One year on, no change

Plus: the future of the NHS, nuclear power, and a magic money tree

In today’s newsletter:

• The verdict on Labour’s first year

• The latest attempt at NHS reform

• Why both left and right have failed on growth

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One year on from the election, this Labour government has refused to deliver the change people expected and deserved”. Not my words, but Jeremy Corbyn’s, and it’s hard to disagree. Whether anyone really expected change is up for debate, as is whether they have actively refused or just failed to deliver. But it was certainly promised, and is yet to materialise.

The economy is still in a sorry state, with growth figures still hovering around the 1% mark with little hope of an upturn any time soon. The public finances remain in a perilous state too. On taking office, the new Government bemoaned a ‘fiscal black hole’ left to them by their predecessors. Today they’re still wrestling to make the numbers add up, but the blame now lies at their own feet - or at least those sitting behind them on the backbenches. Meanwhile, the small boats crisis is only getting worse, there hasn’t exactly been a clamp down on crime, and international stability remains a distant dream (though it would be harsh to blame this entirely on the British government).

So what has changed? Well there have been some undoubted positives. As we have discussed across our platforms at the IEA, planning reform has been a real step in the right direction. Maybe it isn’t of the scale we’d like, but it is more than anyone else has managed and they will reap the benefits of it. They must go further. In addition, new trade agreements with India and the US have helped limit the damage of international trade wars on the British economy.

But there has been change for the worse too. Business confidence has been shattered by the triple whammy of the National Insurance rise, minimum wage hikes, and the employment rights bill. Wealth creators continue to walk through the door marked ‘exit’.

In assessing any Government record fairly, we should ask two questions. Firstly, do they have the right goals? Secondly, have they achieved those goals? For the first year of this Government, the answers are respectively ‘yes’ and ‘no’ (broadly speaking). We welcome the claim that economic growth is the number one priority, and they were right that the country needs fundamental change. But as is too often the case in politics, the results have not matched the rhetoric.

Callum Price

Director of Communications

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IEA Podcast: Executive Director Tom Clougherty, Editorial Director Kristian Niemietz, and Director of Communications Callum Price discuss Labour’s first year in office, the return of socialism, and fuel duty, IEA YouTube

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The NHS 10-year plan is ‘mostly reaffirmation’ of old goals

Dr Kristian Niemietz, Editorial Director at the Institute of Economic Affairs, said:

"If you take the Government's bombastic rhetoric about how their '10 Year Health Plan for England' will completely turn our healthcare system around at face value, you will be disappointed with what is actually in there. It is mostly a reaffirmation of long-running policy goals, such as shifting care out of hospital and into a community setting, promoting the take-up of new technologies, improving patient choice, and aligning financial incentives to reward better outcomes. These are things that their predecessors and their predecessors' predecessors would also have said.

"But if you ignore the political rhetoric for a moment, there is much to be liked about this plan. The policy goals may not be new, but there is nothing wrong with reaffirming them every now and then.

"The most promising part of the paper is the plan to add a new range of functions to the NHS App, a tool which has thus far been underused. In the future, patients will be able to use the app as both a navigation tool, and as a database for information about the quality of different health services and healthcare providers. This would be an extension of the Blair-era reforms, which could meaningfully enhance patient choice, and improve outcomes in that way.

"The worst part of the document is the section on prevention, a word which always sounds good, but which, in practice, mostly means government officials meddling with what we eat and drink, when they should really just leave us alone and mind their own business."

• Read Kristian’s full analysis in CapX

• Read more coverage in the Independent and the Daily Express

Photo by Ian Taylor on Unsplash

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News and Views

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“Millions of people across the country are being consigned to a lifetime of worklessness.”, Reem Ibrahim discusses welfare reform on BBC’s Politic’s Live

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Why both left and right have failed on growth, Tom Clougherty interviewed Julia Willemyns of the Centre for British Progress on the IEA Podcast

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Should struggling households have their council tax debts wiped?, Reem Ibrahim writes in The Times

“A society that values fairness does not reward rule-breaking while penalising those who take responsibility. We should allow people to keep more of what they earn, and reduce the size of local and national government.”

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Wes Streeting and his “nudges” will not improve our health, Chris Snowdon writes in The Critic

“[P]eople will ignore the nudges and eat what they want… That is why Mr Streeting’s “smarter regulation” will be as unsuccessful as all the stupid regulation that came before it.”

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IEA work on the future of the NHS is referenced in the Financial Times’ long read

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The UK does actually have bigger problems than the heat, Callum Price argues in CityAM

“If we want to achieve the sort of growth rates that will allow people to buy all the ice lollies they will ever need, we must reduce the burden on business so they can spend less on compliance and more on creating jobs and wealth.”

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How nuclear power went from cheap to impossibly expensive, Andy Mayer interviewed policy analyst Alex Chalmers on the IEA Podcast

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Events

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