Fixing our 'unfriendly' family culture

There’s a line in the Conservative’s Draft Manifesto that caught my eye. It says “Britain is one of the least family-friendly countries in the developed world. This will change with a Conservative government.”

It’s a phase that has every chance of making it into the final version. The Conservatives know that on many indicators – relationship breakdown, risky behaviour by teenagers, the emotional well-being of children – Britain does not score well.

But it’s not altogether clear that they understand how to improve Britain’s family-friendliness. Most of the trends associated with Britain’s poor family record have been shaped by rampant individualism and consumerism, our tendency to act selfishly and fetishise making money over making time for one another.

Labour’s response in government has been to launch a thousand policy initiatives, to make it a bit easier for families to live within this culture, rather than challenging the culture itself. But this is really a sticking plaster approach – it doesn’t address the bigger problem.

Could politicians do more to make us influence our unfriendly family culture? Here are three things politicians could do during the election to make a start:

1. Politicians need to talk about why family life matters. It’s important not just because it produces better children but because relationships sustain us all.
2. Policies need to address the real issues. The problem with the debate about whether or not you support marriage through the tax system is that it takes an important issue – relationship breakdown – and reduces it to a discussion about financial transactions. Relationships aren’t breaking down because people can’t see the monetary benefit of staying together.
3. Finally, politicians could make family life more visible in politics. I don’t mean by parading your children (or even your pregnant wife) but by demonstrating that time spent with your family matters, by bringing people into the next cabinet who are allowed to work part-time to balance their work and family life and by contemplating better ways to fitting the demands of a job to family life, rather than vice versa. A new cabinet with job share ministers? Now there’s a thought.

Lisa Harker, co-director, ippr

The Chancellors' debate: low key but fascinating!

Some commentators on last night’s Chancellors Debate have suggested that it lacked a bit of spark and drama – including, it must be said, my colleague Tony Dolphin (see 2 posts below).

No gaffes, no bombshells, no personal attacks – so no interest.

I beg to differ – here were serious issues being discussed in a serious way by serious politicians. Even the much criticised George Osborne seemed to rise to the occasion and to – by and large – engage constructively and effectively with his counterparts, Vince Cable – everyone’s idea of how a grown up politician should act– and Alistair Darling – whose reputation seems to be growing by the day. Without getting too dewy-eyed – or indeed po-faced – about it, this was just the sort of political debate that the country needs at this time.

There was point-scoring of course, but there were also plenty of points of agreement and a strong sense that the argument was constructive – and, yes, interesting. (All three seemed like decent, nice, sensible human beings as well – and when was the last time anybody said that about a group of politicians!) We the viewers were treated as adults up to the task of listening for an uninterrupted hour to informed debate about the country’s future. This is a high cry from the ridiculous pantomime of parliamentary exchanges, the inanity of so many studio discussions and the complete emptiness of Piers Morgan style ‘lifestyle’ interviews.

Can we dare to hope that the spin doctors, the strategists and tacticians, the rebuttal units and ad agencies – and yes the party leaders - will reflect on last night’s low key, but fascinating debate and think: Hey! How about having a serious, constructive, instructive campaign?

Tim Finch

Where is fuel poverty in the party manifestos?

This week dreams of balmy Spring sunshine have been put on hold. With some parts of the country facing the prospect of a white Easter, the issue of fuel poverty is once again receiving particular interest from policy makers.

Today sees the publication of the Energy and Climate Change Committee’s report of its inquiry into fuel poverty. It highlights the fact the Government is likely to miss its 2010 and 2016 targets to eradicate fuel poverty and suggests that a ‘road map’ is needed to set out how the 2016 target will be met. The report contains some other interesting proposals on improving data so that measures can be better targeted and reviewing the markets for fuels for people who are not connected to the mains gas network.

All of the proposals are welcome but of course the question is whether any will be picked up in election manifestos.

Winter Fuel Payments (made to everyone over the age of 60) have always been a vote winner despite the fact that they are an exceptionally inefficient way to tackle fuel poverty. Only a small proportion of pensioners are living in fuel poverty, yet this measure cost the Treasury £2.7 billion last year alone. Scrapping this payment ahead of an election might be politically unwise (and both Labour and the Conservatives have pledged to continue it) yet it desperately needs to be reformed so that it is better targeted at those in need, as we have argued in our recent report The Long Cold Winter.

What other fuel poverty measures are likely to make it into the manifestos? The Government has championed fuel poverty as an issue but its strategy has not been able to match the sharp rises in energy prices seen over the last few years. Even with the new price support measures in the Energy Bill it is still hard to see how targets for 2016 will be met. The Liberal Democrats also emphasise the importance of tackling fuel poverty and have proposed an energy efficiency programme to insulate 1 million fuel poor homes. The Conservatives, however, have been much quieter on this issue and have put forward very little in the way of concrete proposals for addressing fuel poverty.

Energy prices are forecast to continue rising over the coming decade, which means that fuel poverty is set to increase. If the current cold weather focuses manifesto writers’ minds on developing robust policies to deal with the problem then we may stand a better chance of achieving affordable warmth for all.

Jenny Bird

Cable wins the Chancellors’ debate – by a short-head

Mission accomplished – no gaffes. That was probably the initial reaction of Alistair Darling, Vince Cable and George Osborne to their live debate on Channel 4’s Ask the Chancellors programme. There will be no clips from this event being endlessly replayed on You Tube in coming days and weeks.

Unfortunately, the prospective Chancellors' safety-first approach also robbed the event of its drama. It was more like watching three academics debate economic issues than three senior politicians bidding for votes less than six weeks before a general election. Where were the fireworks? Where was the passion? It was all very civil and, therefore, somewhat flat.

Before the debate, Vince Cable was expected to emerge the winner and he did, though only by a narrow margin. He scored points for honesty - on several occasions he was the only one of the three men prepared to tell the audience just how bad things are. He was not attacked by the other two, though he was happy to round on both Alistair Darling and George Osborne. And he got the biggest rounds of applause, when calling bankers ‘pin-striped Scargills’ and accusing the Tories of wanting to get their ‘snouts back into the trough’.

Alistair Darling was, well, Alistair Darling. He said his main quality for the job was ‘tenacity’ and he did a dogged job of keeping the debate on the future, so avoiding having to explain why everything went wrong while Labour were in charge. But he was vulnerable to criticism about the lack of detail in his plans.

