The gender gap in entrepreneurship has received less attention as a public policy matter than other areas of inequality. But the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s latest report on the issue shows there are fewer women entrepreneurs then men in OECD countries.

For Britain, tackling our own gender gap is critical. Research suggests that £42bn would be added to the UK economy if we had the same level of female entrepreneurship as in the United States. If women started businesses at the same rate as men there could be an additional 150,000 extra start-ups each year. Women-led businesses have often started out as community enterprises or niche businesses which go on to become national or global brands. In the US, women own 30 per cent of all small businesses as against just 19 per cent in the UK. In London just 10 per cent of small- and medium-sized businesses are run by women – the lowest rate out of all UK regions.

The better track record in the US is no accident. Two policy interventions in particular are worthy of mention.

First is a network of state-backed women’s business centres. Since it was established in 1979, the US Small Business Administration’s Office of Women’s Business Ownership has fostered the participation of women entrepreneurs in the economy, especially those who have been historically underserved. On a visit to Boston in January, I visited a women’s business centre to understand the programmes they have on offer and how they run. Courses are run in English and Spanish to cater for the fastest-growing segment of entrepreneurs, Hispanic women. In contrast, some of the excellent infrastructure we had in the UK, through RDA-backed programmes and business links, are slowly diminishing.

Second, the US government has decided that five per cent of federal contracting dollars  must be awarded to women-owned small businesses. Federal contracts may also be set aside for women-owned small businesses in industries where women are under-represented. Companies bidding for government contracts are now seeking women-led enterprises to be their suppliers. It is not about greater spending, but about incentives to change a culture.

This contrasts with the coalition’s record. In February the government’s paper on ‘buying and managing government goods’ stated that its goal of 25 per cent of central government spending to go to SMEs, but there was no goal for supporting female-led SMEs. While women at the top of large businesses has been the focus of much attention of late, we need to make concerted efforts to close the gender gap in entrepreneurship. If the government does not act, Labour in power must.

Seema Malhotra is MP for Feltham and Heston. She tweets @SeemaMalhotra1

Photo: Stefan 1981

Most accept it as simply the ‘way things are’, but I would think many have never really considered what it means to enlist 16 and 17 year olds and if the needs of the military really justify this position.

It is correct that children do not take part in armed conflict until they are 18 but we need to note that 16 year old recruits are overwhelmingly enlisted into combat roles, so as soon as they turn 18 they can be sent to the frontline.

The time has come to heed the advice of Child Soldiers International, the Children’s Rights Alliance for England, Unicef, the United Nations, the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the defence committee and raise the lowest age of recruitment from 16 to 18.

There is no similar underage recruitment in other dangerous public service vocations, such as the fire or police service.

Young people under 18 are legally restricted from watching violent war films and playing video games – yet they can be trained to go to war.

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has asked the government to:   ‘reconsider its active policy of recruitment of children into the armed forces and ensure that it does not occur in a manner which specifically targets ethnic minorities and children of low-income families’.

Our country has also been criticised by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, with them urging in 2009:  ‘the UK adopt a plan of action for implementing the Optional Protocol, including these recommendations, fully in the UK, together with a clear timetable for doing so.’

Despite these recommendations, no British government has yet carried out a feasibility study of an all-adult military. I wanted to know if the ministry of defence had an open mind on this – but it would appear not. From the debate it is clear they remain convinced that we should have children in the armed forces.

This commitment to duty is often made at 16, with no obligation to proactively reconfirm their enlistment once adulthood is reached and they can be deployed.

Teenagers are significantly less mature emotionally, psychologically and socially. And young people from deprived backgrounds, who I understand form the majority of underage recruits, are particularly vulnerable.

It can be no coincidence that recruits who sign up as minors suffer higher rates of alcoholism, self-harming and suicides than those who enlist as adults.

There are also issues of long-term social mobility and employability to consider. I had no doubt the minister would deploy the well worn argument that the defence department uses about giving young people employment and training opportunities, young people who may otherwise be unemployed and that they get training.

Others may argue that the armed forces provide for young people who may come from difficult home circumstances, from a background of suffering abuse or simply because they have been thrown out onto the streets.

