Industry | 2009.06.30
Brown's vision undermined by spending plans row
PM\'s manifesto, Building Britain\'s Future, overshadowed by charges that Labour is hiding funding cuts
Gordon Brown\'s efforts to set out a compelling pre-election vision based on enforceable rights for citizens were badly hampered today when the government finally admitted it will not publish future spending plans ahead of the election.
Brown unveiled a manifesto entitled Building Britain\'s Future and a draft Queen\'s speech containing 12 bills. The overall aim was to downgrade Whitehall public service targets in favour of individual rights, with some enforceable by the community and others by individuals.
Ministers argued that after months on the back foot, Brown had delivered a policy programme that contained eye-catching measures and a more coherent reform framework for public services.
There was no mention of the plan to part-privatise the Royal Mail, once seen as the government\'s litmus test of its determination to reform the public sector.
Lord Mandelson, the architect of that policy, became the first minister to confirm that the Treasury was abandoning plans to publish a spending review covering 2010-11. The government has so far staged these department-by-department spending limits every two years, and faced charges that it was hiding the coming cuts from the electorate.
Tonight it emerged that Brown was raiding other government departments including transport, the Home Office and health to triple the social housebuilding programme by £2.1bn over two years, one of the centrepieces of today\'s announcements.
Just under half the extra £1.5bn housebuilding cash will come from reallocations inside the communities department, including funds previously set aside for a social housing refurbishment programme. Another £300m will come from the transport department.
The extra money is aimed at building 20,000 affordable homes over two years, including 3,000 council houses. More than 4 million people are on the waiting list. The prime minister said: "There is now a real choice for our country: driving growth forward or letting the recession take its course."
But David Cameron, accusing Brown of deceit, said there would be "riots on the street" if spending cuts were made after an election campaign in which politicians pretended they were not required. He described the prime minister as "living in a dream world, unaware that the money has run out" and publishing "a programme without a price tag".
Mandelson insisted that the last spending review had covered the years up to 2011, "beyond the next election, and therefore it is reasonable to review public spending at that time". He added: "We are not in a position, in June 2009, to be able to forecast what growth will be and what the performance of the economy will be in 2011. That is why we have to wait."
In signs of a tussle at the top of government the treasury chief secretary, Liam Byrne, said Mandelson had corrected himself over his claim that there would certainly not be a spending review this side of the election. He added it was for chancellor to look at the issue of whether to hold a review at the time of the pre-budget report in the late Autumn when the state of the public finances are clearer.
Alistair Darling is not minded to have a full scale spending review setting spending totals over three years for each department, due to the extreme uncertainty of the finances, but instead wants to give some figures and be straight with the electorate. "There is no need for instance to say how many paper clips can be ordered by the culture department" said one source.
Darling is likely to use the pre-budget report in November, or the budget next year, to spell out if some programmes will have to be cut to meet his plan to halve the budget deficit in five years.
Building Britain\'s Future startlingly admits: "A sense of unfairness pervades modern contemporary Britain. Key national institutions on which the public thought they could depend have acted in a way that is directly at odds with the fundamental values of and expectations of the British people."
Mandelson said the Royal Mail bill was being delayed because it was "jostling for space" in the legislative programme. But Cameron, aware of the scale of the Labour backbench revolt over the measure, teased Brown by offering Tory time to complete the bill\'s passage through the Commons. He accused Brown of "bottling it".
Among the measures announced, the prime minister said young people aged 18-25 and unemployed for more than a year would lose their benefit unless they take up an offer of a job or training. Ministers expect the scheme to cover 70,000 young people by the election. About £1bn will be spent on creating 100,000 jobs for young people and 50,000 others in industries with high unemployment. Other measures include:
• The right for cancer sufferers to see a specialist within two weeks, and to receive hospital treatment within 18.
• Entitlement to a free check-up on the NHS to anyone aged 40 to 74.
• The right for communities to meet their neighbourhood police team once a month.
• A personal tutor for every pupil at secondary school and one-to-one catch-up classes for those who need it.
• A draft bill introducing a largely elected second chamber, with fresh legislation to abandon byelections for the remaining 92 hereditary peers.
• Limited reform of the council house allocation programme allowing councils greater discretion to give priority to local people.
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/[...]n-brown-labour-vision-spending