George Osborne came into the debate with a new pledge announced earlier in the day – to halt Labour’s planned rise in national insurance contributions in April 2011, a plan he will finance through government efficiency savings. While this has some electoral appeal, economists have already questioned how it can be squared with the Conservatives’ previous view that reducing the deficit was the number one economic priority and how it fits with previous Conservative descriptions of efficiency savings as fictitious. Alistair Darling and Vince Cable made these points, but neither landing a knock-out blow on Osborne.

So now it is on to the leaders’ debates. Will David Cameron make important policy announcements on the days of the debates, so he has something to focus on, as George Osborne did? Will Gordon Brown and David Cameron give Nick Clegg as easy a ride as Vince Cable enjoyed? If they do, the Liberal Democrats will emerge as winners from the debates and, assuming their target is a hung parliament, possibly in the election too.

Tony Dolphin

Immigration in the Election 2: The Conservatives

All three main parties are keen to emphasise that they would be tough on immigration. The Liberal Democrats talk about a ‘firm but fair system’ while Labour emphasises its ‘tough but flexible’ Australian-style Points-Based System.

But the Conservatives have gone a step further and have made a cap on (net) immigration a headline policy. They have been reluctant to specify the details, so it’s not clear which immigration flows they would cap, or at what level. However, based on some reasonable assumptions about what an immigration cap might look like, ippr has produced a briefing paper.

To sum up our findings, setting a numerical limit on (net) immigration isn’t the simple idea that its proponents sometimes suggest – the changes in policy that would be required could cause the UK significant economic harm, and it would not be at all straightforward to limit immigration to a specific level.

Giving the reduction of immigration the status of a policy objective in its own right (which a cap would do) begs the question of what policy problem they're trying to solve. If it’s population growth, a cap would only make sense as part of a wider population policy, and presumably the real objective would be to reduce population growth, rather than immigration. If the concern is about public services, then it matters much less how many migrants come to the UK than how many go to the South East of England, or London, or Barking, or the catchment area of a particular school. A national cap with nothing to say about regional population distribution would not solve this problem.

So it doesn't make much sense from a policy perspective, but would a cap give the Conservatives a political ‘quick win’?

Actually, the Conservatives’ immigration policies may backfire on them. The public want government to be in control of migration and to be honest about the numbers. But control does not mean a drastic limit on net immigration. In fact, what often gives the public the impression that immigration is out of control is politicians making promises to ‘clamp down’ that they then can’t deliver. The immigration cap risks becoming one such promise unless the Conservatives can put forward a clear plan for how they would deliver it in government.

Sarah Mulley

Apprentice pay

Apprentice pay might not be top of everyone’s agenda as we head towards a general election, but making sure apprentices get a decent wage is an important way of guaranteeing a bit more fairness for young people. So it’s great that government has agreed that all employed apprentices will be entitled to a minimum wage of £2.50 an hour from October. This single rate will replace a series of complex arrangements where some apprentices in England were paid a minimum £95 a week, but there was no minimum pay level for apprentices in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

ippr carried out some research with apprentices last summer and we met many apprentices doing hard and menial work four or five days a week for £95 a week, or less – in Belfast, we found hairdressing apprentices earning just £60 for a five-day week. Our research found that low apprentice pay was often linked to poor quality training and was a particular problem for young women in sectors like hairdressing and social care.

The apprentices we spoke to didn’t expect to be paid the same as friends working in call centres or offices, or more experienced colleagues. But they did expect a fair deal in return for their passion, commitment and growing skills.

The rate of £2.50 an hour can be criticised as being too low – apprentices will have to work at least 38 hours a week to earn the equivalent of the £95 weekly rate currently in place in England. Given the problems with youth unemployment at the moment and the difficulty in convincing some employers to take on apprentices, the £2.50 rate was probably the most that the Commission thought it could recommend.

But the move creates a framework for apprentices of all ages to receive an hourly, legal minimum wage, which is reviewed annually by the independent Low Pay Commission - and a rate that can be built on in future.

Kayte Lawton, research fellow, ippr

Why might we want a Child Poverty Act?

The Child Poverty Act, which commits future governments to meeting Labour’s goal of eradicating child poverty by 2020, received Royal Assent yesterday. But why might we want an Act of this kind?

The obvious answer is that ending child poverty is the right thing to do and making it law will ensure the goal is met. But the greatest progress on child poverty was made in the first part of the 2000s, before Labour had even thought about enacting a child poverty law. Tony Blair’s pledge to end child poverty was made in 1999, yet the idea of enshrining it in law wasn’t aired until Gordon Brown’s 2008 conference speech. So why do we need a law now?

Child poverty rates began to creep up after 2004, which reflected a slackening off in investment in anti-poverty measures. So perhaps Labour felt that it needed a law to make itself put its investment back on track. Let’s hope not – it would be a slightly odd way of going about things. And it hasn’t worked, as the meagre child poverty measures in Wednesday’s Budget showed.

A more plausible explanation is that this is a political move, because it forces the Conservatives to stick to Labour’s poverty goals. The Tories have come round to the idea of relative poverty but often argue that poverty is about much more than income. Should they form the next government, they may prefer not to have their hands tied by an Act that so explicitly prioritises income-based measures of poverty.

The other view is that the government wanted to look like it was doing something on child poverty at a time when the figures were, and still are, going in the wrong direction yet it was difficult, and still is, to find the cash to put things back on track. Drafting a bill and steering it through Parliament is a lot cheaper than putting an extra £4 billion into tax credits, which is what the Institute for Fiscal Studies said it would cost to half child poverty by this year.

It’s important not to get too cynical and forget the very impressive work that this government has done in tackling poverty, particularly among children and pensioners. But if you set yourself challenging and important targets, you have to do everything in your power to meet them. Now that we’ve got a Child Poverty Act, we should use it at every opportunity to hold the government, now and in the future, to account – but ending child poverty takes real action not just legislation.

Kayte Lawton, research fellow, ippr

An old age question

In his budget this week the Chancellor announced that us younger folk will have to wait a bit longer for our bus pass - he’s raising the entitlement age for concessionary travel to age 65 and hopes to save £60 million in the process. This makes a lot of sense – there isn’t any reason why benefits designed for older people should kick in before the age of retirement.

However the move raises a much thornier question. To what extent should benefits for older people be universal for all or targeted according to need?

A number of the benefits that older people receive – such as the winter fuel payment and free TV licence – are handed out on a universal basis. There are some big advantages to this: the take-up level is high so people don’t miss out; there is no stigma attached to getting support; the process is easy to administer; everyone has a stake in what is available; and it’s popular.

