Bridget Phillipson sets out rules for frontbenchers with spending proposals

Bridget Phillipson has set out rules for Labour frontbenchers wanting to develop policies with tax or spend implications, and implicitly criticised Labour’s 2019 manifesto.

In a letter to colleagues, the new shadow chief secretary to the Treasury outlined how the party would work as a “collective frontbench team” when making policies with “direct fiscal implications”.

In an indirect rebuke of the policy development that led to the last manifesto, Phillipson wrote that “the credibility of our policy programme will not be determined by the plausibility or popularity of individual policies”.

She set out that if her colleagues want to propose a policy with fiscal implications, they should “notify me and the head of policy in their area in the leader of the opposition’s office”.

Phillipson added: “It is therefore vitally important that new policies that entail spending commitments, underwrites, tax cuts or tax rises are not developed in isolation but are instead considered as part of Labour’s overall economic offer to the country.

“Equally, it is important that the way that policies are costed and modelled is consistent across our policy programme so that we can have confidence that any policy costings will be able to withstand public and media scrutiny.”

Labour faced both criticism for the number of policy proposals that formed its offer to the electorate in the December 2019 election, and all 2020 leadership candidates agreed it was “overloaded”.

Former strategic advisor to Jeremy Corbyn James Mills tweeted that the Phillipson letter was a “sensible thing to do”, and noted that “we did exactly the same” under the previous leadership.

Similarly, the previous advisor to John McDonnell James Meadway said that “we did exactly the same thing when John and Peter Dowd were in Shadow Treasury” and argued that “any party leadership is going to do the same thing”.

But in talking of frontbenchers being “collectively responsible for developing a credible and popular economic policy programme”, Phillipson’s letter hinted at a break from the past by stressing the need for policies without spending implications.

“The heads of policy in the leader of the opposition’s office can help you plan and develop such interventions short of making spending commitments, including calling for structural reform, executive actions, reviews, regulatory changes and new guidance,” she said.

Phillipson ended the letter by clarifying to her Labour colleagues that “the process is not designed to limit the scale of our ambition, but rather to ensure that all our policies are properly calibrated”.

A YouGov poll conducted during the leadership contest revealed that Labour members overwhelming still support the policies put forward in the 2017 and 2019 manifestos.