UK Politics

Welsh Policing And Constitutional Chaos

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

welshpolice

 

The Police and Crime Commissioner for South Wales, Alun Michael, has generated headlines by requesting something eminently sensible – the devolution of greater policing powers to Wales, and greater control over the criminal justice system.

The BBC reports:

Mr Michael, a former Home Office minister, said creating the four Welsh commissioners meant that in practice Whitehall has already devolved decision-making about most police activity.

He said the four Welsh commissioners “despite their political range (two Independents, one Conservative, one Labour and Co-operative) have immediately started to work together on Wales-wide issues, with some excellent and fruitful meetings with Welsh government.”

Writing in the Institute of Welsh Affairs journal, he added: “So common sense, pragmatism and purpose have brought about de facto devolution and it’s only a question of when the machinery of government will catch up”.

If it is the machinery of government Alun Michael is waiting for, it could be a very long time indeed before anything happens. The British government, after all, has permitted the organic development of the completely illogical current system where Northern Ireland and Scotland have overarching police structures while Wales and England do not.

Experimenting with different policies and approaches is exactly what should happen in the UK, but it can only happen if powers are devolved equally between the home nations. Establishing the role of police and crime commissioners was a good first step at promoting local police accountability, but this now needs to be backed up by devolution of policing powers to Wales and elsewhere.

As with so many important constitutional matters, change has thus far only come about when aggrieved people in one home nation or another have shouted the loudest. The result has been a constitutional system that resembles a messy patchwork quilt, making no sense either to outsiders or to the people who live under the various jurisdictions.

Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones has also pointed out the lack of common sense behind the status quo:

Mr Jones said then: “Decisions that affect Wales should be taken in Wales.”

Policing and criminal justice were now “the only mainstream public services which are not devolved to Wales”, and this status quo “is becoming increasingly hard to justify”, he added.

The illogical and unequal devolution of powers to the different corners of the United Kingdom has always been hard to justify; this is nothing new, but always worth pointing out.

Sadly, victory for those who advocate localism and devolution will only further complicate the constitutional situation. But nonetheless, the government would be well advised to heed this call, especially if it is repeated in the findings of the Silk Commission next year. Constitutional incoherency may be harmful and frustrating, but anything would be better than facing another independence referendum.

What UKIP Does Well

Samuel Hooper1 Comment

nigelfarage

The normal model for distracting media attention away from your political party when negative stories start swamping the agenda goes something like this:

1. Party member says or does something offensive

2. The media picks up on the story and it becomes widely circulated

3. If the political party is small, the received wisdom is that the story is a symptom of the party’s immaturity and extremism. If the political party is large, the commentary will be that it is a sign of general malaise in the political system

4. Party leader comes out swinging, criticising the media for focusing on sensationalist, insubstantial nonsense rather than serious policy differences

When the big three party leaders (Cameron, Miliband, Clegg) attempt this move for the hundredth time, it sounds formulaic and insincere, an obvious attempt to wrench the media’s attention back to their scripted talking points. But somehow, when Nigel Farage adopts the same strategy, he actually appears convincing. And he had the need to do so yesterday at UKIP’s conference in Torquay, when he was inevitably asked to defend or renounce those members of his party who have strained or flat-out violated the boundaries of political correctness.

James Kirkup praised Farage’s approach in his Telegraph Evening Briefing:

Ukip’s virtues came to the fore when Mr Farage was talking about the curious and colourful views expressed by some of his party. Instead of doing what other politicians do and disowning the off-message stuff, Mr Farage embraces it and turns it into an attack on homogenised political class:

“We’re not career politicians, you’re absolutely right. Unlike [Nick] Clegg, Cameron Miliband, d’you know what? I actually had a job – I worked. And this is obviously fairly extraordinary in modern-day politics when almost everybody goes straight from Oxford University into a research office, they become Members of Parliament in their middle-to-late 20s and they’re all very PC and no one really says anything or stands up for their convictions, and with us you’ve got people from all walks of life. There are 34,000 paid-up members of the party and some people have views that are mildly eccentric. I would have thought that was just consistent with democracy.”