The trouble with universal benefits is that they are costly and do not distinguish between the different circumstances of the people who receive them. The bus pass may help someone who can’t drive or afford transport, but it also allows the well-off to travel from one end of the country to the other at no cost.

With spending cuts looming, the challenge for policy makers will be to find a better balance between universal and targeted support for older people. There are three options:

1. Introduce some form of means testing for these benefits. The trouble is that many people who would be eligible for the support would not claim it – we already see this problem with the Pension Credit Guarantee where take-up is about a third lower than it should be. That’s a lot of people missing out.
2. Keep the benefits as universal, but make them taxable. This would ensure that those who can afford to contribute towards the cost of their support do so, but they would do it through the tax system rather than up-front means testing.
3. Raise the age people are eligible to receive these benefits – perhaps to around 75. This is a very blunt way to save money, but we know that the risks of poverty, illness and low levels of well-being all increase rapidly after this age and that broadly speaking it’s that age group that need most support.

For what it's worth I think the second option is the best way to tread the line between ‘universal’ and ‘targeted’ support. But I wouldn’t expect any of these decisions to get much of an airing before the election – as yesterday’s budget demonstrated, tricky decisions about spending cuts will be saved for after May 6th.

Jonathan Clifton, researcher, ippr

Cider house rules?

‘Leave cider alone’ groups on Facebook are proliferating as we speak. Who would have predicted that, faced with unprecedented levels of public debt and the need to drive down an enormous deficit, yesterday’s budget would be remembered as the day Alistair Darling cracked down on scrumpy.

The introduction of a10% above inflation rise in duty on cider is intended to address a ‘long-standing anomaly’ where cider drinkers have paid less duty per drink than beer drinkers. This is in line with budgets of the past few years which have tried to address another anomaly – up until the last few years, alcohol was around 70% more affordable as a proportion of income than it was in 1980.

But if this is also intended to address concerns about teenagers bingeing on Diamond White on park benches, it is unlikely to have a major impact. Underage drinking is most often done through older teens or adults buying cheap alcohol from supermarkets or discount stores, rather than pubs or clubs. The major supermarkets will simply absorb the increased duty rates and continue to use alcohol as a loss leader.

Political parties are caught between wanting to address the very real problem of vast increases in drinking among young people and adults over the past few decades and not wanting to penalise moderate drinkers. Only the SNP-led Scottish government is sticking its neck out by planning to introduce a minimum pricing policy which would see a floor price set for a unit of alcohol.

Some commentators have dismissed this approach as ‘regressive’, describing it as part of a ‘new temperance’ movement led by public health officials intent on restricting individual choice.

But we are living in a country which has seen a fivefold increase in liver disease over the last 30 years. Though fewer young people are drinking overall, those who do drink are drinking twice as much as their counterparts in the 1990s. Enforcement measures have, unsurprisingly, proven useless, resulting only in the criminalisation of more young people than virtually any other country in Europe.

According to research in the Lancet published yesterday, a 50p per unit minimum pricing policy would save around 2,900 lives a year and reduce costs to the health service by £270 million a year. So surely this is a policy at least worthy of serious consideration?

Clare McNeil, research fellow, ippr

Basic bank accounts to solve the personal finance crisis?

It’s safe to say that the Government’s Budget announcement that banks will be forced to provide basic bank accounts to everyone is a Good Thing. The Labour Government has already halved the number of people without a bank account, which, as Darling pointed out, is a useful tool for people’s personal finances. From buying a holiday to getting wages paid in, a bank account certainly comes in handy.

But is access to a bank account the critical personal finance issue of our times? Measures to increase financial education and improve access to financial products and services have been a major feature of efforts to tackle poverty and debt in recent years.

In fact, before the banking crash in 2007, the light touch regulation of banks was paralleled by increasing focus on the ability of individuals to manage their finances. Concern about the extraordinary rise in personal debt focused almost entirely on poor people: those with the smallest levels of debt but most associated with ‘problem debt’.

But, as ippr’s recent report Strength Against Shocks showed, people rarely get into financial difficulty because of ‘bad’ financial management. Poverty, sickness and unemployment are by far the biggest drivers of over-indebtedness.

The disparity between low pay structures and consumer-driven growth is an integral part of the story of debt in low income households. Successive governments have encouraged and supported our cultural obsessions with consumer comforts and home-ownership. But while Britain remains one of the most unequal countries in the developed world, many people on low incomes can only keep up with the Joneses – and the rising cost of living – by taking on debt.

Banks, as we know, have been only too happy to oblige, offering no-income-no-job-no-assets loans and mortgages. Low income families that took part in our research had been inundated with calls, letters and visits from loan companies urging them to manage their poverty through debt.

Financial products simply offer practical ways for poor people to manage limited resources, and access to basic bank accounts barely grazes the surface of Britain’s personal finance crisis. A radical pre-election pledge this is not.

Tess Lanning, researcher, ippr

Energy: the new political battle ground?

Last week’s publication of the Conservatives’ energy strategy paper Rebuilding security: Conservative energy policy for an uncertain world shows a new kind of rhetoric from them on this issue. In a departure from last year’s climate-centric papers The decentralised energy revolution and The low carbon economy, the focus of this latest paper is very much on improving energy security. Although the language is mainly about security, a closer look at the proposals reveals that many of them also featured in last year’s climate-change-focused green papers. These include:

• Reforming the Climate Change Levy so that it is a tax on carbon rather than energy (a reform that ippr argued for back in 2005). This would help provide a ‘floor price’ for the price of carbon.
• Supporting the development of a new fleet of nuclear power stations
• Accelerating Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) demonstration (partly through the introduction of an Emissions Performance Standard)
• Developing a smart grid (or ‘energy internet’ as they call it)
• Introducing a ‘Green Deal’ programme, which would offer loans to homeowners to improve the energy efficiency of their properties.

Many of these proposals do not actually differ significantly from the Government’s own – particularly the support for new nuclear, a smart grid and a loan programme for domestic energy efficiency measures (the Government’s version is called ‘Pay-As-You-Save’ and is currently being trialled across the country).

There are some new ideas. The most radical is a proposal to allow feed-in tariffs to be used for large-scale renewables investments (as opposed to the current Renewables Obligation). Some people in the renewables industry fear that this would introduce unnecessary uncertainty around the future of support mechanisms for renewable energy.

A glaring omission is how the Conservatives would tackle fuel poverty. Apart from an objective to make energy affordable and speculation that the Green Deal ‘could provide new and effective options for the deployment of public funds to combat fuel poverty’, there are no further mentions of the issue and certainly no concrete policy proposals for dealing with it.

