Blair accused of ‘not listening’ on reform
Senior MPs today accused Tony Blair of creating his own problems on public services reform by failing to listen to the public or his parliamentary colleagues.
During a grilling by the Commons liaison committee, the prime minister was accused of “consulting on the details” but taking all the major policy decisions alone.
He was also questioned about how he measured success, and what he hoped to achieve before stepping down some time before the next general election.
Mr Blair told the committee – made up of the chairmen of all the Commons select committees – that he knew he could not set the agenda for his successor or the next government, but hoped to have the “essential building blocks” of reform in place.
However, several MPs suggested that this was being hampered by the prime minister’s failure to listen – implying this had caused many Labour backbenchers to revolt over plans for NHS reform, plans to give schools more freedom and new terrorism legislation.
“There are so many people in your party determined to oppose you. You are like Moses – you can lead the people to the promised land, but never into it,” said Edward Leigh, the chairman of the public accounts committee.
On regional fire and police services reform, chairman of the trade and industry committee Peter Luff said they had been “smuggled through with the kind of bureaucratic secretary of which Sir Humphrey would have been proud”.
And Phil Willis, chairman of the science and technical committee, said his biggest criticism of Mr Blair’s new schools white paper was that it showed he had taken no account of reports suggesting poorer children would not benefit from school reforms.
Mr Willis and Barry Sheerman, chairman of the education select committee, insisted that plans to give schools more freedom and put parents in control would predominately benefit the middle classes, not those who needed it most.
“Why aren’t you listening to that evidence and doing something for those children who need it most, those at the bottom of the pile?” Mr Willis asked.
However, Mr Blair insisted his plans would help raise standards across the board, giving schools the freedom to “drive the ethos and the purpose of the school forward in a way that isn’t constrained by local or central government”.
And he denied there would be a return to selection, saying that there was no change in the admissions procedure and that the school would all be subject to “fair funding and fair admissions”.
The issue of consultation is particularly controversial surrounding plans to reform primary care trusts (PCTs) – they were announced in the middle of the summer recess, and took many health workers by surprise.
Kevin Barron, chairman of the health select committee, suggested that “turmoil” caused by the reforms among primary care staff – who could see themselves transferred into the private sector – were such that the plans should have been included in a white paper.
Mr Blair insisted, however, they were part of an overall move towards a “patient-led NHS” – and explained that these and other public services were the result of a general desire towards more responsive services from members of the public.
“I think there is a fundamental social, economic and political shift going on which I think is very similar to debates about trade union reform in the 1960s, council house sales in the 1970s and 1980s, ” he said.
“The public believed the previous government had underinvested in public services -we’ve put more [money] in. But the public want them to be more responsive, and we should respond to that as a government.”
