What labour’s 10 pledges could mean for the future of cities in the UK

#FridayThoughts - may not reflect my thinking on other days of the week.

Elections are interesting times. Getting a political mandate is generally a binary challenge rather than a complex one. More teachers, more doctors, more clean energy, higher wages, better journeys, and less asylum seekers are all binary in the sense that they move the dial up or down on what currently is. When people complain that elections don't change much, this is a fair challenge to a system that is designed to prioritise stability and reduce the chances of hung parliaments.

The ambition is ideally to create a world that is fairer and more enabling, but a binary approach, while pragmatic, assumes that the reason things don’t work is that the approach isn’t appropriately tuned. Sometimes this is true, but we should be cautious of any promise of universal benefits that is premised on simply doing more or less of the status quo. Non-proportional voting systems may also be less able to capture the more granular and complex needs that may encourage more innovative change.

Analysing Labour's 10 pledges

I thought it’d be an interesting thought exercise to explore what Labour’s 10 policies to change Britain (as opposed to the Converservative's 12) could mean for the UK’s cities? Note that this exercise would likely look similar for other major parties and shouldn't be read as a political endorsement. I’ve chosen to focus on Labour simply because polls suggest they’ll be in charge come Independence Day. (If I’d done, say, Reform UK, it’d be something like: more mining, less climate action, less protests, less tax, and possibly less political freedom.) ?

Cities represent political challenges to incoming governments because they concentrate opportunities, which then makes fairness a tricky conversation. Density may make it cheaper and easier to manage and provide infrastructure and services. but transferring this benefit to those who choose to live closer to one another is no easy feat, especially for people who may feel the city is too expensive for them to access these benefits. Some countries respond to this challenge by spending taxes closer to where they are raised or expanding the average population size of local authorities to make the decision of how to allocate budgets and finance infrastructure less of a national concern, but in the UK this is largely something for national elections.

10 pledges outlining four broad challenges all linked to productivity: fix infrastructure, fix health, fix schools, fix under-employment.

Set up Great British Energy, a new publicly owned British energy company?

More energy, less cost.

This move is aimed at justifying the role of central government in the green transition. Technology fragmentation and significantly more affordable access to ‘personal’ power and a very slow march to more efficient buildings is making central governments less relevant to providing energy needs for all sectors of the economy. (This could follow what happened with transport and the arrival of private cars so it is worth governments being mindful). GBE may also provide the demand and confidence the economy needs to decarbonise the built environment. Given scale, this will happen more quickly in cities. Technology and procurement innovation may allow new ways of virtually connecting the investment made by private individuals and companies in local energy into a wider shareholding. It may be that the direction for GBE is less about public ownership in the traditional sense and more about finding a vehicle for aligning community investment to decarbonise energy production and consumption. If so, rural areas may benefit too.

Put passengers first and establish Great British Railways

More public ownership and control.

COVID created opportunity for experimenting with operator nationalisation, however, public ownership and clearer governance on its own won’t lead to better services. There is also a much bigger need for having quicker, more affordable, and more frequent connections between cities to help the UK respond to chronic skills shortages, all tricky given existing constraints across the network. There is an aspect of putting passengers first though this is much more about the economy and improving productivity. For example, high-quality broadband on trains (not directly mentioned) running on smoother rails (hinted at) will enable more people to work while travelling, improving productivity. It is likely GBR, without spatial powers, will be of greater benefit to London, but could provide greater focus on new connections between Liverpool and Hull. If so, clusters of cities functioning more like single economic units will improve the competitiveness of the north.

Stop water bosses’ bonuses when their companies harm the environment

Less water pollution.

This is one area that is likely to benefit rural areas more, assuming the disincentive encourages new ways of thinking about and investing into water infrastructure. Given the proportion of spillage events linked to storms, a more coordinated response to water management, that includes soil quality, improving the quality of farming, and nature-based-solutions, will be needed for this policy to have impact. Cities will likely benefit from higher quality local produce and improved population health, and their buying power could be leveraged to increase demand for sustainable farming.

Deliver two million more NHS appointments a year and Bring back the family doctor and improve local NHS care

More appointments, more capacity, more coordination.

As the UK’s population ages, successive governments will find themselves making this pledge more regularly. The way care is provided, including prevention and new technologies, may be needed to flatten this curve. Health tech will further concentrate in cities, particularly London given the high proportion of world-leading hospitals based there, where there are more skills to maximize the benefits of this tech. The pipeline of available skills in the UK may not be sufficient to bring a range of health care professionals together outside of urban areas, especially without targeted immigration and significantly increasing the number of health professionals. Expect growing demand for retirement units in city centres and closer to major hospitals and for innovation services from the private sector.

Closing private education tax loopholes to improve schools

More money for public schools.

We don’t necessarily need private schools for attainment. Finland has statistically similar PISA results to the UK with no private schools. However, we do need schools that meet the needs of all learners wherever they are in the UK. The range of public school 'types' in the UK - local authority maintained, academies, grammar schools - and a growing mismatch between demographics (linked to housing supply and job availability) and school places may also make a conversation about how to centrally improve schools more complex. Improving the quality and proportion of teachers will likely help everyone, but there will be a proportion of learners whose needs cannot be met in a public system designed around narrow attainment aims, and who will also be less able to access private education. This will encourage more families to switch to homeschooling, limiting labour supply and likely the availability of teachers for public schools given growing demand for private tutors. (An estimated 125,000 to 180,000 children are homeschooled currently – equivalent to 500 schools – with the number rising quicker each year.) Overall, cities are likely to benefit more from this given the higher spending power of urban residents and higher concentration of existing teaching skills. There is the potential that a more inclusive curriculum could enable diverse thinkers to become the innovative talent the UK needs but this may be beyond a more-less policy approach.

Free breakfast clubs in every primary school in England

More time at school for children and more full-time workers.

Children are typically at school for 32.5 hours a week, while full-time roles are 35 to 48 hours per week. Breakfast clubs may be a key component to boosting productivity by encouraging full-time work for parents and carers by plugging the gap between school hours and working hours. This will likely have more impact in cities given greater access to full time positions, particularly for women who disproportionately miss out on work after having children. approaches to increasing a return to work by other countries have been to reduce the average full-work week to be closer to school hours, increase flexible start and finish times, and to encourage more working fathers into the daily family-work juggle.?(Note that the Conservative promise of tax help for self-employed workers is another gamble at trying to make work more worthwhile and accessible for people who aren't in full employment.)

Make the minimum wage a genuine living wage

More money.

Food, transportation, and housing (with energy) represent the largest cost categories for UK households. Housing supply is the least elastic given policy-induced constraints on land supply (OS data: less than 2% of the UK has buildings on it so there is no real shortage of it). This policy is likely to cause housing and rental inflation, particularly in cities as the increased spending power gets sucked into housing.