{"title":"How to maintain public support and act quickly on climate policy","authors":"Josh Emden","doi":"10.1111/newe.12401","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/newe.12401","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Josh Emden (JE): We've heard that the Labour government have talked about a ‘decade of national renewal' and has a very explicit clean growth mission. At the same time we know that the government will soon need to start decarbonising sectors (for example heat decarbonisation) that people will start to feel impacted by more directly in order to keep track with net zero targets. How do you maintain public support for what could be substantive policy interventions over a sustained period of time?</p><p>JE: On that point about showing it in their policies, we've seen how the government is moving quickly on things like planning reform to speed up developments like onshore wind and solar farm development. From your perspective, what would successful engagement actually look like in practice and how do you kind of encourage people to buy into a process that seems like it's moving so quickly?</p><p>There might be some areas where that just might not be possible, the obvious one being the sightliness of pylons, since it costs a lot more to reroute or to go underground. But in those cases, you still need to explain to people properly why these pylons have to go here and reassure them that the government will do what they can to help the community. People should be involved as equal stakeholders alongside industry and government when discussing how the net zero goal should be achieved.</p><p>JE: How would you get companies to commit to this?</p><p>RW: So this is something that the new government could literally pick up off Ed Davey's old desk from when he was secretary of state for energy and climate change back in 2015. Just before the onshore wind ban, he set up a taskforce to get community energy players to talk to the renewables industry about how to offer shared ownership and I was co-chair of that taskforce. We negotiated that developers should be required to offer a stake in ownership to local communities, for example through enabling them to buy a 10 per cent stake of the site through a co-op. The way that we envisaged it was that it would initially be a voluntary agreement, but that it would move to legislation if the developers didn't make an effort.</p><p>JE: We've talked about ways to engage with citizens but how do you also avoid a potential accusation of nimbyism and creating too much red tape?</p><p>By taking concerns seriously, you can develop a really good working relationship with people, which then prevents that sort of unhelpful blanket opposition. We've been talking about wind turbines but it's exactly the same with other policy proposals, whether that's low traffic neighbourhoods or heat pumps.</p><p>RW: Engaging the majority of people who may worry about climate change but for whom it isn't front of mind is the key here because it gives you a social mandate for change. At the moment, reflecting their views is mainly done through polling, but polling's too much of a snapshot. A better way is through the kind of deliberative research","PeriodicalId":37420,"journal":{"name":"IPPR Progressive Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-10-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/newe.12401","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142429024","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Beyond ‘AI boosterism’","authors":"Karen Yeung","doi":"10.1111/newe.12400","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/newe.12400","url":null,"abstract":"<p>‘AI boosterism’ has characterised British industrial policy for digital and data-enabled technologies under successive Conservative administrations, intended to ‘turbocharge’ artificial intelligence (AI) sector growth. Although former prime minister, Rishi Sunak, believed that public trust in AI was essential, evident in his initiatives championing AI safety (such as the AI Safety Summit in Bletchley Park in November 2023), Sunak retained an unwavering belief that existing laws, complemented by voluntary cooperation between industry and government, would address AI's threats and harms via technical fixes.</p><p>Such ‘techno-solutionist’ fantasies have hitherto dominated digital sector policy, in which AI is viewed as the key to solving society's most intractable ills. It is rooted in a pernicious fallacy that ‘regulation stifles innovation’ and must be strenuously avoided if the British economy is to thrive. AI boosterism accepts at face value the bold marketing claims of software vendors, naively believing that if an AI system can perform a given function, it will necessarily deliver its promised benefits in real-world settings once implemented.1 It also ignores the already-evident adverse impacts of AI systems, including ever-growing instances of ‘algorithmic injustice’ involving the use of automated systems which have resulted in human rights violations, particularly when used by public authorities to (a) inform (or automate) decisions about whether individuals are entitled to benefits and services or (b) subject them to unwanted investigation or detention on the basis that they have been computationally evaluated as ‘risky’.2 Likewise, it conveniently ignores the systemic adverse impacts of algorithmic systems, including their ecological toll, the deepening concentration of economic power, and the erosion of democracy, as ever-more powerful tools are harnessed to propagate misinformation, exploitation and pervasive surveillance.3 AI sector growth cannot be justified at all costs, and whether bigger implies ‘better’, demands consideration of ‘better for whom?’ and ‘with respect to what norms, goals and collective values?’.</p><p>To deliver on its stated desire to ‘make AI work for everyone’,4 the new Labour government must change tack. It needs to abandon these false narratives and magical thinking and establish a regulatory governance framework that serves the public interest. In this article, I explain what this framework should consist of, beginning by clarifying what regulation is for and why it matters.