I was somewhat surprised to read about the "Redwood Report" in the papers. It was the Conservative party’s Economic Policy Review. A Steering Group and several Sub groups worked away for more than a year. The final proposals were the result of collective discussion between Group members, and in some cases included discussion with Shadow cabinet members responsible for particular areas.

For example, we are grateful to John Hayes who as Shadow Skills Minister worked closely with us in shaping the chapter on vocational training, and to Chris Grayling who as Shadow Transport Secretary attended several meetings to give us his thoughts on transport policy. The analysis and proposals in these areas remain recommendations from the Steering Group.

The tax proposals were taken from Michael Forsyth’s excellent "Tax matters" Report. The occasional critic has complained that the tax section of our report is quite short, and there are no detailed costings. As our Report makes clear, we have based it on the Forsyth Report, which provides all the detailed costings and supporting arguments and should be read alongside the main Report. There seemed no advantage in doing all the work again and coming to different conclusions, given the strength of the original report and the desirability of avoiding two menus of tax reductions from the Review process.

The chapter on deregulation goes further in its proposals than the policy programme I put forward as Shadow Deregulation Secretary under Michael Howard. This reflected the strong views of many people we consulted that difficult areas like Health and Safety should be reviewed owing to the growth of a strong box ticking and essay writing mentality which does not always achieve the desired end but does cost a lot of money. Our business advisers and several members of the Deregulation sub group led by Adam Afriyie MP felt we needed to launch a debate about these areas, which has certainly succeeded! As the Times leader yesterday said so well, it is crucial that we can debate what style of regulation works best to ensure high standards of safety, and can debate how the cost the regulation imposes can be reduced where there is no great or unusual risk. Any critic who says we do not care about safe factories or good conditions of employment is simply wrong.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS