Don't believe all the Tory-bashing. This week's conference in Manchester has so far included some substantive policy announcements - the Freud proposals to shift 500k people off incapacity benefit, Francis Maude's plans to reform Whitehall departments, and Osborne's initial hitlist of spending cuts.
You might not agree with them, but these are real policy plans. Osborne's £7 billion p.a. cuts won't tackle the whole of the £175 billion deficit, as Robert Chote and Stephanie Flanders have pointed out. But at least he set out something of a route map. As Richard Reeves said on Newsnight tonight, he's a "work in progress" Chancellor.
My main concern about the Conservatives this week isn't that they are policy-light. It's the emerging mismatch between their conference-hall, crowd-pleasing rhetoric, and the looming reality of government decision-making. For example...
(1) Quangos - there is huge support in the conference hall for getting rid of RDAs and other quangos. But it's not yet clear what will replace them.
Caroline Spelman said yesterday that regionalism will go "lock, stock and barrel". It's pretty clear that a Tory Government will immediately scrap regional spatial strategies. But shadow CLG Ministers like Stewart Jackson are saying that RDAs won't disappear overnight, and are still keeping open the prospect of some surviving (like One North East).
Together, RDAs spend just over £2 billion a year - around 10% of this is admin and staff costs, the other 90% goes on e.g. regeneration, business suport and skills programmes. It's not yet clear how much of that 90% will be maintained, and who will spend it. Will it all go to individual local authorities, to local enterprise partnerships, city-regions like Greater Manchester, or back up to Whitehall departments?
(2) Housing - there is huge opposition in the conference hall to "concreting over the Green Belt". But it's not clear how the Conservatives will up the supply of new housing.
Grant Shapps said today that he wants the UK to become a "nation of housebuilders". He is right that Labour's top-down national housebuilding targets have not delivered the thousands of new homes we need every year. And he's right to propose new positive incentives for extra housebuilding, like the Council Tax match-funding for 6 years. But these incentives are unlikely to be enough.
Housebuilders are genuinely worried that a new Tory Government will encourage an anti-development attitude in our towns and cities. Developers are concerned that an excessively laissez-faire approach will result in a few houses here, and none over there. City leaders are right to complain about too much micro management from the centre now, but are starting to worry about no strategic planning at all under the Tories.
How can a Tory Govt strike the right balance between top-down targets and pure localism? Will they be willing to offer more incentives to encourage new housing? And will they be able to overcome that anti-development tendency in many of their own councils?
(3) Financial devolution - the Tories talk the devolution talk very well. But the Control Shift rhetoric is unlikely to result in any significant Fiscal Shift during the next Parliament.
The shadow CLG team does want to devolve power, and is promising cities some good things - like more flexibility to raise bonds, and retain a portion of business rate revenue. But the prospect of serious financial devolution will be severely curtailed for the next few years, because of the fiscal crisis. The shadow Treasury team is clearly running the show on this stuff, and ruling out any major move like returning the whole of the business rate to local authorities.
You might not agree with them, but these are real policy plans. Osborne's £7 billion p.a. cuts won't tackle the whole of the £175 billion deficit, as Robert Chote and Stephanie Flanders have pointed out. But at least he set out something of a route map. As Richard Reeves said on Newsnight tonight, he's a "work in progress" Chancellor.
My main concern about the Conservatives this week isn't that they are policy-light. It's the emerging mismatch between their conference-hall, crowd-pleasing rhetoric, and the looming reality of government decision-making. For example...
(1) Quangos - there is huge support in the conference hall for getting rid of RDAs and other quangos. But it's not yet clear what will replace them.
Caroline Spelman said yesterday that regionalism will go "lock, stock and barrel". It's pretty clear that a Tory Government will immediately scrap regional spatial strategies. But shadow CLG Ministers like Stewart Jackson are saying that RDAs won't disappear overnight, and are still keeping open the prospect of some surviving (like One North East).
Together, RDAs spend just over £2 billion a year - around 10% of this is admin and staff costs, the other 90% goes on e.g. regeneration, business suport and skills programmes. It's not yet clear how much of that 90% will be maintained, and who will spend it. Will it all go to individual local authorities, to local enterprise partnerships, city-regions like Greater Manchester, or back up to Whitehall departments?
(2) Housing - there is huge opposition in the conference hall to "concreting over the Green Belt". But it's not clear how the Conservatives will up the supply of new housing.
Grant Shapps said today that he wants the UK to become a "nation of housebuilders". He is right that Labour's top-down national housebuilding targets have not delivered the thousands of new homes we need every year. And he's right to propose new positive incentives for extra housebuilding, like the Council Tax match-funding for 6 years. But these incentives are unlikely to be enough.
Housebuilders are genuinely worried that a new Tory Government will encourage an anti-development attitude in our towns and cities. Developers are concerned that an excessively laissez-faire approach will result in a few houses here, and none over there. City leaders are right to complain about too much micro management from the centre now, but are starting to worry about no strategic planning at all under the Tories.
How can a Tory Govt strike the right balance between top-down targets and pure localism? Will they be willing to offer more incentives to encourage new housing? And will they be able to overcome that anti-development tendency in many of their own councils?
(3) Financial devolution - the Tories talk the devolution talk very well. But the Control Shift rhetoric is unlikely to result in any significant Fiscal Shift during the next Parliament.
The shadow CLG team does want to devolve power, and is promising cities some good things - like more flexibility to raise bonds, and retain a portion of business rate revenue. But the prospect of serious financial devolution will be severely curtailed for the next few years, because of the fiscal crisis. The shadow Treasury team is clearly running the show on this stuff, and ruling out any major move like returning the whole of the business rate to local authorities.
We understand this. In the short-term, the Treasury will want to keep a tight rein on public spending - and will not give councils any extra room for manoeuvre. But in the longer-term, once the public finances are back on a more secure footing, there should be more scope for serious financial devolution. The Tories should signal now their long-term intention to hand financial powers to cities, even if that means waiting several years.
George Osborne talked about the next two Parliaments in his speech today - he should start adding financial devolution to his longer-term route map.