I accept neither and when it come to the qualifications available to minors in the army data shows they do not include GCSEs, A or AS levels, BTECs, HNDs or HNCs and, while the minister disagreed, many leave with no transferrable skills at all.

Perhaps that is the reason we have a higher than average proportion of former military people who find themselves unemployed, homeless and even in prison.

As I argued during the bill committee nearly three years ago, the armed forces mustn’t be seen as some kind of escape route from abuse or even unemployment.

As a nation we need to develop the support and services young people need rather than holding up the Services as an easy option so early in life.

Alex Cunningham is the Labour MP for Stockton North. He tweets @ACunninghamMP

Photo: Defence Images

Nobody really wants a referendum on the European Union. The Eurosceptics don’t want a referendum; they want to leave, and that is unlikely to happen. The Europhiles don’t want a referendum; they want UKIP to pipe down, and that is not going to happen either. Ed Miliband doesn’t want a referendum, either, so, quite sensibly and rightly, he’s not calling for one.

There are many arguments for an in-out referendum, and all of them are silly. There is the ‘final settlement’: that a referendum on the European Union would end the debate. This is a similar delusion to the one that underpins the Govian history syllabus, which imposes ‘final settlements’ because you’ve got to have two dates on the exam paper. But the nature of life is that a settlement is something you have until someone else disagrees, which usually takes no longer than five minutes. Elizabeth I thought that she had reached a ‘final settlement’ in the relationship between the government and the individual, in 1559. There are many odd views about the relationship between the state and the self today, the vast majority of them in the Tory party, but you would have to travel pretty far and talk to some very strange people to find anyone who still thought that the Tudors had it right.

Then there is the tactical argument. Dan Hodges writes that if Labour called for a referendum before 2015, it would accelerate the Conservative meltdown and put Ed Miliband on the brink of Downing Street, while Owen Jones thinks that a European referendum would allow the next election to be fought on austerity, not the EU. Which ignores the fact that, if the next election is one about ‘growth versus austerity’, then Labour will lose. If the Conservatives spend the next two years talking about Europe, that will be two years they won’t have spent talking about welfare, tax and spend, or immigration. We’ve sufficiently imbibed the right’s propaganda that we think that 1979 was a foregone conclusion, but if Harold Wilson had gone to the polls after the 1975 referendum, Labour would probably have won a proper majority, and if James Callaghan had done so two years later, ‘Thatcherism’ would never have happened. The 1975 referendum might not have healed Labour’s Euro-wounds, but it did patch them up long enough for the party to look briefly battle-ready. Why do we want a battle-ready Conservative party?

But the biggest argument against it all is that it simply isn’t how governments should behave. It is perfectly possible to imagine a leftwing government that decided that EU membership was a bad thing. But isn’t possible to do is imagine a plausible and successful leftwing government that might leave the EU, but wasn’t sure one way or the other. The only type of government that does that is one that has ceased to really be about government at all, but instead kicks the can down the road in the hope that something might turn up. You know, like this one. Ed Miliband aspires to something better. He should stick to his guns.

—————————————————————————————

Stephen Bush writes a weekly column for Progress, the Tuesday review, and tweets @stephenkb

—————————————————————————————

Photo: Rock Cohen

As a football fan, I always prefer to keep politics and football separate. So I’ve really struggled with the appointment of Paolo di Canio at Sunderland. The news immediately caused a stir because of his fascist beliefs, his history of giving fascist salutes, and his deeply divisive view that Sunderland should revert to a 4-4-2 formation. In the past he has admitted to being an admirer of Benito Mussolini. While playing for Lazio he was fined for giving fascist salutes. Although, in his defence, he could have been appealing for offside. After the game. At a rally.

This is the first time that his past has really caused a significant problem for him in England. It begs the question of why the national media chose not to make a fuss when he was appointed manager of Swindon Town two years ago. One can only presume that as a nation we view fascism in the same vein as fox hunting. We don’t have a problem with it as long as it’s confined to parts of Wiltshire.

Sunderland is a Premier League club, for the time being, which is why it’s got more attention. Which I understand. But, if that’s that how society works, it does beg a question. If you can’t be a fascist and manage in the Premier League but you can be a fascist and manage in League One, what can you get away with in the Championship? Watching Top Gear? And if fascism is OK in League One what sort of monsters have we got managing in League Two? I’ll be listening out for announcements such as ‘The arrival of Robert Mugabe at Sixfields really has caused a stir here in Northampton, but they’re unbeaten in three, literally annihilating the opposition.’

