Rolling guide to significant new Conference policy announcements

This list will be updated throughout the week:

Thursday: Thousands of copies of Reconstruction, Renewal, Repair. were distributed to conference-goers after David Cameron spoke.  It neatly summarises party policies.  A PDF of it is here.

Tuesday: "The Conservatives want to amend Section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 to ensure that protecting the public from risk is given priority over the risk to [police] officers" (BBC).

Monday: Conservatives pledge 45,000 increase in the number of single rooms in hospitals by end of first term at a cost of £1.57bn (Guardian).

Monday: George Osborne announces two year freeze in council tax for local councils that help to deliver economies (Watch).

Monday: A new high speed London to Birmingham rail link by 2027 (and no third runway for Heathrow).

Monday: A new GI Bill that will give servicemen much greater access to education (BBC).

Sunday: Tory Government would establish an Office of Budget Responsibility to publicly account for progress towards a balanced budget (this idea was first proposed by the FT).

Sunday: Twelve private sector CEOs will be recruited to become "superheads" for major Whitehall Departments (referred to by The Sunday Times). 3pm: CCHQ has now told us that this is rubbish and do not know how The Sunday Times could have written it!

Saturday: New powers for the Bank of England to rescue failing banks and to monitor consumer and corporate debt

Saturday: £121m to fund a weekly rubbish collection by all local councils

Comments

[R.Rowan]

coverage seems a bit thin on the Beeb why would this be I wonder?

[Mike A]

Because there's a nationalisation going on, a massive financial bail-out in the US, and China is now a space-faring nation.

Discussions by powerless councillors and a would-be government isn't quite the ticket.

[Richard North]

Radio 4 World at One interviewed Hague at some length. However, the "elephant in the room" was not mentioned. Methinks someone is playing with fire.

[WHS]

We would be giving enormous hostage to fortune in announcing detailed policy now: for one, no-one knows how dire a state the economy will be in in 18/20 months time when the election will most probably be called. Better to sketch outlines which can be built on rather than paint with the fine brush.

[James Maskell]

Has there been anything from Gove's lot about children in care? Sorry to everyone else who tires of my constantly mentioning it, but Gove has spoken about every other facet of family policy apart from the care system. In August he made a significant speech on family policy and yet failed to mention the issue.

This is important to the 60,000 in the system at any one time since these are the very people the Conservatives should be thinking about when they talk about building up social capital.

[Man in a Shed]

The focus on debt and how it has been allowed to build up is very encouraging.

Remember personal debt has gone to about GBP 1 Trillion - near to the amount of money Gordon Brown has hosed around on unreformed public services.

Its been "Borrow and Spend" during the Brown Boom and now its time to pay up.

[michael mcgough]

"People in this country are crying out for change. We have a plan for change - so let's show them with everything we've got that we can be that change."

Cameron or Obama????

[Cleethorpes Rock]

What a shame that the most sensible idea up there, the one about recruiting private sector CEOs to head up departments, was slapped down by the powers that be.

We need more real world experience now and will do more when we're back in government. It does worry me that George Osborne has never had a proper job.

[passing leftie]

Saturday: £121m to fund a weekly rubbish collection by all local councils

So far we've got "set up a new quango", "offload responsibility from elected politicians onto bankers," and then this:

It's up to local people to decide how frequently they want their rubbish collected. This kind of micromanagement is unwelcome. What a pathetic annoucement.

[Angelo Basu]

"the one about recruiting private sector CEOs to head up departments"

I'd prefer private sector CEOs to be running private sector businesses well and generating wealth rather than inflating the public sector wagebill and being taken out of the productive economy. Departments don't need CEOs but the parts of the State which are responsible for delivery of services do need to be run more professionally and accountably. If anything, Labour have shown that simply parachuting private sector managers in is a resounding failure in improving public sector services. Something more radical than giving businessmen the benefit of a final salary pension scheme is needed.

Vince Cable for chair of the OBR? Avoid any suggestion that the OBR will be more of the same and like a New Labour quango filled with politically sympathetic placemen, plus a hammer blow by taking away the LibDems most capable spokesman.

[James Maskell]

This new policy about amending the HSA needs clarifying. Reading that straight off that could become a complete farce if its poorly worded. Of course this policy has been announced because of the couple of sad cases weve had in the past year or so about PCSOs which let small children drown rather than jump in (surely theres more to it but thats all the press came out with), but this policy could really end up like the Dangerous Dogs Act. Be very wary indeed...