The number of people unable to afford to heat their homes properly continues to rise, so energy policy must get to grips with this problem as well as meeting security of supply and climate change objectives. ippr recommends establishing an independent commission to create a new UK fuel poverty strategy. It is a shame that the Conservatives have missed this opportunity to develop new thinking on addressing this growing social problem.

So will energy policy represent a new dividing line as the election campaign hots up? Perhaps on style – Conservative energy security versus Labour decarbonisation. But on substance, with the exception of the issue of fuel poverty, the approaches don’t look all that different.

Jenny Bird, research fellow, ippr

Society and the state: does size matter?

Anyone tuning into political debates over the last few months would be forgiven for thinking we were back in the 1970s. ‘Government has got too big’, the Conservatives argue. ‘We need an active government’, Labour reply.

But there’s a key difference this time round. While in the 1970s the Conservatives wanted smaller government in order to give more room to market forces, this time it is society that they feel has been squeezed out by the state.

I’ve recently been involved in an online debate on this topic with Policy Exchange, who claim that the Government spends too high a percentage of GDP, warning that this can 'crowd out important aspects of society such as family, clubs, faith groups, charities'.

A quick glance around the world tells you that things are more complicated than this. There are plenty of countries that have small states with very weak participation in society (think the USA) and plenty of countries with a big state that score well on levels of civic participation and social ties (think the Scandinavian states). And it is a bit silly to suggest the reason people break up their marriages and don’t join clubs or go to church is because of the size of government – it’s because they want to spend their time in other ways.

By the end of the debate I was convinced that politicians and the media get too hung-up about the size of the state. Debates that focus on size miss the far more important question – about how effectively the government works. Just as bad government can sometimes stifle economy and society, good government can support and enable people to take and use their power. It’s time to move beyond the argument that assumes an irreconcilable trade-off between active government and strong society. We need both.

You can read the full debate between ippr and Policy Exchange here .

Jonathan Clifton, researcher, ippr

Immigration in the election: 1. The Liberal Democrats

Immigration isn’t attracting the kind of attention in this election campaign that it has in the past, in part because, although you’d never know it from the political rhetoric, there’s a good deal of consensus. The Government has made significant progress in reforming the immigration regime, and the Conservatives and Lib Dems don’t disagree with the basic policy ‘building blocks’ now in place: free movement within the EU, the Points-Based System (PBS) for work/study migration, and a much improved (if still far from perfect) asylum regime.

But there are some policy differences, so this is the first of three posts to take a quick look at the flagship policies of the main parties.

The Liberal Democrats have two important proposals for change.

An earned amnesty for irregular migrants: This is a sensible and brave policy position. There are between 500,000 and 750,000 irregular migrants in the UK, and it is simply not credible to suggest that they all be removed. Unless we are prepared to tolerate the exploitation and costs to society which stem from irregularity, some kind of earned regularisation is the only option. This isn’t easy politically but neither is impossible. ippr has found the public’s main concern about immigration is control – facing up to the problem of irregular immigration is actually a key component to demonstrating control over the system.

A change to the PBS to reflect different regional economic conditions and capacities to absorb migrants: this responds to a real problem, which is that immigration rules are national, but needs and impacts are local. But a regional PBS would further complicate a system that is already difficult for employers and migrants to navigate, and would be hard to enforce. And under the existing PBS if there are regional labour shortages, the system automatically allows employers in those regions to recruit more migrants as they can demonstrate they haven't been able to recruit locally.

A regional approach to immigration policy does have one thing to recommend it though – it’s a way of politically recognising the different local and regional contexts for the debate. That’s not to be sniffed at. If the Liberal Democrats can find a way to have a grown-up debate about immigration policy in an election campaign, they will have really achieved something.

Sarah Mulley, senior research fellow, ippr

When I’m 94

Cross party discussion behind closed doors on social care quickly turned into hostility between the main political parties. However, efforts are again being made to engage in cross party debate. Our latest research 'When I’m 94' highlights that the public are not prepared to face up to the challenges of paying for social care. Politicians need to engage with and remember that citizens are important stakeholders in determining the future of social care.

There is consensus that social care should be provided by the state for everyone according to their needs; but not unlike politicians (although much less bitter) the consensus becomes fragile when it comes to discussions about how to pay. Despite not necessarily agreeing on the method of payment – as people often make decisions about care when they are financially and emotionally vulnerable – most people we spoke to wanted financial decisions to be decoupled from choices they made about care. And many were reluctant to pay a lump sum at the point of need. Indeed, there was a preference to make payments over the life course.

But the system is far too complex, even those who were navigating their way through it thought so. The public do not have a clear idea of how the care system works beyond rejecting what is currently available and asking for a fairer and simpler system. As the issue of social care seems likely to remain on the election agenda and beyond, the public needs to be better engaged, to build a wider consensus that includes current and future care users.

'When I’m 94: How to fund care for an ageing population' is available now from www.ippr.org/publicationsandreports/publication.asp?id=737

Dalia Ben-Galim, senior research fellow, ippr

Here’s to Healey!

The Government’s announcement today that it is to reform beer ties is the biggest shake up of the pub trade since Mrs Thatcher’s Beer Orders in 1989.

The Government has faced down the large pubcos and backed the recommendations of the Business Innovation and Skills Committee and a recent ippr/CAMRA report to reform tied pub leases.

Most pubs in this country are owned by large pub companies and thousands of them have tied leases, which means that licensees have to buy all their beer from their pub company rather than on the open market. There has been mounting evidence that tied tenants have been suffering because they have to pay more for their beer than free of tie houses.

The Government responded by appointing John Healey as Pubs Minister – and he has announced a 12 point action plan to support the struggling pub trade. The Government is giving the trade a year to reform itself – by offering tenants the choice of a tied or free of tie lease, and by allowing tied tenants to buy in guest ales from outside their tie. It has said it will legislate if action is not taken.

This is strong stuff – we now need clarity from all parties that they will support this approach, whoever wins the election. The signs are positive: Peter Luff the Conservative chairman of the BIS committee has been a leading campaigner for change, as has the Liberal Democrat MP Greg Mulholland. There is a growing political consensus that the relationship between the pubcos and their tenants needs to change.

Healey has also announced funding to allow communities to buy their local pubs to help keep them open – and changes to planning rules that will make it more difficult for developers to close pubs and change them to other uses. This is important: ippr research shows that the pub is the most important place where local communities mix and get together, outside people’s own homes. These measures are a much-needed shot in the arm for the great British pub. I’ll drink to that.

