POLITICS
Some helpful suggestions about how best to use the people's mandate
SIMON HEFFER
0 ne of our legislators confided in me the other day that 'it's been rather good these last few weeks, not to have any parlia- ment, hasn't it?' The sun was shining. Eng- land was tranquil. Four or five years of unexciting Tory government lay ahead. And, as far as my interlocutor was con- cerned, there was the certainty of another four or five after that. He left me in no doubt that he could easily countenance an extension of his constitutional holiday. I suspect there are a few others like him, too.
There is little sense of urgency among some of our politicians to get back to West- minster. This is a fine tribute to the unfavourable rhetoric/action ratio of the Tory manifesto. Much was said in thesam- paign about preserving the Conservative way, but not much about taking it forward. When one considers what there is to be done in the next parliament one encounters a problem. There is enough in the mani- festo to occupy the Government until the first session of the new Parliament, ends in October next year, and during the second. Beyond that, life looks hazy. There is no promise of an exciting development of the vision, just (as Mrs Thatcher keeps getting into trouble for saying) signs of clouding it. Those who have always wanted minimal government should, perhaps, rejoice. Re- joicing would, though, be premature. There are any number of freedom-enhancing measures that ought to be pushed through Parliament, but of which there, is as yet no sign. Worse, when civil servants see there is not enough to do, they have a habit (if only to keep themselves and their overmanned departments in work) of finding helpful lit- tle schemes to pass away the time.
But let us look at what we can expect to find in the Queen's Speech. Some of its pri- ority measures will be unquestionably sen- sible. The Asylum Bill, to control right of entry to Britain, is being reintroduced.
There will be legislation to privatise British Rail, assuming our governors can agree on the best way to do it. There will be a Finance Bill to implement the plans of the Chancellor's pre-election Budget. In a move to give everyone a stake in the coun- try as painlessly as possible (though these things should not, perhaps, be made too easy) there will be a rents-into-mortgages Bill. Mr Mellor will bring in his national lottery. There arc well-founded rumours of further education legislation, if only to keep the National Union of Teachers in a prominent position of ridicule. Most diffi- cult of all for the Government, despite the lengths to which Mr Major went in his reshuffle to neutralise anybody who might cause trouble, will be the Bill to ratify the Maastricht Treaty (a matter which, as our Foreign Editor reports elsewhere in this issue, is not having the smoothest passage elsewhere in Europe).
Then there is the whole programme of the Citizen's Charter (`Citizen's Charter? Complete heap of bollocks from beginning to end!' was how one senior Minister of the Crown thoughtfully described it to me last week). Mr Waldegrave, who has not been given proper credit for the reformist way in which he handled the Department of Health, finds himself in charge of co-ordi- nating this dismally uninspiring project. This will involve him touring Whitehall and meeting the same sort of indifference from colleagues as illustrated above. It will then entail him trying to ensure that staff in dole offices and railway stations wear name badges, so that they can be easily com- plained about. It will be interesting to see whether the privatised railways operate in accordance with the state's Charter (for it is to an interfering state, and not to the citi- zen, that it really belongs), or whether the market will be regulation enough.
Mr Howard, the new Environment Sec- retary, is looking at local government reform, a process that awaits the work of the Boundaries Commissioners; but the word is that county councils are on the way out. Mr Heseltine, we are told, is still find- ing his way around the department of his dreams, and is said to be thinking endlessly of something called 'space'. His ambition has always been towering, but now it appears to be becoming intergalactic.
Perhaps some of year two, and all of years three and four, will be filled with what political evangelicals might term 'lib- eration legislation'. Perhaps as this Govern- ment finds its feet, and Mr Major becomes used to having his own mandate, so too will he find the confidence required to continue with the radical reform of British institu- tions and the state. That, presumably, is what Ministers are thinking of now, despite the consolidating instincts of civil servants.
There is, though, more to governing than just passing Acts of Parliament. One must not become too obsessed with Westmin- ster. We used to run an empire with a par- liament that sat for five months of the year,
rising as the grouse season started and not coming back until the pheasants had been finished off. The French have a law preven- ting their assembly from sitting for more than six months of the year. More or less permanent parliamentary sittings have en- couraged the growth of the professional MP. This is a most undesirable calling. One fears it means selection committees are choosing parliamentary candidates who would be unemployable elsewhere. But the most compelling reason to concentrate on political life away from the floor of the House is that some of the most important work to be done by this Government needs no legislation, just leadership.
The two continuing great reforms of our over-large state — the decentralisation of the health service and the freeing of schools from local education authorities— are already legislated for. The breaking of other restrictive practices, like the police and the prison service, can be done by Mr Clarke, our brutalist Home Secretary. Apart from when the Opposition bays for Mr Clarke to make Statements, in order to prove to Labour MPs that they still serve a useful function, these reforms can be done managerially, without the Home Secretary having to go near the House of Commons.
The one thing on which Mr Major has stuck out his neck, and showed great lead- ership, is the maintenance of the Union. By telling the Scots the truth before the elec- tion — that the only alternatives for them were to stay as they are or become totally independent — he started to concentrate minds on reality in a way that fudging the issue would not have achieved. The Scots voted for the Tories in slightly larger num- bers than in 1987. If he keeps on treating the Scots like sensible (albeit rather privi- leged) adults, there is every reason to expect they will continue to move back to the Tories in the next five years. No legisla- tion is required. The same is true, too, of a firm line on Ulster. To judge from his min- isterial appointments there, that is what Mr Major intends. But he should look closely at his Scottish success as he feels his way forward. If avoiding compromise and Con- fronting issues head-on has worked on that question, it might well just work on others too. With four or five years at his disposal, he can afford to start going boldly.
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