Football hasn’t had a good few years in terms of headlines, and those who don’t love the game could easily believe that it is a moral blight on our nation, a cesspit of abuse and immorality that lowers the tone of our country. And that’s the main reason why I pay 50 quid to go every week. What some people, inside and outside of the game, struggle with is this: some abuse should absolutely be allowed in football grounds, reserved mainly but not exclusively for: anyone who dives. Anyone who plays for Derby County. Anyone abusing the ref. Anyone who plays for Manchester United. Anyone who has played for Derby County or Manchester United. Anyone who has ever left Nottingham Forest and done well. Anyone who has ever left Nottingham Forest and done badly. Anyone who supports Liverpool, Manchester United or Chelsea.

If di Canio makes fascist statements or salutes then he should be banned for life. But don’t tarnish all of football with him. Football has done more than any other sport on earth to break down barriers of race. In our own country it helped wrestle our own national flag back from the extremists. Thirty years ago if you flew a St George’s Cross outside your house people would think you were in the National Front. Today if you fly one, people just think you’re so drunk you don’t realise we’ve been knocked out of Euro 2012 yet.

To some extent, football is capable of regulating itself. Ultimately we should mock di Canio for his views. I’d love to hear John Motson say ‘Paolo di Canio’s arrival here has caused quite the stir, although ironically, given Adam Johnson’s form, what Sunderland actually need is a strong rightwinger.’

—————————————————————————————

Matt Forde is a stand-up comedian and talkSPORT presenter. He used to work for the Labour party www.mattforde.com

—————————————————————————————

Photo: Hilton Teper

—There is no doubt in my mind that the recent Labour government suffered from not having a credible, alternative political economy to neoliberalism; that is, it had no alternative view of what role the state should play in the economy. The third way was not a piece of political economy but simply a political positioning statement, as is the ‘big society’. To the extent that we had a political economy, it was neoliberalism plus an enhanced welfare state. As a result we were slow to see how dysfunctional financial markets were becoming and we had few ideas about what role the state should play in supporting economic growth.

I do not think, however, that we should beat ourselves up too much about this failure, for two reasons. First, no one had produced a new progressive political economy since Tony Crosland wrote The Future of Socialism in 1956, and, if one had been produced, I doubt if it would have been enthusiastically received, as neoliberalism so dominated political and economic thought in the last 35 years. The words of John Stuart Mill in his Principles of Economics in 1848 describe for me exactly the situation we faced. ‘It often happens that the universal belief of one age of mankind – a belief from which no one was, nor without any extraordinary effort of genius or courage, could at that time be free – becomes to a subsequent age so palpable and absurd, that the only difficulty is to imagine how such a thing can ever have appeared credible.’

At the same time, I believe that now neoliberalism has been seen to have major flaws, it is vitally important that we develop a new progressive political economy to guide us in the years ahead. The Labour party is never electorally successful when it is seen simply as a party of protest and redistribution. It has also to be seen as a party of economic reform which can increase the growth rate of the country and improve people’s standard of living. In 2015, after five years of failed economic policies, this is going to be even more the case.

I have, therefore, sought in my book Progressive Capitalism to set out what a new progressive political economy should look like.

The cornerstone of this new progressive political economy is a firm belief in capitalism, which for this purpose can best be defined by two simple features. First, it is a system in which most of the assets are privately owned and, second, it is a system where production is guided and income distributed largely through the operation of markets. It is these two features which differentiate the economy we have in most developed countries today from that of either, for example, feudal England or 20th century Russian communism.

There will be some people who will try to portray my book as an attack on capitalism, but it should be seen as a defence of capitalism. A major theme of the book is that the failures of capitalism we have seen in recent years are not an inherent part of it, and can be corrected by a programme of economic reform.

As well as being based on a firm belief in capitalism, progressive capitalism also incorporates what I believe are the three defining beliefs of progressive thinking. These are the crucial role of institutions, the need for the state to be involved in their design in order to resolve conflicting interests and provide public goods, and the use of social justice, defined as fairness, as an important measure of a country’s economic performance.

