Estelle Currie’s Post

Read 👉: ‘The Insider’s Guide to Preparing for Power’, a new interview with our Chairman Gus O’Donnell published recently in the New Statesman With UK gearing up for a general election later this year, Gus draws on his former life as cabinet secretary to three prime ministers with his views about forming the next government. 🗣️ “My advice to [a new government] is to be very clear about the outcomes they want to achieve and to leave a certain amount of flexibility as to how…. It may be that the right answer in Blackpool is not the right answer in Liverpool or Manchester or Leeds”. Having served as the head of the UK’s civil service, his advice for managing the transition between changing administrations is vital for all politicians to hear. Gus sees the impartiality of the civil service as a key check-and-balance for policies aiming to boost the UK’s position on the world stage: 🗣️ “I still believe that we have enormous strengths; our university base is fantastic. There’s a huge amount of private money that wants to be invested in the UK because we’ve got a fantastic rule of law… We’ve got all sorts of ways of influencing the world, which we should be using for good.” Frontier’s Public Policy practice works closely with government departments, using cutting edge economics to solve policy problems, and works with leading private and public sector organisations. 🖥️ Read the full article: https://okt.to/ZIn9w1 Learn more about our Public Policy work at Frontier: https://okt.to/Yky1pR

Plenty of pomp and plenty of policy at the King's Speech today 👑 There weren't many huge surprises: economic growth was the framing of the speech, reflecting much of what Labour had signposted during the general election. But importantly, it means there is much in Labour's legislative agenda that will matter to business. In our short briefing for Audley Intelligence, we've highlighted the bills that will impact business and the pieces of legislation we'll be tracking as this parliamentary session progresses. Have a read on our website 👇 https://lnkd.in/ejUQn4vD #kingspeech #parliament #ukpolitics #policy #business

The King has set out the new Labour government’s legislative priorities for the forthcoming Parliament in the King’s Speech. Economic growth featured prominently, with commitments to: - establishing an Industrial Strategy Council; and - pursuing sustainable growth by encouraging investment in industry, skills and new technologies. While we await the detail, it is heartening to see industrial strategy – with innovation at its heart – become a cornerstone of the new government’s agenda. https://lnkd.in/euazKwc8 #growth #innovation

The State Opening of Parliament is a moment of pomp and pageantry, filled with tradition and symbolism. From black rod banging on the door to the King’s Yeoman searching the cellars for explosives, it serves as a reminder of the UK’s uniquely quirky constitution. But with a new Government taking office just 12 days ago, it’s also the first moment that we see how campaign rhetoric and manifesto pledges will be turned into the law and legislation of the land. For Keir Starmer’s Government, delivery starts now. So, what do the 39 bills included in today’s King’s Speech tell us about the future of the UK growth? - Wealth creation and growth must be driven through places: Regional inequality has long been an issue for the UK and successive government policies have failed to make the in-roads needed. But looking at the bills brought forward today, there is a common theme of place-making: from improving transport infrastructure to headquartering GB Energy in Scotland. - Local decision makers will play a central role: The English Devolution Bill will give local and devolved leaders more powers. This has to be predicated on strong local leaders. Government will need to strike the balance between giving these leaders enough freedom to make an impact, alongside a shared vision to deliver growth. - To succeed, collaboration is key: For the government to succeed in the mission set out first in its manifesto and now through its legislative agenda, it will need to build successful partnerships – whether that’s by bringing more private sector investment into the UK or place-based partnerships to drive regional economic growth. The Government needs to build a coalition of the willing, bringing together a diverse set of stakeholders around its shared missions. At PA, we’re exploring the ten questions big questions that will define and shape the next ten years. Catch up on our Decisive Decade series here: https://lnkd.in/e9a_8yd7

Very helpful summary of what's happening with English devolution from the LGC. It'll be interesting to see whether Angela Rayner or Jim McMahon say anything about this at the Local Government Information Unit (LGIU) Saving Local Government Finance Summit (https://lnkd.in/enjVBNKs) or the LGiU & County Councils Network Summer Reception (https://lnkd.in/eddiDesN) tomorrow. There's a good point made in here about levels of local government in two-tier areas. County Councils have the scale necessary to run many major services and may be the appropriate bodies for running many newly-devolved services too. But they are responsible for vast areas. District Councils are much more local, representing more closely what citizens see as "their local area" - often far more homogenous areas in terms of types of settlement and shared issues. If the Government isn't involving District Councils in discussions about devolution, it is missing out on potentially very valuable contributions. Devolution shouldn't stop at county level - while some services may be best run at this level, others may be more suitably run at district level, and without this, the general public won't feel devolution is really serving them. (Indeed, it's individual communities that need to feel the benefit, so somehow town and parish councils and community sector organisations also need to be brought into the process.)

