{"title":"The limits of devolution for the left","authors":"Richard Johnson","doi":"10.1111/newe.12373","DOIUrl":"10.1111/newe.12373","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In a recent <i>Guardian</i> interview, the shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, acknowledged that the Labour party historically had been divided between devolutionists and centralisers, “but now the whole of the shadow cabinet supports the devolution agenda”.1 Streeting went on to say that the purpose of a Labour government was to “win power to give it away”. This is a curious perspective. It surely matters <i>to whom</i> that power is given away. If Labour governments are elected, only to give power away to their political opponents – Conservatives, separatist parties and others – is localism always better for the people whom Labour is meant to serve?</p><p>The mission of a Labour government is to create a more equal society and to improve the condition of the working class. This article argues that the devolution agenda could operate contrary to those key objectives by empowering forces that work against the common good and by inhibiting the ability of a Labour government to pass transformative and redistributive national policy.</p><p>Historically, as Streeting acknowledged, the Labour party contained within it many sceptics of policy decentralisation. The ability of a House Commons majority to deliver radical, transformative change across the whole of the UK was one of the bedrock constitutional objectives of working-class reformers for decades. The British constitution offers the opportunity, rarely matched anywhere in the world, for a democratic socialist party to govern as a majority and to use that power to transform society with few legal impediments.2 Should a government wish to nationalise industry, the banks or hospitals, a simple majority in the lower chamber of parliament should suffice.</p><p>In recent years, Labour has taken a broadly uncritical approach to devolution, which sees local as always better, but this is because decentralisation has been targeted to Labour-friendly areas like London, Wales and large cities. Given the counter-cyclical nature of local and national politics, Labour in power in Westminster would likely correspond with huge Labour losses in local government. And, then, what would Labour's response be if, as a result of further devolution, regional governments start to charge residents for using NHS services? Or, very likely, what would happen when ‘local people’ refuse to deliver badly needed housing, to obey infrastructure targets or to accept immigrants and asylum seekers into their areas?</p><p>It is odd that Labour would become the champion for an arrangement that would fragment the welfare state. Yes, devolution creates space for policy experimentation but, as we see in other decentralised systems, it does so at the expense of universalism. Localism does not always serve the greater good of the country. Local control can be a more elite form of control. When devolved units are given more power, including to opt out of the welfare state and from their wider obligations to their fellow citizens, peo","PeriodicalId":37420,"journal":{"name":"IPPR Progressive Review","volume":"31 1","pages":"50-55"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/newe.12373","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140708870","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":"“As old as the hills”","authors":"Ryan Swift","doi":"10.1111/newe.12379","DOIUrl":"10.1111/newe.12379","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":37420,"journal":{"name":"IPPR Progressive Review","volume":"31 1","pages":"70-77"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140716060","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Embedding green industrial policy in a growth strategy for the UK","authors":"Anna Valero, John Van Reenen","doi":"10.1111/newe.12370","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/newe.12370","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The major long-run economic challenge facing the UK is slow productivity growth. In 2023, the UK economy is about a quarter smaller than it would have been if output per hour had grown at the same rate after the global financial crisis as it had in the previous three decades. This stagnation of productivity has led to a flatlining of real wages and living standards.1</p><p>In this article, we consider the role of a modern industrial strategy – coordinating a range of ‘industrial policies’ – in shaping such an approach. How can the UK, an open and service-based economy with a small domestic market (relative to the US, the EU, and China) but with significant strengths in areas of high-value manufacturing and clean-tech innovation, design and implement an industrial strategy that can generate much-needed productivity growth, boost resilience and deliver against its ambitious net zero targets?</p><p>Delivering net zero requires significant increases in investment and innovation across infrastructure, transport and urban systems this decade. Investment needs are estimated to rise to an additional £50 billion per annum by 2030 – much of which is expected to come from the private sector.2 Improving the UK's productivity performance also requires increased investment in innovation, infrastructure and skills, with a key role for business investment.3 On aggregate, business investment in the UK is around 10 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), compared with over 12 per cent on average across France, Germany and the US – and the UK has performed poorly versus these comparators and a broader set of advanced economies for some time.