In particular the state needs to make certain that the four key institutions which affect economic growth are working efficiently. They are the institutions which underpin financial and labour markets; a country’s corporate governance institutions; a country’s education and training system; and its national system of innovation, which can be defined as the network of institutions in the public and private sectors whose activities and interactions initiate, import, modify and diffuse new technologies.

I am mainly interested in the theory of progressive capitalism because I believe it can be used to develop better economic policies and ultimately lead to a country’s better economic performance. Therefore, in the second half of my book I look at how this new progressive political economy can be used by politicians and policymakers to produce economic reform for a country. I do this by analysing and producing reforms for the UK’s equity markets, its system of corporate governance, its national system of innovation and its education and training system, as it is quite clear that in all of these four areas the UK has major institutional deficiencies. Finally, Progressive Capitalism describes the role the state should play in the economy – an enabling one, rather than the command-and-control role of traditional socialism or the minimalist role of neoliberalism.

No one, I believe, wants to go back to the failed policies of the 1960s and 1970s, to a world of national plans, nationalised industries and income policies. But there is a danger that a future Labour government, without a new political economy to guide it, will do little to stimulate growth or will disastrously start intervening in the decision-making of companies, as in the past. I believe, however, that if the Labour party takes on board the new progressive political economy I have outlined, it will help it to draw up a credible programme of economic reform which, in the words on the cover of my book, will enable a future Labour government to ‘achieve economic growth, liberty and social justice’.

—————————————————————————————

David Sainsbury is a member of the House of Lords and former minister for science and innovation. Progressive Capitalism is published on 14 May by Biteback. Buy it at the special price of £11.99 by visiting www.politicos.co.uk/promotions and entering the code: PROGRESSIVE

At the 1922 general election the Labour party more than doubled its representation, rising from 57 to 142 seats. This election was fought soon after the ‘Geddes Axe’ was wielded, which slashed public expenditure in an effort to restore the pre-first world war parity in government incomes and spending.

The impact of these cuts was every bit as deleterious as the bleakest predictions today of what George Osborne’s cuts could mean. ‘In 1938’, as Martin Wolf reported in the Financial Times last year, ‘real output was hardly above the level of 1918, with growth averaging 0.5 per cent a year. This was not just because of the Depression. Real output in 1928 was also lower than in 1918. Exports were persistently weak and unemployment persistently elevated.’

Yet the key section in Labour’s 1922 manifesto was not entitled ‘No austerity’ but ‘How to find the money’. It is undoubtedly true that the ‘Geddes Axe’ was economically destructive. Osborne’s failure to grasp this brings to mind Hegel’s famous dictum that history teaches us that we learn nothing from history. There is, however, another lesson for Labour from our 1922 manifesto. This is that political credibility depends on being able to say where the money will come from, especially when there is less of it to go around. Labour in 1922 identified tax rises and spending cuts that would finance its manifesto commitments. This did not mean accepting the ‘Geddes Axe’, just as saying where the money would come from today would not mean accepting Osborne’s cuts.

It would, though, mean accepting some cuts. We spend more on housing benefit and tax credits than any other working-age benefits. We could control the former by capping rents payable to private landlords and the latter by making a reality of the predistribution aim of equalising pre-tax income. Strong arguments from a fiscal realist perspective chime with traditional leftist concerns that it is not the role of the state to featherbed private landlords and subsidise poverty pay.

There are both backward- and forward-looking strategies towards a recovery of Labour’s fiscal credibility. The backward-looking strategy tries to draw a line between where the party is now and where we were in government. But while Labour has repositioned itself on immigration, welfare and Iraq, policy changes directly targeted upon recovering fiscal credibility have been relatively scant.

The forward-looking strategy looks ahead to a Labour government and explains how the spending of such a government would be financed. The use of rent caps to control housing benefit and a scaling-back of tax credits would fall into this category, though reducing tax credits could also be painted as a symbolic break with a policy much associated with Gordon Brown’s time at the Treasury.

A forward-looking strategy more faithful to Brown would be to accept the government’s overall spending and debt targets at the time of the spending review. There is speculation about whether the party will do this and mirror a commitment made by Brown as shadow chancellor in advance of the 1997 general election.

