seem to have understood how bus deregulation worked, probaby becuase you weren’t around when it happened. The bus companies basically carved up the country amongst themselves, agreeing amongst themselves that each would run monopolies in separate parts of the country. There is NO competition, or what little there is is so insignificant as not to worry the big operators who have a tacit consensus not to bid for each others’ monopolies when contracts come up for renewal.
and speaking of residents of Kensington And Chelsea ,re the Cameron stash.Where does the MP of that good
borough bury his treasure ,I mean with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLp/Unilever plc/Aberdeen Asset Management PLC/SeaEnergy PLC/GreenGro Technologies,Inc./3Legs Venture Capital PLC/British Assets Trust plc/Murray Income Trust plc/F&C Emerging Markets Investment Trust plc/Aberdeen Preferred Income Co.Ltd./Armorgroup International/Continental Farmers Group PLC/And Uncle Tom Cobley And All.
there must be SOME booty !
“Even under Boris, bus fares in London are simpler and lower”
Bus use is and has been far higher in London than other parts of the UK though, allowing fares to be lower.
Progress is a new labour Blair party, so the question is after 13 years in power why are you now talking about fixing something which you should have done in the terms you had.
Making people work for nothing or benefits, is simple if the jobs need doing then make them do it as paid employment, then get the money back from all the don doms which labour and the Progress party have allowed to get away.