How refreshing it is to hear an honest answer from a political leader, and how sad that examples of this kind are so rare. As I wrote on this subject last year:

And so we have a whole generation of MPs from all parties – people like Chukka Umunna – who are basically airbrushed, well-groomed and telegenic candidates who never really lived in the real world before entering politics and who have no idea what they would do with their lives if they ever had to leave it … [We should not] be looking for the next bland, cookie-cutter candidate who has gone through the 7-step “become an MP by the age of 35″ programme. If a candidate’s life up until that point has been all about gaining political power, what chance is there that they will ever want to relinquish it and do anything else after their first term? Their second? Their third? Their fourth? Until retirement beckons?

Blaming the recent flooding in England on the government’s pro-gay marriage stance, or suggesting that the country has become something akin to a foreign land (as Farage regrettably went on to do later in the same appearance) are ludicrous. But there is something to be said for a big tent political party that doesn’t automatically excommunicate its members for going off-script.

The upcoming European elections will prove a good test of just how much the British electorate values this trait.

Finally, An Argument For Scottish Independence

Samuel HooperLeave a comment
One world, but many more favourable aviation tax regimes
One world, but many more favourable aviation tax regimes

 

Finally, a positive reason to vote for Scottish independence in the September referendum, and it comes not from Alex Salmond, the SNP or the Yes to Independence movement. It comes, instead, from that most iconic of companies, British Airways.

The Telegraph reports:

Asked about the Scottish referendum on BBC Breakfast, Mr Walsh said: “If anything, it might be marginally positive because, I suspect, the Scottish Government will abolish air passenger duty because they recognise the huge impact that tax has on their economy.” 

He added: “So, it is probably going to be a positive development, if it does happen, for British Airways.” 

The Scottish Government’s White Paper – the blueprint for independence unveiled last November – proposed a 50 per cent reduction to air passenger duty. 

It said Westminster’s refusal to devolve the power had “hampered our ability to attract new direct flights” and said halving the tax would boost Scotland’s international connections.

This argument from Walsh is quite unassailable. The punishingly high level of Air Passenger Duty make the UK one of the most expensive places to fly from, or through, in the world. The government may whine that they need to be seen to be doing something for the environment, but as with all other taxes the revenue goes into the same big pot to be frittered away on the same wasteful expenditures – certainly nothing to do with environmental protection or carbon offsetting.

While the UK government wrings its hands and does nothing as Britain’s disjointed aviation policy stymies economic growth, at least the Scottish Government wants to attract business and tourism rather than repel them.

But what we really have here is not an argument for Scottish independence – though BA’s chief executive rightly notes that his particular company would perform marginally better if independence came to pass. Rather, it is an argument for a more enlightened and business-friendly aviation policy, and/or for greater devolution of tax matters within the UK. It would do the UK government great good to see lower aviation taxes bringing economic benefits north of the Scottish border, and perhaps chasten them into lowering air passenger duty throughout the rest of the country.

This intervention by Willie Walsh is being hailed by Alex Salmond and the pro-independence movement, and it certainly comes as a welcome respite from what has been a non-stop volley of bad news and negative endorsements as business after business has raised concerns about the prospect of Scottish independence and the damage caused by the current uncertainty.

But as a justification for splitting up the United Kingdom, it lands well short of the runway.

A Better Way To Approach The Welfare Debate

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

lordcarey

 

Sometimes it takes the return of the grizzled, world-weary veteran, called out of retirement one last time, to show the flailing stars of today exactly how it should be done, and to save the day.

So it was when George Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, spoke out in a newspaper column, castigating his fellow bishops for their naive and fumbled entry into the British welfare reform debate.

The Daily Mail reports:

Last night, Lord Carey of Clifton said that it was too simplistic to blame the recent welfare cuts for the rising use of food banks and bishops are doing the Church no favours by entering the debate.

He said such opposition to reducing the welfare bill was ‘Canute-like’ and reflected an ‘overt left-right politicisation of Church versus government’.

The former Archbishop of Canterbury said Anglicans and Catholics share outrage at the rising levels of hunger among the most disadvantaged and that the welfare state has reached ‘gargantuan’ proportions.

Lord Carey continues:

‘All three political parties acknowledge the need for reductions to welfare spending, wastage and fraud in the system and have all talked about the dangers of welfare dependency and the need to get people into work.