Brown also implemented a golden rule that was intended to maintain healthy public finances. Osborne mocked this in his first budget by saying: ‘We are set to miss the golden rule in this cycle by £485bn.’ There may, therefore, be limited political mileage in Labour reviving a golden rule but a similar device was effectively used by Sweden during its fiscal retrenchment. The Swedish approach involved tough and binding fiscal rules that set budgets with a medium-term outlook and mandated surpluses when the going was good.

In separate sessions at the Progress political weekend in 2011, Douglas Alexander and Jim Murphy each argued that Labour needs ‘a draw on the deficit and a win on growth’. Since then, the economy has performed poorly and public finances remain in a terrible state. The debate about what Labour needs to do to recover fiscal credibility, as well as the argument about how public finances can best be improved, have both largely been overtaken by how growth can be recaptured.

It remains the case, though, that we need that draw on the deficit, as well as a win on growth. Even a very modest economic recovery would allow the Conservatives to extend the six-point lead that they hold over Labour on economic competence at the time of writing, and paint Labour as an unaffordable risk.

We neuter these inevitable attacks by being able to explain – as we did in 1922 – where we would find the money. The party’s commitment to zero-cost budgeting – questioning every line of public expenditure from first principles – is welcome but has not yet produced any tangible policies. Such questioning is likely to lead to different policy positions – for example, on tax credits – to those which we adopted in government.

While some element of a backward-looking strategy, differentiating the Labour party of Miliband from the party of Brown and Tony Blair, may help communicate a sense of a changed party, this should not be the fundamental objective. Instead, this should be to demonstrate that our sums add up. In this sense, the point often made by Andrew Adonis holds: the right policies are the right politics.

We need affordable policies for the delivery of Labour’s political ends. And we need them soon. We must, as Adonis also insists, lead and explain, lead and explain. The leadership must soon be consistently explaining our affordable alternative if Osborne’s narrative of Labour as an unaffordable risk is not to set in concrete around us.

—————————————————————————————

Jonathan Todd is economic columnist for Labour Uncut

—————————————————————————————

Image: The Tacoma Times (Eric Geddes)

Hughes said that, despite his local difficulties street-fighting Labour in Southwark, he did not view them as a ‘foe’, that nationally, after the next election, they may ‘need to be working together … positively, radically, constructively’. Plurality was not dead, Labour and the Lib Dems having proved they can govern in sync in Scotland and Wales, and more recently shown they could cooperate in parliament, as they did over Leveson. The Lib Dem membership, he added, was primarily centre-left, and would ‘want to go for a deal with Labour’ in 2015, rather than the Tories, if given a choice.

Spellar, giving the ‘Labour-centric’ view, spoke about pluralism within the party, of the work needed ‘to ensure the sensible wing remains in charge’, and hit out at the Lib Dems, asking ‘if they’re so progressive, why are there so many Tory-Liberal local councils?’, and warning that, under Nick Clegg, ‘they would not necessarily coalition with us’ in 2015 anyway.

Denham, whose Southampton Itchen seat is one of the few Labour that holds in the south, spoke of ‘progressive pluralism’, bemoaning the fact a ‘tribal, sectarian approach makes progressive change harder’, adding: ‘I am here for my country first, not party.’ We need to ‘engage with UKIP voters’, and, alluding to the fall in the Labour vote since 1997, ‘understand some of those five million who left are UKIP’.

Riddell, meanwhile, said Ed Miliband was ‘a pluralist by instinct’, and if not, ‘would have had to become one’, as, ‘post Blair-Brown, he has commanded considerable unity’, with his Labour coalition having ‘more in common than the Tory-Lib Dem’ one. ‘While fighting for a majority,’ she said, ‘Labour should be prepared for coalition’ – more so than in 2010, where Gordon Brown’s ‘personal relationships [with Clegg]’ were not as good as Miliband’s are now. On UKIP, Riddell added, ‘the bubble will continue up to the Euro elections, but no one’s sure how it will play’ thereafter. ‘The centre ground is up for grabs,’ Riddell concluded, ‘it used to be so crowded you couldn’t pitch a tent there.’