[David Lawrence]

I used to think that our policy was to give Local Authorities their individuality and freedom within an overall strategy.
But I realise that unless we are careful we shall become as centralist as others.

[Cleethorpes Rock]

Valid point, Angelo. The trouble is that government departments can't be run well. The clue's in the name- GOVERNMENT departments.

Why don't we just abolish a load of government departments?

[Angelo Basu]

I agree - there's certainly room to cull a number of departments. BERR seems these days to serve no useful purpose (although the HBOS/Lloyds regulatory manoeuvre will return some decision-making powers to it. DfID could be scrapped. Culture Media and Sport also is pretty redundant apart from giving Ministers access to priority tickets for fun events. DCLG could go in conjunction with a major redistribution of decision-making power to local authorities (perhaps as the flipside to the council tax freeze - agree to cut your spending and you'll get control over the whole budget)- or at least the "C" bit - there are no "communities", just the community. The Scottish, Welsh and NI offices are also largely redundant and could be amalgamated. They certainly don't need separate Cabinet and Ministerial representation. DfES/DIUS should be remerged and slimmed down (many working in the split department don't quite understand the division which as far as I can tell was made to give extra ministerial posts out) - again this could be done by devolving decision-making power to schools, colleges and universities so that their contact with central government was principally related to funding.

Each of these areas could retain a small core of people in Whitehall assisting Ministers with high level policy, but implementation and detail doesn't need to be at that level. Post-code lotteries? Bring them on. They can be the best indicator of differences between the effectiveness of local provision you can get.

Any more?

[passing leftie]

Posted by: Cleethorpes Rock | September 30, 2008 at 09:43

Valid point, Angelo. The trouble is that government departments can't be run well. The clue's in the name- GOVERNMENT departments.

Why don't we just abolish a load of government departments?

Yes, you are right; and the private sector is currently demonstrating conclusively how efficient and prudent it is with our money.

[Angelo Basu]

Well passing leftie (odd name as you don't actually seem to pass), you're right up to a point, but perhaps the answer is to cull useless parts of the public sector and let the market cull useless parts of the private sector rather than pile on more useless public sector roles and bail out useless private sector businesses?

[David Belchamber]

"Vince Cable for chair of the OBR?"

Splendid suggestion, Angelo (if we can't arrange for a close season transfer for VC).

[passing leftie]

Posted by: Angelo Basu | September 30, 2008 at 11:37

Well passing leftie (odd name as you don't actually seem to pass), you're right up to a point, but perhaps the answer is to cull useless parts of the public sector and let the market cull useless parts of the private sector rather than pile on more useless public sector roles and bail out useless private sector businesses?

Taking a bank into state ownership to protect depositers is not protecting shareholders - it's protecting depositers. The shareholders knew the risks; frankly, they have no reason to complain.

As for public sector waste - government after government have searched for it and tried to remove it, but it's like advertising - you spend 50% too much on it, but you don't know which 50%.

By all means remove waste - you could start by halving the defense budget and abolishing the export guarantee department, and if you find a magic formula which removes "waste" without damaging services, by all means let the rest of the world know.

[Matt Wright]

You can remove "waste" in an organisation and improve its services but to do so takes time and can initially cost a bit more to make it happen. However most of all it needs real political or management will to change the culture in an organisation and empower staff.

By the way Passing Leftie, you mentioned earlier that altering bin collections was interfereing in councils. Its not. The current Govt is bullying councils to collect fortnightly. A Conservative Govt is saying they would ensure councils were supported if they wanted weekly collections but ultimately the decision is the residents/voters. However I think you will find most people want weekly collections.

[Nick Gulliford]

I cannot see the policy announcement by Maria Miller [30/9/2008]. For the sake of the record it was:

"Most young couples now get married in a civil ceremony[11]. Unlike a church wedding, there is no tradition of pre-marriage preparation for couples marrying at a registry office. We want that to change. We want local registrars to start signposting couples to pre-marital education as a matter of routine. The Local Government Association who co-ordinate the role of wedding registrars, agree and I am pleased to say that they [are] putting forward this policy so that every young couple getting married will be made aware of the benefits they would get from relationship support at this critical point in their life.

In the US, couples who have this type of pre-marriage education are a third less likely to divorce[12]. We want this type of support for couples to be routine in Britain too."

It will be interesting to find out at the 2009 conference what has happened to this policy. It appears to have sunk without trace.