Reconnecting with society

Nearly 20 years have passed since Margaret Thatcher said there was no such thing. Now a new Conservative leader says there most definitely is. On these pages, two of his party?s elders, charged with considering key changes to policy, outline the challenges facing the Tories

The global threat of climate disruption cannot be met within the normal parameters of party politics, writes John Gummer. The way that global warming affects our ability to cope with fundamental and urgent change makes it essential for Britain to handle this issue away from the normal cut and thrust of the partisan debate. Yet, merely to go for an all-party consensus means, in our system, that we settle for the lowest common denominator.

There has been such a consensus on climate change since the early 1990s and the result has been fine words and ringing phrases, but pathetically little action. Indeed, Britain?s ability to meet its domestic target of a 20 per cent reduction in CO2 (and even its Kyoto target of 12.5 per cent) by 2012 is now much more in doubt than it was when Labour came to power in 1997. Indeed, so long as the means of reaching our agreed overall target of a 60 per cent reduction in emissions by 2050 are still used as party political ammunition by Government and Opposition alike, we have no hope of an effective programme of action.

When Michael Howard was leader of the Conservative Party, we proposed a new and radical way forward. All parties would seek to commit themselves to the support of a programme in which the hard decisions and necessary fundamental changes would be placed outside the scope of electioneering and pursued in light of the national and international threat to us all.

Now the new Conservative leader, David Cameron, has taken that one stage further by accepting that the challenge of climate change actually alters the way we look at all our domestic politics. Its demands, coupled with those arising from demographic pressures and the quickening pace of cultural and technological change, require a wholly fresh look at all the issues that affect our quality of life. For it to be effective, such a radical re-evaluation cannot be confined to the adherents of a particular political party, especially at a time in which confidence in the relevance of our democratic system is at such a low.

Traditionally, parties with a radical agenda have held back from public discussion of their new ideas, lest they be stolen or mocked by their opponents. It is in the breaking of that mould that David Cameron has been at his most innovative. The Commission on the Quality of Life, which he has asked me to chair, is charged with thinking through these issues in public, with the help of all who are willing to assist in the quest. Previous or present membership of the Conservative Party is not a precondition. Far from fearing that others may steal our ideas before the next election, we will be pleased if we can so engage the present Government, for example, that it takes up what seems good and thus we can make a real contribution before 2009, or whenever the next election is called.

The internet gives us the ability to create such an interactive forum and already the offers of help from experts, practitioners and campaigners has been overwhelming. We shall need them all, as the scope of the work is dauntingly wide. The idea is to look at rural and urban life holistically. We shall not be bounded by the particular boxes into which the Government has divided the issues by its arrangement of ministries. Instead, we shall look across the piece, at the way our lives are enhanced or diminished by all the factors that most affect us.

We will study our urban, suburban and rural environment and the transport and energy demands that our different ways of life present. We shall consider how we can use technology and all the instruments open to government to enable us to continue to enjoy a growing range of choices without endangering our children?s future. We will seek housing policies to provide for our needs without destroying the countryside; agricultural policies to produce our food and enhance our landscape; urban programmes to make our cities vibrant and exciting with art, architecture and design standards that are worthy of a nation determined to eschew the second rate.

We shall not make the mistake of believing that all, or even most, of this can be achieved by Government, national or local. The purpose is to find practical ways to harness the energy of the British people so we can turn the threat of climate change into the opportunity for innovation and a new sense of civic commitment. It is on such a basis that Britain will be an example to the rest of Europe and the wider world.

Throughout the 18 months that Zac Goldsmith, the vice chairman, and I have been given to produce our final report, the large and growing team of people who are working with us will be putting out ideas and papers; prompting discussion and debate; and challenging institutions and organisations to reach beyond their present horizons to measure up to the global changes which confront us all. Such a radical agenda has already frightened some of the more hidebound, but they are few compared with the many more it has excited to engage again in the real world of politics.

John Gummer, chairman of the Conservative Party?s new Commission on the Quality of Life, was Secretary of State for the Environment from 1993 to 1997.