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In business and life at a personal level, we learn generally not to endorse or oppose any political cause in public. This doesn't mean we cannot pay attention and look to where political decision-making will affect outcomes in the business world. In the UK, we have a general election on July 4th for the next five-year government in Westminster, over 600 MPs representing the electoral districts of England, Scotland, Wales, and Norther Ireland. The outcome will be a new Labour government with a large majority, with the current conservatives all but a tiny representation in opposition. How much the Reform party affects the final balance is the only plausible Black Swan in the mix. This makes a huge amount of EXTRA public borrowing likely and that borrowing to be used for large public programs. Somewhere in the region of half a trillion US dollars (400 Billion UKP) is probably in the ballpark for the next parliament of five years. Such a large majority for any party elected in after a decade typically needs a cautionary note attached to it... in this social media world, the new Labour government of novice MPs in power is likely to tear itself apart in short-sighted in-fighting that will grow towards the next election as many MPs seats become at-risk. By the time Apophis approaches in April 2029, we'll be unpicking this next five year parliament. The world may look very different.

Will the 45th Parliament that we elect next year be less risk averse about changing its own operating rules than previous ones? #politics Wherry raises one set of ideas. Other ideas for Parliamentary reform have died because of “that’s the way we have always done things” thinking and fear of being criticized. Some productivity measures to give more weight to committee work that failed to get traction include moving Question Period to the late morning and making Mondays a day reserved entirely for committees to work all day. Another was to acknowlege the pointlessness of Friday QP and let more MPs do their constituency work. They could also change their pension system to vest immediately and put in place a simpler sliding scale accumulation instead of the silly six year rule that generates all the posturing - but they seem incapable of reforming themeslves. There is one popular theory that it would take a strong majority government to tackle changes to Parliament and another popular theory that it takes a minority Parliament where parties have to cooperate.

Something exciting on the near horizon - read on for more... Following extensive engagement with East Midlands Chamber (Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire) members we're set to launch our new 'Manifesto for Growth: Business Policy Priorities ahead of the next General Election.' There's still uncertainty around when the election might be - and for what it's worth I don't think the decision hasn't been made yet (but feel free to try and persuade me otherwise in the comments - 2 May / 14 Nov anyone?) - but regardless of when, one thing we can't afford to do as a business community is sit on our hands and 'wait and see'. That's why, next month, we'll be launching our Manifesto, making specific policy asks under four key headings: 💥Targeting skills reform for the realities of today's workforce 💥Delivering transport and digital infrastructure fit for the 21st Century 💥Aligning the taxation and regulation regime with a long-term vision for UK plc 💥Fixing the broken planning system We also have an exciting Big Opportunity for policy makers (we have a good hit rate with these!), but I'll save the details on that for a later date... We'll be down in Westminster later on in March and are already having conversations with MPs and would-be MPs locally with some encouraging early conversations. Expect to hear much more about this over the next few weeks and months, but I wanted to flag it now and say a big #thankyou to all contacts who have helped pull this together, contributing their time, views and ideas. If you want to find out more then feel free to drop me a line direct!

Lots going on with English devolution today, so here's a quick recap… Angela Rayner has written to top tier councils without devolution deals urging them to talk to the gov about devolution https://lnkd.in/eeXDzhG8 The letter says the new government wants to move away from deal making but yet urges places to get their bids in by September, no doubt kickstarting another summer of local talks (as seen in 2016 and 2020) https://lnkd.in/eYwDt3AV But the status of deals agreed by the former government but not yet signed into law, such as Norfolk, Suffolk and Greater Lincolnshire is not yet clear. Norfolk for one has not had the clarity it is seeking https://lnkd.in/euUnGckM Lots of questions remaining over what the new government deems a ‘sensible economic geography’ and what a new devo framework will look like but overall seems like little change from previous approach in sidelining districts and only devolving most significant powers to places with a mayor Reporting credits to Kirsty Weakley