‘They are not agreed on precisely where the axe should fall, but the Churches should beware of the dangers of blithely defending a gargantuan welfare budget that every serious politician would cut as a matter of economic common sense.’

This really hits the nail on the head. Reading or watching the initial intervention in the debate by Catholic Cardinal Vincent Nichols, and the follow-up letter by the Church of England bishops, one got the overwhelming sense that the key figures had not done their homework. So shallow was the level of understanding, and so absent was any sense of historical context or detailed knowledge of government policy, that the bishops may just as well have been standing at the gates of Number 10 Downing Street waving “Down With This Sort Of Thing” placards.

A strong sense that Lord Carey was embarrassed by the incompetence of his successors’ handling of what is a complex and fraught issue pervades his column.

But most heartening of all is this acknowledgement – albeit from a former rather than a current religious leader – that the problems in our society will continue for just as long as we continue to look exclusively to government to solve our problems and address human suffering rather than looking to ourselves:

Lord Carey said: ‘They are right in describing a serious problem but only partially correct in their analysis.

‘It is much too simplistic to blame these problems on cutbacks to welfare and failures in the benefits system, whether it be payment delays or punitive sanctions.

He added that the welfare system is being ‘asked to replace kinship and neighbourliness’ and is ‘never going to pass muster as the ideal vehicle to deliver aid to those in greatest need when they most need it.

This is precisely the problem. Faced with a situation where millions of people are dependent on various kinds of welfare and often kept down through a series of perverse incentives, the bishops did not stop to consider how they as leaders and their church as a community could step in and provide positive solutions. Rather, they wrung their hands and passed the ball to the government, a shameful abdication of responsibility.

It is not the Church’s job to simply take note of suffering and pass it on to the government for review – indeed, while it is clearly not in the interests of the people for whom they supposedly advocate, neither is it in their own, more narrow interests. As I wrote last year:

… perhaps it is directly because the state plays such a large part in everything that we do, from cradle to grave, that the church to which [we belong] is withering and shrinking by the year.

To a great extent, aside from the divine aspect, has the British welfare state not done away with the purpose of church, of knowing your neighbour, of being part of a community, altogether?

Telegraph columnist Cristina Odone, with whom this blog has had precious little to agree on of late, is also full of praise for Lord Carey’s mature intervention in the debate. Her distillation of Carey’s message is worth reading:

Poverty, he argues, is not caused by Coalition cuts but by multiple factors including the fragility of the family, which results in too many relying on the state. Strong kinship, a helpful community: today’s disadvantaged Briton can no longer depend on either. Stop entering the political fray, he tells his colleagues, but look beyond Left and Right to see the real tragedy of a culture that has lost its way.

Odone’s overall assessment of the debate on welfare reform, and what church leaders need to do in order to regain the right to be taken seriously on the issue, is also excellent:

Dr Carey instead is speaking sensibly and calmly from the sidelines: the analysis is more complex than you’ve allowed for, he chides his colleagues; you’re doing yourselves and our Churches a disservice by blaming the status quo on an unpopular government. Until you can offer either a true analysis of the root causes or a real alternative to the government’s proposed reform, keep schtum.

As Odone makes clear, and as this blog has previously acknowledged, the church has a potentially valuable, even critical role to play in shaping the debate. But they can only do this by temporarily stepping back from the limelight and reading up on the subject a little.

More urgent even than enrolling in Civics and Economics 101, though, our church leaders need to think about the best role of religious organisations in solving the problems of poverty, blight and human misery that they have identified. The fact that their first response was simply to flag the problem to the government and move on is deeply discouraging. Is their vision for the church really nothing more than to observe and report social phenomena to the ‘proper authorities’?

And yet there is hope. The former Archbishop of Canterbury spoke a powerful truth to today’s ecumenical leaders. They may not like being publicly admonished by their predecessor, but if they strive for wisdom they will listen and adapt.

In this important debate, which is ostensibly about welfare reform but in reality touches on everything that governs how we relate to and care for each other, George Carey – twelve years after leaving office – is offering the church a pathway away from irrelevance.

It’s time to follow the leader one last time.

A Move Toward Transparency On Tax

Samuel HooperLeave a comment
Image from ConservativeHome.com
Image from ConservativeHome.com

 

It may be a small, mostly cosmetic change, but for once it is a change that small government and libertarian-leaning conservatives can really get behind.

