Good morning. All prime ministers, sooner or later, get frustrated when they realise that the central government machine isn’t as effective as they would like. They arrive thinking that if they tell their officials to do something, it will happen, and they find out that it’s not that simple. When talking about this, they normally combine their criticism of the system with comments about how the individual civil servants with whom they work personally are excellent.
Keir Starmer has arrived at this stage more quickly than some of his predecessors and this week there have been a series of announcements about shaking up Whitehall. Pat McFadden, the Cabinet Office minister, has said measures will be taken to ease out officials who are under-performing. On Tuesday Starmer told cabinet that the government should be taking more responsibility for decisions, and not outsourcing them to regulators. And today Starmer is going to say that the state has become “bigger, but weaker”.
Ahead of the speech (or mini-speech – No 10 are billing it as an intervention, not a proper, set-piece policy speech), Starmer has published an article in the Daily Telegraph setting out his thinking.
Starmer says he is only interested in making the state more effective, and does not care if it gets bigger or smaller.
We need to go further and faster on security and renewal. In such uncertain times, people want a state that will take care of the big questions, not a bigger state that asks more from them. We need to be operating at maximum efficiency and strength. I believe in the power of the state. I’m not interested in ideological arguments about whether it should be bigger or smaller. I simply want it to work.
I saw the state at its best in our response to the riots last summer. It was dynamic, strong and urgent. But for the most part, that’s not the state that most people will recognise.
And he says the state has become “overcautious” and “flabby”. He cites planning policy as an example.
I heard from a family business owner in Wales that builds homes for first-time buyers. During the consultation delays and the lengthy planning application, the cost of resources went up. The regulations held him back for so long that he lost the site. Business unable to grow because of red tape. Families unable to buy because an overcautious flabby state got in the way.
As Rowena Mason reports in her preview, Starmer is also going to use the speech to say artificial intelligence (AI) should be doing more work currently done by civil servants.
According to the extracts released by No 10 in advance, Starmer will argue that civil service reform should be shaped by the mantra:
No person’s substantive time should be spent on a task where digital or AI can do it better, quicker and to the same high quality and standard.
Starmer will be taking questions. Obviously reporters will want to question him about the growing Labour revolt over the proposed sickness and disability benefit cuts, but hopefully someone will ask if this mantra should apply to politicians too. You would not want AI running the control (I presume?), but most ministers who turn up on the morning interview programmes to regurgitate the No 10 line to take could easily be replaced by an AI bot.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
9.30am: NHS England publishes its latest monthly performance figures.
10am: Helen Whately, the former care minister, gives evidence to the Covid inquiry as part of its module looking at PPE procurement.
After 10.30am: Lucy Powell, the leader of the Commons, makes a statement on next week’s Commons business.
Morning: Keir Starmer is doing a Q&A in Yorkshire where he will deliver a short speech about reforming the state.
Noon: John Swinney, Scotland’s first minister, takes questions at Holyrood.
Early afternoon: Kemi Badenoch is on a visit near Glasgow where she is expected to speak to reporters.
And at some point today Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, is holding a meeting with the Sentencing Council to discuss the guidelines that Mahmood claims would implement “two-tier” justice.
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