Rick Muir, senior research fellow, ippr

Leaders’ wives or readers' wives?

A lively debate at a Women’s Question Time earlier this week (organised by Eaves in association with Stylist magazine) provoked heated discussion. But perhaps the most incendiary topic of all was the growing sexual objectification of women and girls in our society.

A debate on this subject was timely: the Lib Dems are under fire for appointing Anna Arrowsmith, a pornographic film-maker, as their parliamentary candidate for Gravesham in Kent; earlier this week The Sun led with a front page splash on a 14 year old girl who was discovered working as a lap dancer; and a recent Home Office report, by Dr Linda Papadopoulos, established a clear link between sexual imagery and violence against women.

Theresa May outlined the Conservatives’ plans to make the teaching of consent compulsory in the sex education curriculum and she stressed that more needs to be done to increase women’s confidence and self-esteem. But when rape conviction rates are at an all-time low, rape crisis centres are suffering from funding cuts and the Council of Europe estimates that 1 in 4 women suffer from domestic violence in their lifetime, these proposals, while important, fall far short of the action required to tackle the root causes of discrimination against women.

The mainstreaming of the porn and sex industries, be it through advertising, lad mags or lap dancing clubs, is widely acknowledged by human rights treaties and by research as promoting attitudes associated with discrimination and violence against women. Unless this connection is recognised and acted on by our politicians, equality between men and women will remain elusive, and violence against women will continue.

These issues are important for women voters – there is a real appetite for serious discussion of gender in the election campaign. Labour and Conservative efforts to woo female voters so far seem to be focused on promoting the wives of their party leaders and discussing biscuits on Mumsnet. But if they are really committed to tackling the underlying issues of discrimination that affect women, the political parties need to commit to taking urgent action to tackle the sexual objectification of women. We would see more action on these issues if the most prominent women in the election campaign were female politicians and party leaders, rather than leaders' wives.

Alice Sachrajda, researcher, ippr

Regulation, regulation, regulation

Yesterday (17 March) saw the launch of the interim findings from Peter Mandelson’s Low Carbon Construction Innovation and Growth Team, who have been tasked with conducting a review of the construction industry to ensure it is fit for purpose for delivering a low carbon economy.

The report identifies big opportunities for the industry in building the low carbon homes of the future, upgrading the existing housing stock and providing new infrastructure for low-carbon energy and transport systems. It also identifies a host of barriers that need to be overcome before the industry can fully benefit from these low-carbon options.

The LCCIGT have a clear message for government, which is that in order for the industry to transform its products to low-carbon models, it must be confident that the market is also transforming. They go on to suggest that ‘the evidence is that the clearest signal of this will be taken from well-designed regulatory standards, underpinned by the presumption of a stable and realistic price of carbon.’

The three main political parties have all shied away from the use of regulatory standards to drive improvements to the existing housing stock (in the privately-owned sector at least), preferring instead to focus on the use of financial incentives to entice homeowners into ‘greening’ their homes. All three parties have announced plans to introduce loan schemes to pay for energy efficiency improvements as they vie to win green votes, but none have suggested that our homes ought to be required to meet minimum energy efficiency standards.

The Government’s recently published Strategy for Household Energy Management announced a consultation on regulations to make cavity wall and loft insulation compulsory in all privately-rented properties, but since there would be no compulsion to improve boiler efficiency, draughty windows and other causes of inefficiency, this falls a long way short of providing the kind of powerful signal the industry is seeking.

Similarly, while Europe has an emissions trading scheme, the price at which permits are trading has so far been too low to send a significant signal. Moreover, the uncertain conclusion to the global climate summit in Copenhagen last year and the likelihood that US climate laws will not be based on carbon trading make ‘…a stable and realistic price of carbon’ any time soon highly presumptive indeed.

Thus regulation is all the more important. ippr’s new report on fuel poverty calls for the introduction of minimum energy performance standards for all homes, including rental properties, in order to deliver on both poverty and climate change goals. Politicians have traditionally seen regulation as a last resort and in the run up to the election will fear frightening the business lobby with anything that might be perceived to be an unnecessary burden on industry. But today’s report shows that business may suffer without tougher regulation. Why not give them what they want?

Jenny Bird, research fellow, ippr

Fearing the Double-Dip

We learn today (17 March) that the jobless rate in the UK remains unchanged at 7.8%. Nevertheless nerves are fraying about the possibility of a ‘double-dip’ recession, with large public sector job losses in prospect and figures also showing an increase in long-term unemployment.

The dreaded ‘W’ shape looms large on both sides of the Atlantic. Politicians here are anxiously eyeing the situation in the US where the pain of a ‘human recession’ has been felt sooner and more sharply.

US employers reacted to the recession by shedding workers rather than ‘hoarding’ them as in the UK, through wage freezes and shorter working hours. Heavier job losses are in part behind the doubling in long-term unemployment in the US over the past year, with an astonishing 4 in 10 unemployed workers out of work for six months or more.

The Government has now become part of the jobs problem in the US. States have reacted to large deficits by introducing deep spending cuts. New Jersey for example has seen widespread job losses among teachers and other state workers, with parents up in arms about the impact on their children’s education. A large number of February’s job losses were in government, with local government shedding 31,000 jobs (24,100 of those in education).

The Centre for American Progress has warned of the impact this is having on consumer spending, arguing that these actions are exacerbating the downturn rather than reinforcing the move towards recovering.

So what does this mean for the UK? Here there have been modest increases in public sector employment since the recession began. But this is set to change as the task of tackling the deficit begins in earnest, with a third of public sector employers planning job cuts in the first quarter of this year alone.

Long-term unemployment is creeping up here too. Despite extra government investment Jobcentre Plus and other employment programmes, the rate of those out of work for 12 months or more has reached its highest point since 1997.

Leaders on both sides of the pond will have a tough balancing act to negotiate in the coming months and years between tackling the deficit and spurring jobs growth. But politicians can take one lesson from the US. President Obama has, rightly or wrongly, been perceived as focusing on healthcare when large numbers of US citizens feel they are being left behind by a struggling economy. In terms of electoral strategy then, one message is clear: jobs should be the number one priority in this election. Uncertain times leave space for little else.

