This is our mutual moment

By Jessica Asato / @Jessica_Asato

Yesterday, Tessa Jowell launched an independent commission, chaired by Will Hutton of ‘The State We’re In‘ fame, to look at how we can spread mutual models of ownership to more public services. The full speech can be found here, and was covered by LabourList on Twitter.

In a nutshell, she said that post-credit crunch and expenses crisis, the public mood towards both free market fundamentalism and centralised statism has shifted. If the public are, as Jowell said, moving towards organisations in which “long-term social returns are put ahead of short-term gains and which are accountable to those with a stake in their success” then this could be the moment to radically expand the use of mutuals.

Some of the comments from LabourList readers have asked why Labour didn’t do this earlier, and it’s a fair question. I expect that one of the reasons was that New Labour felt the public would find mutuals old hat, particularly since they voted overwhelmingly for the demutualisation of building societies in the late ’80s. Mutuals didn’t feel as though they fitted with the times in 1997, but as Jowell mooted herself: “we walked away from the notion of ‘ownership’ as a political issue. In retrospect, we were far too hasty”.

Charles Clarke has also reflected this week that Labour “did not pay sufficient attention to the way in which we regulated banking and we permitted banking to dilute its core responsibilities for enabling the economy to function efficiently and to shift towards the finance of speculation.” So there probably was an ideological block in the early days of New Labour which with hindsight was a mistake.

But we must also remember that while mutuals haven’t been the guiding light for New Labour, Blair did push hard for Foundation Hospitals – unarguably a mutual model – in the teeth of fierce opposition. I remember the Labour Party conference in 2003 where a Unison-backed NEC vote very nearly defeated Blair, while earlier in the year, the government had suffered its third biggest rebellion on foundation hospitals. The fact that the proposals had citizen power at the centre and roots in the past made no difference to those who were too concerned about resisting change and lashing out at the government.

Critics warned that it would create a two-tier NHS and play into the hands of opponents who wished to privatise the NHS. But actually it gave more democratic power to staff and users, while taking control away from the centralised NHS. Foundation Trusts now boast 1.3 million members – more than all three main political party memberships combined. As Robbie Erbmann from the Co-operative Party wrote for Progress last year “the predictions of doom have proved to be totally unfounded” and having members of Trusts changed the focus of senior managers from solely “technical goals”, towards improving “the experience of hospital patients”.

So while it’s clear Labour could have done more, earlier and faster, it wasn’t all a walk in the park. The onus is now on developing as radical plans as we can for the extension of mutual models for the manifesto. Tessa Jowell says that she will be discussing ways in which mutuals can be extended in Sure Start, social care and housing. I hope the government doesn’t ignore the idea of remutualising Northern Rock and ensuring that mutual models are extended in the renewable energy sector too.

If Labour goes big on this, we could have some decent dividing lines with the Conservatives on the future of public services. While their preferred model – the EasyCouncil – will divide the population into those who can pay for top-ups and those who will have to make do, Labour will instead seek to involve everyone – users and staff – in creating public services which suit the community, not just the individual.

By reaching back to some of the earliest influences on the Labour Party – co-operation, self-help and popular action – we could be securing a more enlightened future for our country. It’s late, but not too late.