Howard: The need for accountability

LINK

"As I travel around the country, these are some of the words people use to describe how they feel about Mr. Blair and his Government. Let down. Disillusioned. Arrogant. Living in their own world. And there is another word that I hear again and again from people. "Accountability". People think politicians in general and Mr. Blair's Government in particular are nothing like as accountable as they should be.

In coming weeks, there'll be one phrase we'll hear from Mr Blair again and again: "It's time to move on." Every time anyone hears Tony Blair say "time to move on" they should sit up and listen hard. It's a sure sign there's something he doesn't want noticed, doesn't want questioned, doesn't want probed. In fact, he uses it as a "get out of jail free" card to escape what he hates more than anything else – being held accountable.

Mr Blair has built the most centralised, top-down system of government seen in peacetime Britain since we had absolute monarchs who believed they had a divine right to rule. It is a system of government in which Mr. Blair and his friends are always right. Because Mr. Blair's government is so unaccountable, his government is arrogant, over-mighty and under-hand.

Parliament has been belittled and sidelined. Local initiative has been swamped in regulations, directives and targets. The balance of power between government and governed has shifted - from the people to the Government.

Too often, the State no longer seems to exist to serve the citizen. Too often, families are treated as puppets of the State. And too often, there is little or nothing they can do about it.

The regulations which affect them, their hospital, or the teachers at their local school are imposed from on high. Quangos are unelected and unaccountable. Local authorities are weighed down by government directives.

No wonder people feel increasingly powerless and alienated. The mantra of Mr. Blair's Government is: "Nationalisation is dead. Long live regulation and bureaucracy".

I will break the culture of centralised command and control; give people control of their lives; and ensure that a Conservative Prime Minister and a Conservative Government are accountable to the public.

In the real world, if you say you are going to do something you do it. And if you screw up you can lose your job. That is accountability.

Making Government More Accountable

Accountability is at the heart of good government and a healthy democracy. We all know that when people think they can get away with it, they won't do things as well as they should. That is why I have published a Timetable for Action setting out exactly what I will do and when I will do it. People will then be able to hold us to account for our actions.

Far too many decisions are taken by bureaucrats, units and quangos who are not accountable to the public. So we will scrap a total of 162 quangos and six government units, many of whom churn out unnecessary rules, regulations and red tape. I don't want to see first-class office suites provided for bodies who treat the public as second-class citizens.

Local councils which are elected - not unelected regional assemblies – best serve the public, and best reflect local priorities. Elections make local government accountable a way that appointed bodies never will be. That's why we will abolish Mr. Blair's unelected and unloved regional assemblies. And we will give power – real power – back to local government.

How Mr. Blair and his Ministers love their Comprehensive Performance Assessments, their Best Value Plans, their Statutory Plans and the like. These initiatives consume hours of highly paid local government officers' time and generate legions of unnecessary bureaucrats and inspectors. They tie the hands of local councils with rules laid down by Government Ministers, central Government and quangos - many of whom have never been to the place.

This top-down approach is wrong. It saps local accountability. It wastes hundreds of millions of pounds. It has to go.

A Non-political Civil Service

We will also axe the number of special advisers who have mushroomed in Whitehall under Mr. Blair. And we will stop special advisers like Alistair Campbell having the power to order civil servants what to do. We want a non-politicised civil service. So we will pass a new law to protect its impartiality.

And let me share with you a real worry I have. If there are another four or five more years of Mr. Blair's Government, with arrogant Labour politicians piling pressure on civil servants to behave politically, it will be so much harder after that to pull the system back to what Britain used to have and needs to have – a supremely professional and non-political civil service. Indeed, if there were four more years of Mr. Blair I'm not sure that it could be done.

Reducing the Number of Politicians

We will also reduce the number of politicians. There are too many politicians, and too many Government Ministers, telling people what to do. So we will reduce the number of Government Ministers by around a fifth. And we will reduce the number of MPs by around a fifth.



English Votes for English Laws

Fair play really matters in Britain. It's part of our character. It's the way we do things. But I don't think Parliament operates fairly at the moment. The Scottish Parliament or the Welsh Assembly make many decisions about how their countries are governed. On those issues, MPs from English constituencies have no say. That's what devolution is all about and we support it. Fine. Absolutely fine.

But when it comes to laws which apply solely to England, they are voted upon, not just by MPs from England but by MPs from Scotland. Now, in my book, that's not fair play.

And there is a fair way to do it: "English votes for English laws". A Conservative Government will ensure that when laws are passed which only affect England, only MPs representing seats in England will vote on them.

Let me spell out why this matters. Mr. Blair was only able to drive up university top-up fees through the House of Commons because of the votes of MPs from Scotland. Those top-up fees applied to England, not Scotland, so England has less control over its affairs than Scotland. I don't want England to be a second class country in the United Kingdom.

We will bring in a new procedure for Bills that exclusively affect England. After the First Reading of any Bill in Parliament, the Speaker will determine whether its provisions relate exclusively to England. If it does, the Speaker will issue a certificate ensuring that the legislation is voted on only by MPs who represent constituencies in England.