Indeed, for all the talk of coalitions and plurality, it could be rendered moot by a grab for that vacant centre, with the Tories – UKIP, Europe and immigration-obsessed – drifting ever rightwards, and the Lib Dems still flatlining well below their 2010 peak. Miliband has indeed achieved remarkable post-defeat stability, ‘a party where former Bennite Lions and New Labour lambs can work together for the good of all,’ as Progress noted a few months ago, but victory is not yet guaranteed; he’s got two years to seal the deal.

—————————————————————————————

Shamik Das is former editor of Left Foot Forward He tweets @ShamikDas

—————————————————————————————

Photo: Ian T Edwards

Michael Meacher said that, while Tory MPs are representative of their core constituency of being drawn from the professional and managerial classes of accountants, bankers, lawyers and doctors, the Labour party was appalling at representing its core vote of working people. While the party has been very successful at increasing the number of women MPs, and MPs from ethnic minority backgrounds, the PLP is dominated by university educated middle-class professional people. Michael felt that mentoring and support for candidates was crucial, and commended Progress for organising training sessions for aspiring PPCs.

Michael suggested that in the Westminster selection process wards and affiliates should be able to interview candidates, and not just rely on reading CVs, and that panels drawing up the shortlist should consist of at least one-third women and one third working-class as represented by the trade unions. The latter suggestion raises an interesting question of whether trade union members are synonymous with working-class people. Tom Flynn, a member of the audience, argued that when he worked for a union his salary was comparable to many ‘middle class’ jobs. Later in the debate, Kirsty McNeill reminded people that the majority of working-class people working in the private sector did not belong to unions!

When she became an MP in 1997, Oona felt that she had never seen an institution so unrepresentative of the British people as Westminster. Oona talked very passionately about how class is ignored as an equality issue, and how the lack of financial resources directly and indirectly excludes people from modest backgrounds from becoming an MP. The ‘bank of mum and dad’ enables some young people to work unpaid for MPs and thinktanks, which is increasingly the route to Westminster. She argued that we have to look at the ‘talent pipeline’. Very few people in ordinary jobs could take 13 weeks to do a parliamentary selection – thankfully the NEC has just reduced the timetable to eight weeks. Sadie Smith felt that the time commitment – both to get selected and elected – would discourage ‘normal people’ who had careers in fields unrelated to politics.

I think Steve Hart, political director of Unite, was surprised that Progress was having such a discussion, and even more surprised to have been invited! Steve said that he was encouraged that Progress members were seriously interested in making parliament more representative. His union has a clear political strategy to develop and support their members to become involved in the Labour party and become councillors and MPs, particularly people who are shop stewards and have developed great negotiation and advocacy skills.

There are many myths around selections which need dispelling, and party activists need to stop moaning and take action, was the central message from Kirsty McNeill. Kirsty fought Bermondsey in 2005 and as a former special adviser, student union politician and PPE graduate, represents all the characteristics of MPs that people are currently complaining about, yet she was strongly backed by her union, Unite, and Bermondsey was her home seat.

Kirsty has trained hundreds of women through Labour Women’s Network. Kirsty explained that there are three main factors that determine who wins selections. First, local members select candidates, not the party leadership, and people overwhelmingly select people who look like current MPs – politics is no different to the culture of major companies, universities, central and local government, where leadership replicates itself. There is a very strong Labour party culture which is about turning up – and members who work the double shift at Tesco can’t always turn up every Saturday morning to knock on doors. Second, we think people get priced out of selections because of money, but the critical success factor is networks. By the time party members who have been active in student politics and worked at Westminster go for seats they have 15 years of accumulated social and political networks to draw on. Third, the idea that former special advisers are guaranteed seats is a myth – but what they do have is resilience, the ability to try, try, and try again until they succeed. Many candidates from non-traditional backgrounds become discouraged after the first or second attempt and give up.

Kirsty urged everyone present to work on solving the problem rather than moaning about it! Being an MP is a huge privilege and should be a rigorous process. She encouraged members to join LWN, Operation Black Vote and support the Diversity Fund; to follow talented people on Twitter; to share power by inviting aspiring candidates to events and giving them opportunities to raise their profile, and most importantly, to encourage and support candidates to putting themselves forward.