Clare McNeil, research fellow, ippr

Beware attacks on the BBC

Popular outrage over the BBC’s pre-emptive cuts has revealed some curious fans of 6 Music and the Asian Network. Followers now include Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw and his Shadow counterparts Jeremy Hunt and Don Foster. But these three have all recently called for the BBC to be pruned, its ‘expansionist’ tendencies reined in.

This echoes the claim the public broadcaster drowns out commercial rivals. Allegations that the BBC is ‘dumbing down’ fuel catcalls demanding it stops ‘chasing ratings’. In a country where 30 per cent of people now have cable TV, critics claim the licence fee is no longer justified.

But the BBC provides immense value for money. For a fraction of the cost of satellite - up to £50 a month - we have an extensive network of high quality TV channels, radio stations and online services. The licence fee allows the BBC to provide unrivalled global news coverage and a wide range of programming for all sectors of society.

It is true that BBC One has become more populist in recent years. But the BBC should court mainstream audiences, who also pay the licence fee. The diversity of programming has not been sacrificed. Older audiences are still catered for on BBC Two and arts and politics covered on BBC Four.

The 88-year-old broadcaster has also experimented to bring science and politics to wider audiences with programmes such as Jimmy’s Food Factory. But the high end documentaries remain. What commercial broadcaster would have commissioned the recent Horizon on the concept of ‘infinity’?

Ratings are all that matters in the commercial sector. The BBC is the only broadcaster mandated to provide national coverage, and without it local TV would disappear. Every radio station would play commercial music. Documentaries, arts coverage and serious talk would be shelved.

Be particularly wary of calls for commercialised broadcasting in the run up to an election. With the news that financial clout may hold sway in marginal seats, the mandate to provide equal coverage to all political parties means no billionaire backers are able to buy airtime on the BBC. Cuts to curb the innovation, creativity and inclusiveness of this national treasure are not in the public interest, and the role the BBC plays to keep money out of politics is critical to democracy.

Tess Lanning, researcher, ippr

The problem with tax cuts

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg used a speech to ippr yesterday (16 March 2010) to reiterate his party’s commitment to increasing the income tax personal allowance to £10,000 – part of their agenda of ‘fairness’ in their proposals for tackling the fiscal deficit. This is an expensive move that would cost £17 billion in lost revenue, but made cost neutral by removing some of the loopholes that allow the rich to avoid paying their fair share.

Tax cuts for the lowest paid, funded by the well-off – what’s not to like? But the problem with tax cuts is they don’t benefit the poorest families, where no one works or where earnings are below the existing personal allowance. This is an obvious point that Clegg is upfront about, but it’s vital – under his plans, £17 billion would be spent without any of the extra cash going to our poorest families. In a country with some of the highest child poverty rates in the developed world and little sign of extra money to tackle child poverty, there are better ways to spend £17 billion. Funnelling just £4 billion extra through the tax credit system could have halved child poverty this year.

Nick Clegg spoke about families on £30,000 feeling financially stretched. He was ‘unashamed’ that they would benefit from his tax plans. But what about families struggling to get by on the tiny incomes they get from out of work benefits or part-time low paid jobs? As we are constantly being reminded in this election campaign, politics is all about making hard choices. The progressive choice to make now to is stick to our child poverty targets and give ourselves the best chance of achieving them. Tax cuts for low earners may be a fine aspiration, something to look at when the public finances are in a healthier state, but right now we should be focusing any extra resources on those who need it most.

Kayte Lawton, research fellow, ippr

Northern Ireland and the balance of power

To those who take only a passing interest in Northern Ireland politics recent events will have run true to form. On-going disagreements, mild political hysteria, governmental interventions and a thirteenth hour agreement on the devolution of justice and policing powers all sounds very familiar. Whilst these scenes sparked little outside interest, the increasing likelihood of a hung parliament means that the political goings on in Northern Ireland may take on a far greater significance for all of us over the coming months.

On the one side there is the spectre of one or both of the main Unionist parties forming the makeweight in a Conservative-led coalition and on the other Sinn Fein’s abstentionist MPs. Both could be crucial in determining the shape of the next government.

On the Unionist side, the fact that the two major parties have all but swopped positions in respect of the peace process - the Ulster Unionist Party now appearing the more sceptical, makes everything so much more interesting. The division of votes and ultimately seats will be intriguing, particularly given the emergence of True Ulster Voice, but it is arguably in its wider significance for the UK that there is most interest. In the event of the Conservatives having the largest share of seats in a hung parliament the two Unionist parties will be viable coalition partners. In return for their support the Unionists will demand influence in key policy areas. This could arguably push Europe centre stage and seriously curtail whatever progressive tendencies Mr Cameron harbours, whether on climate change, social reform or the Peace Process itself.

A further twist is added by the presence of Sinn Féin. In the event of a hung parliament the absence of Sinn Féin MPs will have a profound impact on the mathematics of government formation, reducing numbers required for power. Ironically, a spilt Unionist vote may increase the Sinn Féin haul further.

Whatever the actual division of the eighteen available seats, the General Election could see the voters of Northern Ireland holding a disproportionate influence within UK politics. As a consequence we may suddenly all become more interested in events in Northern Ireland.

Phil McCarvill, Visiting Research Fellow, ippr

Sloganeering?

So now deciding how to vote all becomes a lot clearer. By unveiling their official campaign slogan today the Liberal Democrats have completed the set - and the choice is (between the three parties at least)….

Conservative – 2010: a year of change

Labour – A future fair for all

Liberal Democrat – Change that works for you, building a fairer Britain

You can see a pattern here. Change and Fairness – with the Lib Dems claiming, in typical third party fashion, some might say, that they can deliver both.

Change was always going to be an obvious word for the Conservatives after 13 years of Labour in power – but their change message lacks much in the way of sunny optimism. Obama coupled his ‘Change we can believe in’ with the up-beat 'Yes we can'. Some of the more modernising strategists close to Cameron, in particular Steve Hilton, would probably like more positivity, but other voices – which seem to be prevailing at present – think that lacks credibility given the economic crisis.

The other problem with espousing change is that sooner or later people ask for some detail on the changes you have in mind. The Obama slogan cleverly suggested that his change had inbuilt credibility. But a demanding British electorate seem to want more policy detail.

With hard times ahead, the Tories might also have thought along Lib Dem lines of coupling change with a fairness message. Some sense that we are all in this together might help to reassure a nervous electorate, who seem to have become more concerned in recent weeks about the impact – and fairness – of the Conservatives’ approach to tackling the deficit. Instead their other slogan – things can’t go on like this – is more of a negative one (and slightly despairing?)
Not that going negative is necessarily bad tactics, of course. It was not any great new vision that underpinned Mrs Thatcher’s victory in 1979 it was the resonant: ‘Labour isn’t working.’

