A New Agenda for Government

by Michael Jacobs

New Ground 58
Winter 1999

New Labour’s commitment to modernisation has influenced every area of policy: from the economy to welfare, from industry to reform of the public sector. Michael Jacobs, General Secretary of the Fabian Society, argues that the environment should be no exception.

When the history of environmental policy under the new Labour Government comes to be written, November 1999 will go down as a turning point. Three separate events have shifted the environment to the centre of the Government's programme.

First, Gordon Brown's Pre-Budget Report announced the introduction of the Climate Change Levy. This represents the first significant embodiment of the radical green principle of shifting the burden of tax on to environmental 'bads'. Brown also announced that revenue from increased petrol prices will be hypothecated, paving the way for a significant increase in public transport spending.

Secondly, the Transport Bill represents, at last, the recognition in legislation that the direction of transport policy has to change – away from simply accommodating demand to trying to manage it. Accompanied by a new Wildlife and Countryside Bill, it made the Queen's Speech an environmental milestone.

And then, little reported but in a curious way equally significant, was Stephen Byers’ speech to the Green Alliance and ERM at the end of November. This was the first speech on the environment by a Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. Committing the DTI to a new approach, Byers placed a radical improvement in environmental productivity as a central component of the Government's wider goal of modernising the British economy.

These three developments mean that much of the criticism which the environmental movement has made of the Government in recent months can now be tempered. There is real progress here. And yet there is still something missing too.

What we still haven't got from the Government is the ideological dimension to the environmental agenda: the placing of environmental concerns at the heart of the Government's philosophical project. It was noticeable that in Gordon Brown's pre-budget speech his announcement of various incentives for enterprise and fairness were surrounded by elevated rhetoric extolling their virtues; but the environmental measures were introduced with the dour statement that 'we must meet our environmental commitments'. A couple of weeks later, Tony Blair was in Florence discussing the Third Way and the future of the centre-left with fellow world leaders – but the environment didn't seem to figure in his worldview.

In a way this is odd. In almost every other area of policy new Labour has been superb at defining, in simple language, its new philosophy. It has created new 'narratives' or 'discourses' which have encapsulated its policy approach: 'welfare to work', 'tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime', 'fiscal prudence', 'school standards'; indeed, 'new Labour' itself.

Yet on the environment there has been no similar attempt to define a narrative or 'story to tell'. In contrast to other fields, most members of the public would be hard pressed to say what new Labour stands for on the environment. Indeed it has not always been clear if the Government itself knows.

The need for such a new discourse is now urgent, however. Now that environmental issues have become so central to the Government's programme, it has to sell them to the public. This is particularly true in the transport field, where John Redwood and the Tory press are cynically trying to portray the Government as engaged in a 'war' against motorists; but it applies also over environmental taxation and countryside and planning policy. Winning the public's support is not simply a question of arguing for specific policy measures; it requires the Government to persuade people of its values and aims.

The Government has found this difficult in the past because new Labour people have associated the environment with the (as they see it) anti-aspirational and anti-business ideology of the Greens. But this is a mistake. There is in fact, I believe, a fundamental congruence between the environmental agenda and new Labour ways of thinking.

As many people have noticed, the Government is obsessed with 'modernisation'. Ministers talk about modernising the economy, modernising public services, modernising the constitution, modernising local government. This can often sound like merely an empty slogan; but at a deeper level it represents a genuine attempt to come to terms with a changing world. Globalisation, the emergence of the knowledge economy, the development of the internet, the growth of more individualised worldviews, the fragmentation of society and increase in inequality: these are the trends of 'modernity' to which the Government is trying to respond.
Environmental degradation is another such trend. Indeed it is bound up with many of the others, from globalisation to the modern obsession with food and health. Even more importantly, tackling degradation is itself a project of modernisation – notably by getting rid of inefficient, polluting technologies and investing in innovative systems of production and consumption. We need modern cities today, with clean, 21st century public transport and IT-based urban systems replacing dirty and congested 20th century lifestyles. We need a modern agriculture which reduces chemicalised intensification and turns towards organics. It is new, open and democratic processes which are needed to manage public policy decisions about risk.

Here then is the way that new Labour could project an environmental mission wholly consonant with its wider philosophy. The idea of 'environmental modernisation' locates the environment as part of a positive vision: focused on the future, embracing technological and social change, pro-business, inclusive of both the middle classes and the poor. As Stephen Byers argued in his speech, 'environmental modernisation' ties environmental policy to the more general task of raising investment and productivity levels in the British economy. And by linking issues such as air quality and traffic congestion to a wider improvement in the urban quality of life it could reap significant electoral rewards.

For environmental organisations – not least SERA itself – it has been a long trek to this point, where environmental issues seem finally to have reached the top of the political agenda. The final push is to make them central to the Government's philosophy. Could 'environmental modernisation' hold the key?