Paul Wheeler reminded everyone that we shouldn’t ignore local government as cabinet members have more power than backbench MPs to change their communities. Oldham council has set up a political apprenticeship programme to enable young people to develop their political skills and knowledge, and one graduate of the programme has gone on to join Oldham’s cabinet.

I asked the panel whether the Labour party should introduce a requirement that prospective parliamentary candidates should have had at least five years experience in an ordinary job outside the ‘Westminster village’. I argued that such a change would send a strong signal that party wanted future MPs to have been successful in fields other than as special advisers, public affairs consultants and full time trade union officials. Steve Hart thought candidates should have 10 years’ experience outside politics; Oona and Sadie liked my proposal in principle but thought it would be difficult to implement, and Kirsty said that it was a very bad idea, partly because party staff who work long hours for modest salaries shouldn’t be debarred from standing.

Midway through the meeting, Steve Hart ‘outted’ the panel as all being educated at Oxford, Cambridge and York. Marvin Rees, Labour’s candidate for mayor of Bristol, simply explained that we shouldn’t assume people with Oxbridge degrees are all from privileged backgrounds. He was brought up in a single-parent family in difficult circumstances and is a Cambridge graduate. We shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that the majority of Oxbridge-educated Labour MPs went to comprehensive schools. Sharon Hodgson MP described her journey to Westminster through the trade union movement and her hopes that her daughter will go a Russell group university. Sharon rightly feels that this should count in her daughter’s favour if she wanted to become active in politics.

To have a parliament that looks like Britain we need to follow Gandhi’s wise words and be the change we want to see in the world. As party members if we want to see more women, people from BME backgrounds and people who haven’t had the opportunity to go to university to become MPs, we need to encourage, support, fund and vote for them in Labour party selections. We should also never lose sight of the fact that simply electing more Labour MPs would make parliament more representative. Labour is far better than either the Tories or Lib Dems at electing people from diverse backgrounds to become MPs.

—————————————————————————————

Sally Prentice is cabinet member for culture and leisure on Lambeth council. She tweets at @SallyPrentice. Sally’s other articles can be found at www.sallyprentice.org.uk

—————————————————————————————

Photo: G Crouch

No longer are betting shops a place to go to put a flutter on the horses or the football. The primary use of these betting shops has fast become gaming via fixed odds betting terminals – roulette and casino gaming machines able to facilitate bets of up to £100 every 20 seconds, meaning it is possible to stake up to £18,000 an hour.

These machines – dubbed the ‘crack cocaine of gambling’ due to their highly addictive nature – crept in without anyone noticing. The Gambling Act 2005 limited each betting shop to four FOBTs, but bookies quickly learnt to leapfrog these regulations by opening up as many shops as possible in each area – a practice known as ‘clustering’.

A Department of Culture, Media and Sport scoping study for the UK Gambling Act 2005, published in 2007, concluded: ‘The international research evidence demonstrates that FOBTs possess the characteristics of those forms of gambling most associated with gambling problems, namely high event frequency and opportunities for rapid reinvestment.’

There has been no research in Great Britain specifically designed to estimate the costs of gambling related harm to society and the economy. However GamCare (a problem gambling charity funded by bookmakers) has estimated the costs of problem gambling at around £3.6 billion per year, based on an estimated average cost per problem gambler of over £8,000 per year (Grinois and Mustard, 2001) and using the 2010 British Gambling Prevalence Survey figure of 450,000 problem gamblers.

It is no coincidence that Manchester Central has one of the highest concentrations of betting shops in the country. Bookies open up in poor areas with high levels of unemployment – the 50 constituencies with the highest levels of unemployment in the UK (including Manchester Central) contain 1,251 betting shops with 4,454 FOBTs, while the 50 constituencies with the lowest levels of unemployment have only 287 betting shops and 1,045 terminals.

£190m was gambled away on FOBTs in Manchester Central last year. Significant numbers of the betting shops in Manchester city centre cluster around Chinatown. The big bookies – keen to exploit more customers – advertise their machines in Chinese outside. Inside you rarely see a vacant machine regardless of the time of day or night.

A recent survey by the Local Government Association concluded in their report that the toxic economy of betting shops, pawnbrokers and payday loan companies was deterring investment and stifling economic growth. Clyde Loakes, vice-chair of the LGA’s environment and housing board, was quoted as saying, ‘… councils believe that the clustering of premises such as betting shops, fast food outlets and strip clubs is hitting economic growth.’

