Putting members at the heart of the policy process

By Ellie Reeves / @elliereeves

The Labour Party is currently reviewing it’s policy making process and the National Policy Forum will be meeting to discuss reform on 27th November. If we are to win back power, in my view ordinary members must be at the heart of that process. For too long our policy structures have been centralised, but to re-connect with the public we must reconnect with our members. We must listen to their experiences from the front line – their experience both on the doorstep and in their everyday lives.

As I go round speaking to to CLPs across the country, all too often I hear members complain that they don’t feel listened too. Before being elected to the NEC four years ago, I was a London National Policy Forum representative for five years. I can remember when I was first elected, I regularly facilitated regional and local policy forums. Members would turn up, often in their hundreds, giving up their free time to debate the issues of the day and feed into the policy making structures. Now, if such events even happen, it is difficult to get more than a handful of members there.

I don’t believe for one moment that is because members are not interested in shaping our policy. Instead, I think the reasons are three-fold.

First, regional offices no longer have the staff and resources to have the capacity to organise, promote and run such events.

Second, many members who gave up their time to discuss policy felt let down by the process. In particular, there is currently no central mechanism in place to report back to constituencies who have submitted policy ideas. Often, when policy submissions are made, the individual member, CLP or region get no feedback in relation to what has happened to those ideas. Instead, many people felt their submissions got lost in the ether.

Third, too often policies would come from nowhere, without consultation with the National Policy Forum. Of course there will be issues where the Parliamentary Labour Party have to make decisions – MPs are elected by their constituents and consulting with the party on every issue would be unworkable. But let me give you an example. At the National Policy Forum meeting in Warwick in 2008, the NPF voted in favour of votes at 16. It was a clear policy position. However, when the manifesto took shape it contained not a commitment to votes at 16 but rather a commitment to review whether the voting age should be lowered. It is things like that which undermine the National Policy Forum process.

There have been many achievements of the National Policy Forum – corporate manslaughter legislation, a national minimum wage for 16-18 year olds, the extension of apprenticeships to name but a few. But it must be strengthened and improved.

So as part of our reforms it is crucial not just that members are listened to, but that when they do submit ideas they find out what has happened to them, who has considered them and what action will be taken. The National Policy Forum too must be strengthened and taken seriously. Equally, whilst resources are scarce, a renewed sense of importance and priority needs to be put into policy making. To win back power the party nationally must learn from the party locally – amongst our ranks are teachers, nurses, call centre workers, taxi drivers, building workers, doctors and more. We must listen and learn from all of them if we are to beat the ConDem coalition.

I would encourage you all to feed into the review of the Labour Party’s policy making process. The consultation paper can be found of the Labour Party’s website. I would also welcome your views so please do not hesitate to contact me at [email protected].

Ellie Reeves is a member of Labour’s National Executive Committee and sits on the Joint Policy Committee.