But accountability goes way beyond government and Parliament. People pay their taxes and they expect something in return. I don't believe that people should have to just shut up and take what they are given. We have all paid for the health service – it is our NHS.

Accountability in the Health Service

I cannot think of a better example where accountability in the health service has failed than in the case which I raised in Parliament this week – the case of Mrs. Margaret Dixon. She and her family, like everyone else, have paid their taxes and were promised by Mr. Blair's Government a better, more responsive NHS. This is what Mr. Blair's NHS has done for Mrs. Dixon.

She is in constant pain and desperately needs an operation. Because she has a weak heart, she has been told that her chance of surviving that operation is less than 50:50. On seven separate occasions, she has been given a date for the operation. On seven occasions, she has said goodbye to her family in case she did not survive. On each of those seven occasions, her operation has been cancelled.

When I raised this case in Parliament, I was accused of playing party politics. What is Parliament for if it is not to be a means to make Ministers accountable for the services for which they are responsible?

A Conservative Government will introduce greater accountability into the NHS. We will give patients a real choice about which hospitals they use. And we will make sure they have the information they need about the superbug infection rates in hospitals.

Accountability in Schools

We will introduce greater accountability into our schools system. We will give parents real choice over the schools they want their children to attend. And we will give them more information, for example, by publishing schools' exam marks.

Choice Creates Accountability

Giving people choice works. It transfers accountability from politicians to patients and parents – those with the single greatest stake in the outcome. Doctors, nurses, teachers and everyone else employed in the healthcare and schools systems will no longer work for politicians, but for patients and parents. They may be demanding – but that's because they want the best for themselves and their families and it is far more rewarding to work for them than for interfering politicians.

Accountability and the Police

We will make the police more accountable. We will give local communities real control over the police. The clearest line of accountability in any organisation is to a single individual: a person who sits behind a desk with a sign that says "I'm responsible – the buck stops here".

So we will replace remote and unaccountable Police Authorities with directly-elected Police Commissioners – directly accountable to local people.

Imagine the galvanising effect of a contest between two or three candidates for the job, each of whom published a manifesto to which local people could then hold them. I can already hear the cries of horror from the criminal justice establishment: "You can't give ordinary people a say over law and order. What a terrible idea".

Well I trust people. I believe local people should have more power – after all, they understand what is best for their local communities. I want them to have a say.

Local Say for Local Communities

Too many decisions today are made which affect local communities but over which local people have no say. Conservatives believe that local councils, made up of locally elected representatives, should decide the direction of local communities. Local government must be what people want it to be: genuinely local in character and composition. Sprawling tiers of regional bureaucracy, distant and remote from local communities, undermine accountability.

Local communities should have a greater say, for example, over developments – like wind farms and mobile phone masts - in their area. So we will do away with John Prescott's Communities Plan, scrap regional planning and return powers to local councils.

We will also give local councillors and residents a stronger local say on alcohol licensing, allowing them to control the number and opening hours of pubs and clubs. This is vital because Labour's new 24 hour licensing laws threaten to worsen the growing problem of binge drinking and soaring violent crime in town centres across the country.

We want to revive local government and local accountability. The imposition of Cabinet structures on councils, irrespective of local wishes, has marginalised the role of many backbench councillors. Conservatives will allow councils to return to the 'Committee' system of local government if they wish. At the same time, we will prevent the imposition by central government of a 'one size fits all' system of unitary local government which would increase costs and undermine local identities. And we will defend and protect England's historic shire counties and districts.

I've had twenty years experience in Parliament. I hope I've learned a few things in that time. I've certainly learned that just winning an argument doesn't on its own win hearts and minds. But I've also learned that people desperately want politicians to be accountable for their actions – just as they are in they own lives.

But politicians seem to live in a different world: a world where promises are dropped just as casually as they're made; a world where the figures are fiddled; and a world where there are no penalties for failure. What people want from their politicians is:
Accountability. Responsibility. And a little humility. The very opposite of what we've had from Tony Blair.

Politicians don't have all the solutions. So I won't pretend I can solve every problem, right every wrong or cure every ill. I'll leave that to the Liberal Democrats. I will only promise what we can deliver. What I start, I will follow through. And I will give people clear measures against which we can be judged. Our Timetable for Action will put us on the line in a way that no government has ever been. We'll have no place to hide. There's a word for it - accountability.

When you ask for people's votes, you have a responsibility to them. Casting a vote shouldn't be a mechanical choice between the lesser of two evils. It should be an opportunity to tell the world what sort of country you want. That's why politicians have a duty to respond to people's dreams and help make them a reality. It's not a crime to want a better school for your child, better healthcare for your mother, and a better life for your family. But it is criminal when politicians hold out these promises without a detailed, deliverable plan.

People are fed up with talk. They want action. And that is what I will deliver."

Rt Hon Michael Howard QC MP
04/03/2005