This is a situation we do not want to see occurring in Manchester city centre.

And it’s not just the addictive gambling that causes problems. Greater Manchester police recorded 167 incidents against betting shops in Manchester city centre alone over the last 12 months, covering everything from rowdy behaviour to criminal damage, theft and assault.

I decided to do something about it.

I organised a public meeting for Labour party members and residents in Manchester Central and invited the leaders of the ‘Stop the FOBTs’ campaign. We agreed to mount an objection to the licence application on grounds of the primary use being gaming and not betting and contravention of the licensing objectives of preventing crime and disorder and protecting children and vulnerable people from harm.

I am calling on Manchester city council’s licensing committee to follow the lead of Newham council and reject this application.

Nationally, I am supporting the work of Lucy Powell MP and others to change the law to limit both the numbers of these machines to two per betting shop and bring down the maximum stake to £2 to bring them in line with fruit machines and prevent gambling addicts losing thousands of pounds in a matter of minutes.

I also believe we need to change the planning class of betting shops and give local authorities more scope to be able to reject applications based on the local situation. Localism should mean local decision making on these issues.

I say enough is enough. I am not anti-gambling or anti-bookies, but there is no place for high speed, high stakes, hardcore casino gaming in our area.

—————————————————————————————

Kevin Peel is a councillor on Manchester city council and tweets @kevpeel

—————————————————————————————

See also: Betting on failure, by Tom Greatrex MP

—————————————————————————————

Photo: Andres Rueda

In a refreshing alternative union pitch compared to recent foghorn calls for non-violent resistance and threats for a general strike, John Hannett, general secretary of Usdaw, the shopworkers’ union, called for Labour’s business and jobs policy to be based on evidence-based fiscal responsibility, rather than just an aspirational wish list. In the world of One Nation Labour, which sees both trade unions and business leaders working together, rather than engage in perpetual conflict, this was a very encouraging message – a demonstration that parts of the trade union movement do see themselves as members of the new entrepreneurial wealth creators rather than the bonded class warriors of an unreformed public sector.

Chuka Umunna reflected on making a refreshing rebuttal to posturing from Iain Duncan Smith, who asked in a recent House of Commons debate ‘Would Labour apologise for the mess that it got us into?’ Chuka’s swift reply was ‘Would the Tories apologise for the double-dip recession, flatlining economy and unemployment reaching a level of 2.5 million?’, a good example of the tone Labour should strike for the next two years as opposed to being on a regular defensive position. It was encouraging to hear Chuka emphasise the Federation of Small Businesses’ cry out for sustained infrastructure spending, something that One Nation Labour has been making the case for in recent months, as well as the emphasis on continued strategic partnership between the state and private sectors to deliver long-term economic growth across various regions of the UK.

Labour’s strength in innovative local government was showcased by Nick Forbes, leader of Newcastle city council, who demonstrated through implementing the living wage and taking a stand against zero-hour contracts while cities in the north like Newcastle, as well as seaside towns, bear the brunt of public expenditure cuts. By doubling the amount of apprenticeships provided to 16- and 17-year-olds, including working closely with the Jobcentre to partner young people with seeking employers and taking charge to develop skills and personal qualities for long-term work, Newcastle council is determined to stop a potentially large brain drain from the north-east, in order to instil confidence and self-esteem to an area with a troubled history over the past 30 years.

Both Graeme Cooke of IPPR and Alison Garnham of the Child Poverty Action Group emphasised the importance of prioritising welfare reform around finding jobs and training (especially for those in more disadvantaged and vulnerable backgrounds), as well as making work pay for hard-working families, especially those on traditionally lower incomes, whose children risk going back into poverty by 2020 (an estimated 1.1 million rise).

This was an altogether encouraging session which showcased Labour’s commitment to long-term business and job creation (as opposed to the stop-gap fixes that the coalition uses to massage its various statistics), combined with the moral purpose of delivering work that pays for a sustainable and blossoming standard of living. That is the modernising Labour tradition. Very One Nation Labour, indeed.

—————————————————————————————

James Gill is research and communications officer for the Labour Finance and Industry Group. He tweets in a personal capacity at @JamesGill13