</p><p>Net zero investments are attractive because in addition to addressing the climate crisis, they will improve energy security (by reducing reliance on imported fossil fuels with volatile prices) and generate a variety of other economic and health-related co-benefits (for example, through improved resource efficiency, opportunities for innovators serving new markets, and cleaner air). Globally, there is no route towards long-run growth without addressing the climate crisis – which unabated will have devastating consequences for people's lives and livelihoods.4 Indeed, the net zero transition is “the growth opportunity of the 21st century”.5 There are reasons to be optimistic. Socioeconomic tipping points – where new clean solutions consistently out-compete incumbents – have already been achieved in electricity, and the evidence suggests that these can soon be achieved across a broader range of clean technologies with increased investment in research, skills, development and deployment.6</p><p>Industrial policy encompasses interventions that seek to change the structure of the economy in order to achieve a key, typically growth-related, goal.7 Such interventions span a range of policy instruments (including subsidies, regulation, public investment, innovation support and skills programmes) that create incentives for busi","PeriodicalId":37420,"journal":{"name":"IPPR Progressive Review","volume":"30 3","pages":"175-183"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/newe.12370","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138713839","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":"Climate change as a national security threat","authors":"Laurie Laybourn, Joseph Evans","doi":"10.1111/newe.12360","DOIUrl":"10.1111/newe.12360","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Within a week of assuming office, President Biden signed an executive order which declared that climate change is an “essential element of United States … national security”.<sup>3</sup> In recognising that climate change had “become a climate crisis” and that “the scale and speed of necessary action is greater than previously believed”, the order directed the federal government to place climate change at the “forefront of … national security planning”.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Biden's executive order mobilised the highest levels of the US intelligence and security communities to assess and prepare for the threats posed by the climate crisis. Risk assessments were commissioned, including the first national intelligence estimate on climate change<sup>5</sup> – the highest level of assessment undertaken by the US intelligence community. Changes were made to the machinery of government, such as the creation of the Climate Security Advisory Council in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.<sup>6</sup> A renewed focus was given to global leadership, including rejoining the Paris Agreement and appointing John Kerry as special presidential envoy for climate with a seat on the US National Security Council.<sup>7</sup> This was a reordering of priorities, a deliberate strategy to insert the causes and consequences of the climate crisis into the key strategic decision-making structures of America's federal government.</p><p>The carrot approach also provides a natural home for the climate security agenda. ‘Bidenomics’ has been variously framed as a programme to rebuild the economy after the Covid-19 pandemic, to capitalise on the economic opportunity of green industry and as a moral imperative to tackle the effects of climate change. Yet at its heart, Bidenomics is also a strategic economic and geopolitical programme, which aims to secure American hegemony in response to the shifting realities of the 21st century.</p><p>Biden's instruction to treat climate change as an “essential element of United States … national security”<sup>14</sup> has succeeded in yoking together his administration's more interventionist economic approach with the concerns of America's intelligence and security communities. This fusion of productivist economics, decarbonisation and geopolitical strategy was laid out by Biden's national security advisor, Jake Sullivan: “Clean-energy supply chains are at risk of being weaponized in the same way as oil in the 1970s, or natural gas in Europe in 2022. So through the investments in the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, we're taking action.”<sup>15</sup> This was a speech about ‘renewing American economic leadership’ being delivered by a ranking national security official at the Brookings Institution, a pillar of the US strategic establishment.</p><p>These arguments have had some success across party lines. Biden's legislative agenda has three main Acts: the CHIPS and Science Act, the Infrastructure Invest","PeriodicalId":37420,"journal":{"name":"IPPR Progressive Review","volume":"30 3","pages":"196-201"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/newe.12360","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136348684","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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