The Growth Review… this might hurt!
There are two reviews that are shaking things up in Cabinet committees at the moment: the Social Policy Review and the Growth Review. The former has so far caught most of the headlines and today one of its first fruits emerged.
Nick Clegg and David Cameron have agreed that Iain Duncan Smith should not get a brand new Ministry of Social Justice but should keep what he has already.
Responsibility for the 120,000 problem families identified as central protagonists in much criminality and anti-social behaviour (an unlikely prize to be fighting over you might think) has landed with Eric Pickles instead. What seems to have won through is the PM’s agnosticism/hostility to Whitehall restructurings. Eric Pickles has responsibility for the councils who conduct most of the relevant services that have contact with these families so he gets overall control of them.
The Growth Review is working in parallel but could well be the one that produces more sparks. It was what was behind the memo in the Telegraph this week in which No. 10 advisers suggest that the PM might want to look again at the green agenda policies already adopted.
That memo was part of a rethink based on the lower growth prognosis that’ll be confirmed by the OBR forecasts in November. If things are going to be as tight as they now look, the premise runs, is there anything we’re already committed to that should be re-thought? That means reviewing carbon control policy, it can also mean considering whether there should be more front-loaded capital spending on projects like the High Speed Rail Link. Even mentioning those two items on the agenda gives you a sense of how controversial the topics are.
George Osborne returns to the subject of growth tomorrow when the new IMF chief Christine Lagarde drops in on him. The chancellor wants the woman he nominated as a candidate for the IMF job to make it very clear that she did not mean Britain when she suggested some countries need to rethink their belt-tightening and look at some stimulus measures instead. We’ll all get to hear if she’s whistling his tune at an event early tomorrow morning.
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