A Conservative social justice policy will be earthed in practical Christian Wisdom

As the world?s economies grew, most people expected poverty to retreat, writes Iain Duncan Smith. As more money was poured into welfare states, politicians led their electorates to expect security from cradle to grave. Reality has not matched conventional expectations. Britain has never been richer. The welfare state has never consumed so much taxpayers? money and yet ?

Every priest in every parish knows that poverty still exists. Many families still struggle to make ends meet. Hundreds of thousands of children don?t see their fathers. Some elderly pensioners are sick from loneliness. Millions do not know how they will ever meet the demands for debt repayment that constantly drop through their letterboxes.

The gap between life expectancy in different parts of Britain is the greatest since Victorian times. Churches and other voluntary groups are opening up breakfast clubs all over the country to give children the basic care that more and more parents struggle to provide.

I visited one such club in Glasgow?s Easterhouse nearly four years ago. I heard stories that broke my heart. Two boys had drug-addicted parents who were routinely incapable of getting them out of bed. The older boy had to dress and wash his brother. He then led him through the dark, cold morning to the church-run club. Once there, they received some hot food and, just as important, a cuddle from the inspirational gran-like figure who was running the club.

The Easterhouse story points to some of the reasons why poverty has persisted in our wealthy age. A healthy family is a child?s best defence against hardship. When families are weak the state often steps in to perform a breadwinning or educational role. But the state isn?t a great parent. The life chances of children in care prove that. Britain?s prisons are full of children who have been in state care. They are also full of men with histories of drug and alcohol addictions.

Society?s failure to provide vulnerable young men with positive forms of community has surrendered them to gangs and the counterfeit sense of belonging that they offer.

The welfare state was formed to slay Beveridge?s five giants of want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness but it has not been able to overcome our new giant social ills: failing schools; crime and drugs; inadequate healthcare; child poverty; insecurity in old age. I have no doubt that Labour sincerely wants these new giants toppled and Gordon Brown has spent billions of pounds trying to guarantee financial security for every family. But nine years into his chancellorship, the fattest welfare state in British history has not overcome today?s problems.

Child poverty is not just a material poverty. It is a poverty of family structure, good role models and a disciplined, rigorous education. Any student of Catholic social teaching knows this, of course.

In the 1990s Catholic leaders drew on papal encyclicals and other writings of the Church to prod the then Conservative governments towards greater investment in welfare provision and international aid. That was entirely proper, but today?s Britain and its political leaders need to be reminded of other Church teachings.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O?Connor has emphasised the role of the tax system in supporting marriage. Before last year?s general election, Rowan Williams used an open letter to describe the terrible pain that family breakdown was inflicting on Britain?s poorest communities.

Catholic teaching on subsidiarity suggests that local groups should be more empowered to tackle their neighbourhood?s challenges. I am certainly determined that the recommendations of David Cameron?s new Social Justice Policy Group ? which I chair ? will be earthed in the practical wisdom of Christian and other poverty-fighting groups which have succeeded in tackling social problems that have defeated the centralised and risk-averse state. These are at the heart of what Conservatives think of when we talk about society. And, yes, we mean society ? not the state.

Many readers of The Tablet may find it hard to accept that the Conservative Party is serious about social justice. Only consistent commitment over coming years will begin to dispel the biggest doubts. I understand that. But in addition to asking for patience I also invite people to reflect on the great social reforming traditions of the Conservative Party. My Centre for Social Justice sits in an office in Lambeth. The office is on a site where William Wilberforce and Lord Shaftesbury campaigned against slavery, for decent schools for the urban poor and for humane treatment of the mentally ill.

Reconnecting with that golden thread running through Conservative history is the noble mission that David Cameron has set. I have kept with this cause since leaving the Tory leadership and I?m not giving up now.

Iain Duncan Smith MP is a former leader of the Conservative Party and chairman of the new Social Justice Policy Group (www.socialjusticechallenge.com)