It was wonderful to see, albeit from a far, both the Prime Minister and Sir Keir Starmer choose Hackney to give their new year speeches last week. I don't know whether it was coincidence* they were both drawn to the borough and Here East in Hackney Wick, perhaps it was because it’s home to an incredible cluster of creative businesses and universities. A part of our Olympic legacy and an example of what partnership between national, regional and local government can achieve.
I've written before for Labour List about Keir, the Labour leadership and why we need to build on Labour's record in power in local government and why we must in our next manifesto fully articulate what a new Labour local government settlement would look like.
Since then, neither LGA Labour nor Keir, Angela, Lisa or Rachel have backed away from this debate. It's felt like we were on the verge of something radical and exciting to reset the relationship between Whitehall and town halls across the country. Alongside us, they’ve rightly levelled harsh criticism of Tory failures to deliver, particularly in relation to Levelling Up. The latest strikes and crises in the NHS and wider public sector highlights services under immense pressure, which continue to deliver due to the good will and commitment of staff despite perpetual under-resourcing.
Keir's speech in Hackney gave us a real sense of what the journey to ‘Taking Back Control’ might mean. A clear reset in the Labour’s first King's Speech with a bill to transfer power to citizens, communities and the Councils that represent them. It's a thoughtful and credible solution to the hollowing out of our communities and the powerlessness so many feel.
However, let's not pretend this will be easy. This bold approach will likely face opposition within the party, from Labour MPs and potential ministers, who've now spent years out of power and who as they enter Whitehall departments for the first time in a generation, will now be tasked with shrinking their departments and devolving their new found power to communities. It will also face entrenched civil service resistance not just from departments, but most crucially the Treasury who must be forced to let go of so many of their levers of power and control.
Although not yet confirmed, there are significant signs pointing towards (greater devolution): Ed Miliband’s Conference announcements on Climate Change, Rachel Reeves’s Green Prosperity Plan and being the first 'green chancellor', and Lisa Nandy's book rethinking the state - all the ingredients are now there for a bill with teeth. Demonstrating a Labour Government committed to something much bigger, tangible and impactful, than the wasteful competitive, lumpy, and uneven approach to investment and devolution the Tories have taken.
As we focus rightly on communities left behind, level up & deliver devolution, it can't be a levelling down of London, and the boroughs that surround Here East may well be closer to Whitehall than Carlisle, Plymouth or Newcastle, but they are still as remote from the powers they need to create truly fairer and greener local economies.Why does London and the UK’s cities still only have access to two regressive tax revenues - council tax and business rates.
So my shopping list for this bill is picking the big areas where Labour in power over the past decade of austerity has proved itself better in local government and Wales, than Westminster in delivering.
We need to harness local government’s record on skills, training and jobs, by finally breaking up DWP and DfE and giving the powers and funding associated with Job Centre Plus to councils, with more local investment in Further Education and a reset of apprenticeships funding. With this we could do so much more with the residents and businesses who we know, who trust us to deliver.
On schools, scrap the undemocratic structures of forced academisation and regional schools commissioners and reset the roles between schools, community and councils. Hackney already has some of the best schools, outcomes and high performing school improvement; don't break what is working and intervene only in education systems that really need central support.
On housing, communities shouldn't have to beg a distant secretary of state to licence landlords, ban Section 21 evictions, introduce rent control or even pause or reshape the right to buy. These decisions and powers can and should sit locally. On development, give councils access to right to buy receipts from day one, deliver proper local funding for social and council housing and let us get on with building the homes our communities so desperately need.
On climate, let's take the bold energy and ideas from Miliband and Reeves and use GB Energy to unlock community and municipal energy. Putting assists in the hands of the people, not private companies or a new wave of nationalised businesses, would create the buy-in for a just transition. Giving communities control and a stake in assists to shape their own energy future and create jobs and resilience across coastal, rural and urban areas.
From village halls, to seaside towns and urban estates solar, wind and energy networks could be built, maintained and owned by the people. Already there are tangible examples out there from coops to Stokey Energy, Hackney Community Energy Fund and Hackney Light and Power, with the Energy Bill in Parliament we can put some of the ideas forward now as well with cross party support deliver the sort of localism found in the Local Electricity Bill.
We should also push for devolution on taxation and including new powers to level a hotel or overnight tax. The latter is common across America and Europe, where Governments trust communities to make these decisions, and could create additional revenue common across the world to fund culture and local economic innovation. If this was in turn supported by a new business rates system grounded in the reality of local economies - councils would have a real toolkit to partner with business.
I could go on, but I'm not writing the bill and Labour aren't yet in government nor finalising the manifesto quite yet, but let's be clear and bold in every area of policy what permanently handing back control could really mean. For those worried about the risks and costs, let me reassure you it will be cheaper and more efficient, because while Whitehall has grown and become more remote, local councils have had to do more with less for every year since 2010. What we have never had though is control, with it we can deliver even more.
So let's build something as bold as the vision set out last week, something hopeful in contrast to the already stuttering relaunch of Sunak's already failing premiership. A bold new settlement that seeks to heal the wounds of Brexit, rejects utterly the lack of compassion and dog whistle culture wars at the soul of the postmodern Tory party and starts to really rebuild this country from the bottom up.
A real Labour reform of our broken political system which will make the decisions and debates in our communities count. A new constitutional settlement to unite not only the country, but all parts of the Labour Party and our movement - making us the natural party of government in every village hall, town hall, city hall, shire hall, assembly, and nation in the UK.
*I can also make Valentine’s Day Hackney restaurant recommendations if they are still making plans.