</p><p>In constructing legal guardrails, the new government must focus on how and why digital systems can produce adverse impacts. Algorithmic systems can have capabilities far beyond those imaginable when most of our legal rules and frameworks were established. Legislators must now grapple with their unique risks, whether algorithms take a simple, rule-based form or rely on deep learning techniques, particularly when deployed in ways th","PeriodicalId":37420,"journal":{"name":"IPPR Progressive Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/newe.12400","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142429038","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“Now go out and make me do it”","authors":"Matthew McGregor","doi":"10.1111/newe.12392","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/newe.12392","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":37420,"journal":{"name":"IPPR Progressive Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/newe.12392","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142428906","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"All change?","authors":"Lisa James","doi":"10.1111/newe.12388","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/newe.12388","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Labour came to power in the 2024 general election promising constitutional reform in various arenas. Its manifesto laid out ambitions to restore trust in politics, improve behaviour and decision-making and “deepen our democracy by reforming Parliament”. In pursuit of these goals, it pledged numerous reforms to UK-level institutions.1</p><p>Labour's manifesto proposals included ambitious changes to UK-level institutions, including reform of the House of Lords and ‘modernisation’ in the House of Commons. The party also pledged changes to the standards system and more powers for the Office for Budget Responsibility.</p><p>There were also proposals to reform devolution and elections – both topics in their own right, which will not be covered in detail here. In brief, the manifesto pledged a reset in the relationship between the UK and devolved governments, and an extension of devolution in England, broadly following the existing model but with the devolution of additional powers.2 On elections, the key pledge was to extend the franchise to 16- and 17-year-olds. Since Labour took office, ministers have also pledged a review of voter ID rules and hinted that the controversial strategy and policy statement for the Electoral Commission introduced in 2022 – which allows the government to set high-level priorities for the regulator – could be scrapped.3 Reforms to devolution are planned for this parliamentary session; electoral policy is likely to follow in later sessions, allowing time for consultation.</p><p>These proposals for structural change were complemented, before and after the general election, by promises to abide by constitutional norms. Now leader of the House of Commons Lucy Powell pledged from opposition to facilitate better parliamentary scrutiny of legislation and deliver higher legislative standards. In his speech upon becoming attorney general, Lord (Richard) Hermer pledged to end the abuse of delegated legislation and to respect the rule of law. An early statement by Keir Starmer as prime minister to the civil service was designed to reassure Whitehall that recent tensions between ministers and civil servants are a thing of the past.4</p><p>Progressive constitutional reform often entails the dispersal of power, and acceptance of greater checks and balances in the system. Thus, the New Labour government introduced a number of constitutional reforms with the effect of distributing power more widely – including, for example, through the creation of the devolved institutions and the passage of the Human Rights Act 1998. These reforms sought to combine the greater sharing of power with the retention of parliamentary sovereignty (meaning that Westminster retained the power to overrule the devolved legislatures, and judges were given the power to rule primary legislation as incompatible with the Human Rights Act, but not strike it down). For this reason, some argued at the time that these reforms fell short of fundamental constitutional cha","PeriodicalId":37420,"journal":{"name":"IPPR Progressive Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/newe.12388","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142428999","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Crafting the conditions for renewal","authors":"Lise Butler","doi":"10.1111/newe.12391","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/newe.12391","url":null,"abstract":"<p>At the time of writing, the Labour government led by Keir Starmer has been in power for less than a month. Already the relief of leaving behind 14 years of austerity and increasingly shambolic Conservative rule has given way to sombre assessments of the gap between the last government's spending promises and the reality of public finances. Labour should not underestimate the test that adverse economic circumstances are likely to pose. The Blair government's three terms in office were in no small part a reflection of the fact that it came to power amid manageable inflation, low interest rates and falling unemployment. Meanwhile, the MacDonald, Attlee, Wilson and Callaghan, and Brown governments all faced rough economic headwinds, and none held office for more than six consecutive years.</p><p>As has been widely noted, Labour has held power for only 33 of its 124 years of existence. The different economic, social and geopolitical contexts in which Labour has governed frustrate attempts to draw neat lessons for the Starmer administration—we cannot pluck Labour's past political strategies out of history and hope that what worked in 1947, 1966 or 2001 will work in 2025. But Labour's record in government may offer guidance about what decisions and strategies will allow it to enact lasting positive change, operate with integrity and maintain party unity in international affairs, and renew rather than squander its recent mandate.</p><p>While the Attlee government undertook widespread nationalisation, its most lasting legislative reforms included the National Health Service (NHS), National Insurance and the New Towns Act. And while many of the Wilson government's benefit and social policy reforms were undone in subsequent decades, institutional achievements like the Open University and the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) for industrial relations disputes remain important today.2 The Blair government is remembered for its record on reducing child and pensioner poverty via the tax and benefits system. But while many of New Labour's achievements in poverty reduction, as well as healthcare and education, were undone after the Conservative-led coalition returned to power, its legislative changes, such as the minimum wage and devolution, have endured.</p><p>The current government's manifesto promises show potential for a programme of institution building, for example in headline initiatives such as Great British Energy and a new National Wealth Fund. In implementing these initiatives, the government would be wise to note that support for new institutions may not be immediate, and that their case may have to be made and remade. The NHS did not enjoy universal support during the Attlee government – instead, as the historian Andrew Seaton shows, “large sections of the public greeted [reformers’] proposals with ambivalence, trepidation, or even hostility”. Indeed, Seaton argues, the NHS was only cemented as the British cultural icon it is t","PeriodicalId":37420,"journal":{"name":"IPPR Progressive Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/newe.12391","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142430205","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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