Ben Gummer MP, who has made tax transparency a major focus of his parliamentary career, is today proposing that National Insurance be renamed the “earnings tax”.

The Telegraph reports:

National Insurance, a 100-year old charge on employers and employees, will be renamed “earnings tax”, the Chancellor has signalled.

The change, which will be proposed in legislation to be published on Tuesday, is the first step towards merging income tax with National Insurance.

Ben Gummer MP, a rising star Tory backbencher who has been campaigning on tax transparency, will propose the change in a Commons Bill on Tuesday.

On the face of it, perhaps nothing to get too excited about. After all, nothing is being done here to address the punishingly high rates or the legacy of fiscal drag that has seen people on relatively standard incomes being taxed at the top rate.

But Gummer’s proposal is significant because it is the first step toward the government finally and explicitly admitting the obvious – that National Insurance is a second income tax in all but name. The money collected is vast, all goes into the same pot, and is in no way strictly reserved for specific purposes as the “insurance” moniker suggests.

At the present time, Ed Miliband and Ed Balls are able to rail against the Conservative/Liberal Democrat government and accuse them of enacting “massive tax cuts” for the rich – by which they mean reversing half of Gordon Brown’s gargantuan tax increase – and keep a straight face while doing so.

Using the innocuous term “50p” tax which evokes the small sum of fifty pence rather than the cold reality – half of each additional pound earned, for top band taxpayers – is bad enough. But high tax advocates such as those in the Labour Party are also aided by the fact that discussion of income tax alone does not come close to recognising the full tax burden.

The Telegraph shows the full extent of this second income tax:

National Insurance rakes in billions every year for the Treasury. Anyone who is employed and earns between £149 and £797 a week pays 12 per cent of their income in National Insurance. A further 2 per cent is paid on all earnings over that level.

It is doubtful whether, if asked, most people would correctly identify the top rate of tax as being 59% – a staggeringly high level that immediately makes Britain’s anaemic economic growth statistics much more understandable.

Therefore, from a fiscally responsible and small government-advocating stance, anything that helps the public consciousness to start to recognise income tax and national insurance as nothing but two sides of the same coin can only be a good thing.

ConservativeHome also recognises the importance of this seemingly small proposal:

There’s a fundamental, sound principle here – which has been championed by the TaxPayers’ Alliance among others.

It is clearly unfair and immoral for taxpayers to be misled about the level and function of taxation. National Insurance is income tax in disguise, but many people still think it actually pays into a pot for their own social security.

Hopefully the Chancellor will listen to Gummer, and it will be a step on the road to merging NI with Income Tax altogether.

Indeed, merging NI (or whatever name it ultimately goes by) and Income Tax should be the end goal. Just as Ben Gummer successfully campaigned for taxpayers to receive a yearly statement showing exactly how their tax contributions were split up to fund the operations of government

The proposal will doubtless meet with strong resistance, primarily from those on the left who continue to support high taxation and high spending with such fervour that they almost seem to be an end in themselves. It is not in the interests of such people for the public to have full visibility of the amount of tax they pay – the more confusing it is, the more easily their distortions and rhetorical sleights of hand about the tax burden are believed and accepted.

ConservativeHome also notes this fact:

There’s a test for Labour here, too. They will instinctively dislike the idea, given that it will make it harder for future governments to raise taxes by stealth. But Ed Miliband rails against opaque, complex and misleading charging by companies as a rip-off which harms consumers – surely they should hold the taxman to the same principles?

Surely they should hold the taxman to the principle of transparency, perhaps, but inevitably in practice they do not – a century of experience tells us so.

While transgressions by the private sector are immediately jumped on, the failures and mistakes of the public sector are excused or overlooked time and time again, and are then counter-intuitively used as justification for increasing spending and expanding the public sector even more. Private sector failure and opacity, in other words, is punished while public sector opacity is encouraged and rewarded.

Transparency is the ultimate antidote to the big tax/big spending status quo, and to the policies of those who continue to view fiscal policy as a tool for punishing success. Britain needs Ben Gummer’s medicine, and the government should now give tax transparency its full-throated support.