2010 feels more like 1979 than 1997, with the economy in such poor shape, so there’s no talk now of New this and that or things only getting better. We wish! But it is interesting that over the last few months change suddenly seems less appealing – while fairness in difficult times has more traction. Something for Tory strategists to ponder, perhaps?

Tim Finch, Director of Strategic Communications, ippr

A 'leading role' in the EU?

Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague said yesterday that Britain would play a 'leading role' in the EU in his speech to the Royal United Services Institute in Whitehall. Hague has made no secret of his deep-rooted Euro-scepticism in the past, but perhaps he is coming round to the idea that, though useful as a populist rallying cry in the safe haven of opposition, distancing Britain from the EU would be a risky strategy in government.

So, if the Conservatives really do wish to play a 'leading role' in the EU, how would their recent policies stack up with EU members? Campaigning for a ‘no’ vote on a UK referendum of the Lisbon Treaty would have incurred the wrath of some European leaders. Leaving the European People’s Party, by far the biggest party in the European Parliament, has left them with far less influence over policy areas decided by simple majority (Ordinary Legislative Procedure), from the single market to fisheries. Instead they have allied themselves with small fringe parties which have little credibility in the Parliament. Meanwhile the Tories’ plan to introduce a UK Parliamentary Sovereignty Bill would have no real impact aside from giving the rest of Europe (and of course the UK public) the perception that the Conservatives are not invested in the European project.

In fact, the pressure of the anti-EU Tory backbench and the perception of an anti-EU public sentiment have infiltrated virtually all Conservative policies and conversations with regard to Europe. So much so, that French President Nicolas Sarkozy will tomorrow warn Cameron to engage over the future of Europe, or risk French non-cooperation in key areas of policy. This is not the first time France has criticised Conservative policy on Europe.

If a Conservative government is going to play a leading role in Europe it will need to mend some fences with European allies as the idea that their political movements have gone unnoticed in Europe is clearly not the case.

Ellen Bloomer, intern, ippr

Game on: But where are the women?

The election season is well and truly underway with two cross party debates on news programmes yesterday. Both were tackling critical societal issues; one on education and the other on social care. Alongside the economy, these areas are going to be key election battlegrounds. All six MPs representing these issues were men.

This may not be that surprising as the UK still lags behind many other countries in terms of the number of women in parliament. Only 19.5% of MPs in the House of Commons are women, and the UK comes in at a disappointing 62nd (out of 187 countries) on a global classification of women in parliament. The reasons for this dismal ranking are numerous, but much can be attributed to the UK’s first past the post electoral system.

There is a large gap between the rhetoric of the political parties about representation and the reality of who represents its citizens. Current polls suggest that the number of women in the next Parliament is likely to fall. In the week when we ‘celebrate’ International Women’s Day, where are all the women?

Dalia Ben-Galim, senior research fellow, ippr

How fair is Brown’s recovery?

In his speech on the economy yesterday the Prime Minister underlined the need for a fair economy, with growth that will ‘preserve and expand the jobs – and lift the standards of life – of the British people.’

But a fair economy is not simply about restoring growth. Brown’s progressive goals are dependent on how the rewards of growth are distributed. Several high profile reports have recently revealed that strong growth in the decade before the financial crisis failed to address the acute inequality – geographic, social and economic – embedded in British society.

So, after the bust, how will Brown’s recovery fare on fairness?

Efforts to tackle inequality have typically focused on reducing poverty – a noble aim, but it offers limited mileage without parallel endeavours to redistribute the vast wealth at the top. Brown is therefore right to limit top earners with wage freezes for senior public sector workers – a measure first advocated by the Conservative Party.

But while the public sector may hope to set an example, Brown remains silent on wage inequality in the private sector – an indication, perhaps, of the persistent belief that high wages drive entrepreneurialism.

Over a fifth of UK workers are low paid – and millions more are stuck in poor quality, insecure jobs. The rewards of the boom years passed these workers by. The rise of the knowledge economy led to new highly skilled and highly paid jobs, while the low skilled sector consisted increasingly of poor quality jobs in the service economy. Social mobility has remained stagnant for decades, partly as a consequence of this polarisation between lovely and lousy jobs.

Yet the strategy announced yesterday does not rise to this challenge. It reiterates promises from January’s growth strategy to invest in high quality infrastructure and scientific innovation. These measures may well create jobs of the future, and high skill industries will surely secure UK growth and a strong position in global trade. But the Government has offered no policies to improve the quality of employment at the bottom or tackle the low pay that persists in many industries.

Tess Lanning, Researcher, ippr

UK exports collapse in January

The latest UK trade figures were awaited more eagerly than usual. Exports are seen as crucial to the UK’s economic recovery and the main political parties are all eager to present themselves as having the best policies for the sector.

Figures released on 9 March show the UK’s trade deficit in goods widened to £8.0 billion in January from £7.0 billion in December. This was mainly the result of a 6.0 per cent fall in export volumes (excluding oil and erratic items).

This will come as a blow to those looking to the export sector to strengthen the UK economy’s recovery from recession. Sterling’s effective exchange rate fell by 25 per cent in 2008; this was supposed to make UK industry more competitive and boost overseas sales of British goods. So far, there is little evidence that this is happening.

The January data are probably a blip – trade data are among the most erratic of all data releases. More worrying is the underlying trend, which shows only modest growth in export volumes over the last year. Of course, this is due in no small part to the weakness of demand in the UK’s main export markets, particularly in the rest of Europe, and it should be that export growth will improve once Europe’s economic recovery picks up speed.

There are also some grounds for optimism in the latest business surveys. The Bank of England’s agents’ report and the CBI’s survey of manufacturing both show a steady improvement in optimism about the outlook for exports in recent months. However, the Bank of England does note that some companies are taking advantage of sterling’s weakness to push up profit margins, rather than allowing it to feed through into enhanced competitiveness. Depending what happens to these higher profits, this probably means some of the potential benefits of sterling’s fall - in terms of more exports, more output and more jobs - are being lost.

Tony Dolphin, senior economist, ippr

Commitment to the living wage should be in every manifesto

There is tussle going on inside the Conservative party apparently over whether the Tories should make a manifesto commitment to pay the lowest paid government employees the ‘living wage’.

The London living wage at £7.60 is £1.80 more than the minimum wage and better reflects the real cost of living in the capital. The ‘living wage’ campaign has been led by the Citizen’s Organising Foundation and ippr is proud to have been one of the first voluntary organisations to adopt a living wage for its staff.

An impressive array of London’s biggest employers are signed up and Boris Johnson took a truly progressive step for the Conservatives when he became Mayor of London by ensuring that City Hall and all its contractors would pay the higher rate. Now it seems David Cameron’s Head of Strategy Steve Hilton has lost a battle to introduce the living wage across Whitehall as a way of showing the Conservatives care about the poorest wage earners.

But at least there are top level Tories pushing the idea. Where is Labour on this? Despite championing the minimum wage, Labour has shied away from supporting a living wage. Now, with public finances so tight, there’s concern that it would simply be too expensive to pay cleaners, catering staff and other low paid staff a decent wage.

But low wage levels in the capital are already costing the taxpayer in tax credits and other low income supplements. With more than half of children living in poverty now living in a family where at least one parent is working, the promise to “make work pay” rings well and truly hollow. Shouldn’t hard working families be guaranteed a route out of poverty? It seems extraordinary to think that there are children living in poverty whose parents are working as cleaners, caterers and other staff in Whitehall.

In a recent poll on the Labour supporting Left Foot Forward website, the living wage came out as the most popular progressive manifesto idea.

There’ll be plenty of things that the main parties will disagree on in this election, but they should be as one in pledging that any government they run will pay its own staff a London living wage and not just a minimum wage.

Lisa Harker, co-director, ippr

The statistical war over ‘Broken Britain’

The election battle over crime took another twist today. Chris Grayling has reiterated his assertion that violent crime has gone up since 1997. Weeks ago he was reprimanded by the Chair of the UK Statistics Authority Sir Michael Scholar for quoting these statistics on recorded crime.

The reason these figures are of dubious value is because in 2002 the way violent crime was recorded by the police was changed – leading to an artificial inflation of the figures. By contrast the British Crime Survey, which most criminologists and international observers regard as more reliable, shows that violent crime has fallen by 41% in the last 12 years.

Today the Conservatives have released new figures again claiming that violent crime has risen. They asked the House of Commons Library’s statisticians to work out what how much the 2002 change in reporting standards had inflated the figures. They concluded that even if you take that factor out of the equation, recorded violent crime would still be higher today than in 1997.

The reason all of this is so important is that demonstrating that violent crime has risen is central to the Conservatives wider political claim that ‘Britain is broken’. I have just returned from a speech by Alan Johnson in which he claimed that this was an attempt to paint a picture of a ‘Darling Buds of May past’ contrasting with ‘an Orwellian future’.

The problem for the Conservatives is that the UK Statistics Authority continues to believe, as do most independent observers, that recorded crime statistics are less reliable at measuring crime trends than the British Crime Survey. This is not just because the way police recorded crime is collected has changed – but also because not all crime is reported to the police.

The British Crime Survey is far more reliable because it asks a large sample of the public whether or not they have been a victim of a crime in the last 12 months – and these statistics show unequivocally that there has been a significant fall in violent crime since 1997. We are still internationally speaking a relatively high crime society – but one in which all types of crime have fallen over the last 15 years. Broken in some ways, perhaps – but getting mended?

Rick Muir, senior research fellow, ippr

Credibility on the fiscal deficit requires consistency

Reports in the press suggest Sir Alan Budd, a former chief economic adviser at HM Treasury and the man picked by George Osborne to head a new independent Office for Budget Responsibility, should the Conservatives win the general election, believes the economy will fall back into recession if public spending is cut too quickly – or taxes are increased too quickly – in 2010.

At the start of the year, this would have clearly put him in conflict with Conservative policy but in recent weeks David Cameron and George Osborne have so muddied the waters about what a Conservative Government would do to reduce the deficit in 2010 that it is hard to say whether they agree with him or not. The official line has been reduced to the need to ‘make a start’ on reducing the deficit in 2010, in an emergency budget to be announced within 50 days of a Conservative Government being elected, without any indication of the possible scale of spending cuts or tax increases.

This ignores the fact that the present Government has already ‘made a start’. The standard rate of VAT was increased from 15 per cent to 17.5 per cent in January, income tax will increase for those on very high incomes from April and public spending on capital projects will fall by 13 per cent in 2010/11. The Institute for Fiscal Studies thinks total fiscal tightening in 2010/11 will be £23 billion.

Cameron and Osborne criticise the Government for not having a credible plan to reduce the deficit, but their own lack of consistency means they too lack credibility. As well as shifting their position on public spending in 2010, they have not told us how much discretionary fiscal tightening they think is needed in total, over how many years they would implement such tightening or what mix of tax increases and spending cuts they would use. They also express a desire to avoid some of the Government’s measures to reduce the deficit – such as the planned increase in national insurance contributions in April 2011 – without saying what they would replace them with.

Credibility on the fiscal deficit requires consistency and a clear set of plans. So far, the Conservatives have offered us neither.

Tony Dolphin, senior economist, ippr

Room for real political debate on development?

International development sometimes feels like an issue in search of a debate. All three main parties are signed up to meeting the UN target of giving 0.7% of GDP as aid; and politicians of all persuasions seem united in their enthusiasm for initiatives to provide basic health and education to people in the world’s poorest countries.

But this consensus has its own perils.

Whoever wins the election, there will be a massive squeeze on public expenditure. This makes the politics of increasing aid budgets very difficult. So expect to see more aid routed through the FCO, MOD, DECC and other departments, as well as tough debates about what counts as aid.

Also, there may be consensus on how much should be spent on aid, but there isn’t much agreement on what aid is for. Labour has tended to make a strong moral case, while Andrew Mitchell for the Conservatives has been keener to emphasise that development is also in the interests of the UK.

Both arguments are valid, but they also show up real differences between the parties on how development policy would be delivered in practice. Labour made a significant break from the past in establishing DFID as an independent department. The Conservatives would keep DFID separate, but have sent strong signals that they would like its role to be more clearly supportive of the FCO.

And the most difficult issue of all is what the UK should do when domestic economic and political interests are not well aligned with those of the poorest countries. In some ways, aid is the easiest part of the debate for politicians to engage with. Although money is tight now, the aid budget is small fry compared to education or health. It’s much more challenging to take radical action for development in areas like corporate corruption, tax and financial reform; climate change; migration; or defence and security. Let’s hope that the election campaign delivers more real debate on these issues.

ippr’s report Policy coherence and the future of the UK’s international development agenda is available now

Sarah Mulley, ippr